The NPR spring pledge drive is still going on.
And on. And on.
Don't misunderstand me. I'm totally behind the concept of listener-supported radio. I've pledged to KUOW every year since we moved to Seattle, and belonged to WKAR in Lansing before that. I wake up to it. I listen to Morning Edition in the car on the way to work, and All Things Considered on the way home. I look forward to The Swing Years and Beyond on Saturday nights. We've got KUOW coffee mugs, and Scarecrow uses KUOW bags at the grocery store. We've got the T-shirts. I even listen during the pledge drives. The interminable pledge drives.
I used to read the newspaper. All of it. Every day. The LA Times. The Oregonian. The Lansing State Journal. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, until its recent unfortunate demise. I love newspapers. I would probably read one still if turning pages hadn't become such an exhausting wrestling match and if the Seattle Times hadn't pissed me off by endorsing Dubya for president. I no longer get the news from a newspaper.
I don't get the news from TV. I don't have a TV. I haven't lived in a house with a TV since I moved out of my parents' house when I was 19, back in 1536. I even raised a TV-free child.
There's the Internet, but like most people I only read websites that agree with me. Left to my own devices, I would get a very biased picture of what's going on in the world. I need a source of news that will inflict information on me that I wouldn't seek out on my own, stuff I may not like but I ought to know.
That leaves radio.
So I listen to NPR even during the pledge drives. The interminable pledge drives.
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Hello world!
9 months ago
My clock radio is tuned to KUOW as is my car radio, so when I have to set the alarm to get up I listen in the morning, and always hit the one-hour sleep button at night when it's usually on BBC. This is news you don't hear anywhere else.
ReplyDeleteThe Seattle Times endorsed Dubya? Really? That is truly reason to cancel a subscription. When I lived in Seatttle, I was not a PI reader, but my aunt and uncle were. I didn't like their comics or Ann Landers. What can I say? I was a kid.
I suppose no sympathy would be given if I complained about how our big TV in the living room is taking a dump?
ReplyDeleteI was not allowed to watch much TV growing up. I think one hour was it - the Micky Mouse Club, Captain Kangaroo - stuff like that. Special was the Disney show on the weekend. We all ate popcorn and watched it.
Our local PBS station gets on the pledge drives that seem to never end - an unfortunate necessity now days.
Too many ads/commercials on the radio and tele - I read a lot and surf the net.