Folks;

I urge you to post comments about my letter here, and should you, too, be moved to contact NPR with your thoughts on Mr. Dvorkin’s column, please post a copy of it here in the comments section so other readers can be inspired to write their own.

   I am certain you are buoyed by your recent press release proclaiming “Morning Edition” with a 6% gain. Indeed, the claptrap posted this week by the “Ombudsman” made it clear you are thrilled to the point of gloating. I hope your new listeners are as generous as those of us who for almost thirty years supported NPR through member station donations, volunteer work, and “word-of-mouth” advertising to anyone who would listen. Of course, after last year’s disaster where NPR (and in many cases those individuals I write to now) did everything they could to alienate those long-term supporters, many of us have refused to give a dime to member stations. We refuse to funnel support to an organization we can no longer trust.

   I only mention this because some of you sarcastically commented at the time that Mr. Edwards would be nothing but “a footnote” in a year. Mr. Dvorkin’s column clearly shows that to be a wild underestimation. It’s been a year, and for many of us, your “dumbing down” of the morning program with the “Barbie-and-Ken-happy-talk” nonsense, apparently to match the limited intelligence of your management and target listener pool, is something we will neither forgive nor forget. The fact you were forced to drop that insipid format and essentially emulate Mr. Edwards’ version of the program with a lesser substitute is a clear acknowledgement that you were wrong, and achieved nothing but his removal. Congratulations, because in the process, you also achieved the removal of many longtime listeners…and supporters.
(more…)