In reply to: NPR has ruined its reputation posted by mocopdx
...These are all NPR interviews.
Interview With Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
A Conversation With Senator Tom Cotton
Republican strategist Scott Jennings discusses the Biden impeachment inquiry
Our Interview With GOP Presidential Hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy
Nikki Haley says Biden is 'more dangerous' than Trump but neither is fit for the job
...among others I've heard in recent years.
"We regularly set up live interviews with Republican officials and Trump surrogates. But it was tough because NPR always loved guests who would be insightful, honest, and—perhaps above all—polite. There were plenty of people who’d for years fit that description across the partisan divide in official Washington, but they were scarce in the Trump administration. We changed the format of live political interviews, adding what we called a “level-set.” That would be three-ish minutes after a conversation with a political operative or elected official when a host and NPR reporter would try to fact-check what had just been said."
Montgomery is a long time NPR correspondent, and her Slate article is very critical of NPR's news -- not for the same reason as Uri, but she reaches many of the same conclusions about the character and quality of recent NPR journalism.
I listen to NPR - have since I was a kid. But it got to the point for a while (it's been better lately) where we'd start placing bets which stock phrase would get thrown into the story - things like "...in the age of Trump" or "especially people of color", or the like.
I just skimmed through a couple and they seem to be part of podcasts which I don't listen to. I think all of us are generally talking about the radio programs that you would listen to, for example, in the car.
Nevertheless, there is a distinct difference between the adversarial style of questioning the NPR hosts use in these interviews versus the softballs that are tossed up to politicians and others on the left. I can't tell you how many times I have been disappointed when they announced that they are going to next be interviewing some Democratic politician only to discover that there was really no need to ask the questions since the host had all the answers. It always seems like two friends chatting about a subject on which they agree. That's what I find disappointing.
...that were then saved to the NPR site for later listening, i.e., as podcasts. I say this because I recall hearing at least some of these as I drove around in my car with NPR on.