Years ago, while living in Chicago, I discovered the “Midnight
Special” radio program. WFMT, which ordinarily broadcasts classical music and
brief news items, every Saturday night substituted their “weekly aberration of folk music and farce, show tunes and
satire, odds and ends, madness and escape.” Hosts Ray Nordstrand and Norm
Pellegrini had come up with that inimitable program in 1953. When NPR was
formed in 1970, WFMT became an NPR station, and the Special continued. I
listened to it nearly every Saturday, along with other NPR programs.
In all the years since I have listened to NPR, even during pledge breaks, and have been a member at whatever level I could afford. Sometimes today, though, I question my allegiance to it. Recently
NPR cancelled “Talk of the Nation,” a long-running show moderated by Neal Conan.
For years, Conan took calls from listeners around the country about various
issues, handling them with tact and intelligence. The program has been
replaced, for no apparent reason, with an inferior one.
It would be bad enough if this were NPR’s only grievous
error. Unfortunately, this is only the latest one. Terry Gross, for example, is
an excellent interviewer, and in the past I greatly enjoyed her conversations
with interesting subjects ranging from academics to entertainers. More and
more, though, her program has been invaded by fading rock musicians and hack
writers pushing their latest books. As she is the co-producer of her “Fresh Air”
program, I find this hard to understand. Surely she knows better.
On the morning of 9/11, I turned on my kitchen radio in
California to learn from “Morning Edition” host Bob Edwards that planes had
just hit the World Trade Center. As I struggled to deal emotionally with that
tragedy, the only thing that kept me from breaking down completely was Edwards’
voice. Somehow he managed in spite of obviously being shaken himself to sound
sane and reassuring. His listeners got a feeling of “this, too, shall pass.” I
will never forget it. Surely millions of people were as fond of Bob Edwards as
I was, and were just as disgusted when NPR let him go.
I could go on and on.
For instance, Capital Public Radio, my local NPR station, recently
replaced some of their excellent classical music and jazz programs with hard
rock—I guess that‘s what you would call it—that is simply unbearable.
What is NPR thinking? Are they firing middle-aged
broadcasters, and changing the content of programs, in the hope of attracting a
younger “demographic”? (I hate that word.) I wish that they would base their
choices instead on whether their programs appealed to their listeners’
intelligence.
In spite of this criticism I still listen to NPR in
preference to any other radio program, and to most television. Michael Krasny’s
“Forum” on KQED in San Francisco is a fine source of information, with a
brilliant host. I play Will Shortz’s Puzzle every Sunday morning, but am yet to
be the winning player. “StarDate” and Ira Flatow’s “Science Friday” are usually
good programs about the sciences. Back in Chicago, the “Midnight Special” is
still running! Sadly, Nordstrand and Pellegrini are both dead now, but Rich
Warren does a good job of continuing their work. So, NPR, you still know how to
do it right. Just do it!
