Okay, I still have to write about my visit to the Tabasco sauce factory, but it’s really late and I’m too tired for a long post with pictures.<\/p>\n
I just got a letter from WBUR (Boston’s NPR news station) asking for money. Don’t get me wrong, I like NPR, and listen to it almost every day. I’ve even given them money in the past. I wouldn’t claim they’re an unbiased news source, but I don’t think any news source is, and for the most part I find myself in agreement with their politics (otherwise I probably wouldn’t enjoy listening to them so much).<\/p>\n
There’s one line in the letter though, that just encapsulates what most irritates me about them. They’re trying to point out how the reader of the fundraising letter relies on NPR (and hence should give them more money), and they ask:<\/p>\n
“Have you ever held court at a party because you could talk with confidence about the complexities of the recession, not just in the U.S., but also in Spain, Germany and Greece?”<\/p>\n
For one thing, the only parties I go to where people would be impressed by my ability to parrot back whatever I heard on NPR last week tend to be attended by other people who also listen religiously to NPR, and probably also heard that same news segment.<\/p>\n
For another … “hold court”? Maybe there’s a target audience for this letter that does see themselves holding court, entrancing all the other cocktail party attendees with their knowledge and insight. Not that I never try, but I usually look back afterwards and think, “You know, I sounded kind of full of myself.”<\/p>\n
This was<\/em> the letter from WBUR in Boston, so maybe the NPR fundraising letter in other regions of the country sounds a little less pretentious.<\/p>\n As one of my roommates pointed out, lines like that are why many people who don’t listen to NPR think those of us who do are a bunch of smug assholes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Okay, I still have to write about my visit to the Tabasco sauce factory, but it’s really late and I’m too tired for a long post with pictures. I just got a letter from WBUR (Boston’s NPR news station) asking … Continue reading