The Requirements of Being a Guest/Host on NPR

Since I live in Milwaukee, I listen to Milwaukee Public Radio. Today I was listening to an WUWM original program “Lake Effect” in which they were interviewing some lady who was attesting to the frugality of Milwaukeeans (sp?). The woman and the gentleman interviewing her met all of the NPR criteria I have come to notice and mock from time to time.

To be on NPR you MUST:

1) Speak in hushed tones. Absolutely NO undue inflection. If you’re on NPR, you’re on FM radio and people can hear you a lot clearer than on AM, so please be considerate of your listeners and try to tell your story as boringly and as inflection-less as possible as to not overly excite the listeners! Over excitement is for conservative talk show radio hosts and their listeners only! If you talk loudly, you are one step closer to being Rush Limbaugh. Listen very closely, everyone who ever takes to the waves of NPR all sound very similar. Every guest sounds just like the host. Even celebrities with their characteristic ways of speaking end up sounding like they’re a host on NPR by the end of the interview. Artie Lange, Russell Brand, Michael Cera, .. all fell victim to the hushed tones requirement of NPR and started talking way more philosophically and sophisticated than I’ve ever heard them before.

2) Use as many big words as you possibly can. For example, if an NPR host/guest were to say my previous sentence in an NPR sort of way they would say:

“Employ copious sums of expansive vocabulary at our behest”.

Sometimes I find myself repeating some of the things they say out loud in my car over and over again in disbelief! The host actually said: “It’s as if Milwaukeeans demand these bargains perpetuitously!” Seriously? Perpetuitously? Who is NPR trying to impress with their big words? Conservatives already think NPR is manned by a bunch of liberal “idiots” and “boneheads” and the people who like NPR are usually smart people that don’t need to be impressed with big words. NPR people already know that they are smarter than the rest.. do you really need to try so hard to prove it?

3) Find interest and significant value in pretty obvious and not actually interesting things. This is probably one of the biggest reasons I like NPR, but it’s also probably the most laughable thing about NPR. I mean, 15 minutes about how Milwaukee tends to have more frugal people in it than other cities in the US? What did we learn from that segment? I guess I learned I’m not alone in my frugality. I also learned that the guest has a LOT of extra time on her hands if she has time to study the spending patterns of Milwaukeeans and it’s not even her job! Does NPR seek the story first or the person with the hushed tone NPR voice first and tell them to try to make up something moderately interesting to talk about?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of WUWM and most of NPR’s programming. I even try really hard to get into “A Prairie Home Companion”… even though it’s really difficult. I just have to make fun of it once and a while.