PRI Cancels 'Fair Game with Faith Salie'

2. Starvo said:

I would say that KCPW did know of the cancellation when they did the fund drive.

The announcement about Fair Game came out about 2 weeks ago.

4. Cabot said:

Good riddance, Faith and Fair Game.

I wasn't opposed to the program itself, but I was suddenly subjected to it for my drive-time radio. Perhaps I'm beyond Fair Game's demographic, but the last thing I want when I listen to public radio is more Jon Stewart-esque absurdity, buffoonery, and silliness.

For NPR drive-time programming, I want the news and analysis that I've come to expect. Fair Game forced me for the first time to switch stations.

I find no evidence that the cancellation came before KCPW's fund drive. See this post's website URL for a link to Current.org's article about the cancellation. Only 25 stations picked up the program.

Faith Salie is talented and the show has its place, but not on my drive time. Keep it as a podcast.

6. Slobule said:

Here's a quick impression of "Cabot"...

"You young wippersnappers! Get the hell off my radio."

Jeeze Grandpa - take a chill pill.

Fair Game was a great show and I'm sorry to see it go.

8. Nick said:

Here here Cabot!

When I turn to NPR I'm looking looking to be informed, not entertained.

As to the concern for funds, read the letter posted above. They seem quite contrite and more than willing to address refunds. I think they are being quite honorable.

10. Jim said:

I've had a good couple of weeks. The reason:

1. We are slowly getting rid of the Bryant Park Project (hour, by hour, drip by drip.)

2. Fair Game is history.

I know that NPR is suffering poor ratings with "the young," and the motive to do whatever it takes to get them to listen is laudable. However, NPR should watch out: if they continue to dumb down NPR, then they will have lost the best of what they have accomplished over the years. And, they will have lost me.

Both the programs named above are tailored for the less than informed youth culture, who are used to sound bytes, MTV, cable, and John Stewart for their primary source for news. I love John Stewart, but not as a substitute for real news, had by reading good newspapers, books, and listening to outlets such as "Old NPR."

(See "Clueless in America", by BOB HERBERT, New York Times, for a wakeup call as to what the young know, and don't know: http://www.nytimes.com/ )

"Old NPR" caters to its listeners as adults, who are very well educated, read a lot, and who are easily annoyed with the hip glibness (and the occasional nod to real news) which masquerades as information found on shows such as Fair Game and BPP

The traditional fare of NPR is so unappealing to our younger listeners because it demands more.

If Fair Game and the BPP are what the young want, then I propose they lobby Congress, and raise funding, for for their own public radio network, and leave Old NPR for the rest of us.

Jim

12. Zed said:

Jim - you are the crux of the problem. You love "Old NPR."

I don't like "Old NPR." It's boring. It's dry.

Why do you think that listenership to NPR is on a steady decline around the country?

It's because of listeners like you who don't allow NPR to change.

It's like natural selection. Adapt or die. And it's listeners like you who are the reason that "Old NPR" will die.

14. Jim said:

Zed,

All segments of traditional media are in decline as a percentage of market share. How can it be otherwise, since the pie is being sliced and diced many more times and in many more ways than it was back in the day when you had only three networks, local radio, and a few newspapers. Film, cd sales, broadcast news, radio, TV, books, newspapers, you name it, is in decline in absolute numbers relative to population. People have choices.

You say that I'm "the crux" of the problem. How can that be, when Fair Game and BPP failed miserably on their own. It seems that it is not only me, but even the target audience who balked at their banality.

The real problem for NPR is that it can't be all things to all people. In a effort to capture a new audience---a different audience, and that's the key point, not just a younger audience---NPR is lessening the quality. The new target audience wants less substance, and NPR's attempt is to appeal to these listeners with news and information delivered with distance, irony, bemusement, and a faux posture of detachment and a ersatz hipness. Hence, much of Fair Game and the Bryant Park Project is commentary---on commentary---of the news. Too much John Stewart...and the irony here is that even John Stewart, in order to do his particular satirical slant on the news, has to read the New York Times, the Washington Post, and a few books, and listen to or read other "real" news, to do his show.

You might be right! The Old NPR just might be dying. Please note: almost all American news gathering operations have cut completely, or scaled back to almost nothing, their overseas bureaus, so thorough and well researched news is dying. Cultural literacy in this country is diminishing dramatically, and it is dying. Investigative journalism is on the decline, and it is dying, too. People who read whole books, not just paragraph-length excerpts, are a dying breed.

"Get it to me now, give it to me quick, tell me only the things that are zany, odd, hip, and delivered to me in a style that takes nothing seriously, which will engender in me a sense that everybody else is like me in my ignorance---that's the New NPR way, that's what I want"

"My attention span is that of a gnat's, I haven't read a damned thing about just about anything which is truly important or consequential, so don't bore me with that 'old person" stuff! I'm young, I'm busy, I have video games to play, and social networking sites to look at---I want drama, drama, and more drama---and if you can't deliver that in snide way, then I'm not interested. I like to listen to five minute segments on some garage band drummer from Seattle more than I want to listen to a sober analysis of appeasement, Neville Chamberlain and the consequences of giving the Sudetenland to Hitler in a effort stave off world war...and really, who cares about it anyway, the details and the historical problems inherent when Bush accuses Obama of appeasement. That's the stuff you 'dinosaurs' want to listen to, not me."

At least I have the BBC, and I sure hope that doesn't get too hip too quickly.

Jim

16. Jim said:

What I'm talking about is RADIO, and what's on radio.

Whether live, recorded and time shifted (podcasts), or delivered by messenger, radio is the subject. That's all that's available to me as I drive to and from work and while running errands---legally, at least, as my local state trooper would take exception if decided to text, blog, email, and watch video at 70 miles per hour.

The BBC does "get it," and they have done so for the better part of a hundred years when it comes to radio.

I'm for anything of high quality, however delivered.

18. Jason said:

I'd really like to see As it Happens take over this time-slot

20. Bill said:

Ditto, Steve.

22. I Remember When said:

I don't know when some of you fuddy-duddies started listening to NPR, but in 1979 when I found it, NPR was in fact a delightful blend of looseness and serious in-depth reporting that reflected its roots in local public radio. It managed to be both cheeky toward power and authority, and tongue in cheek at the anchor desk, without ever giving the impression that it wasn't dealing seriously with serious news topics. In recent years for various reasons, NPR has had most of those life juices squeezed out of it as it moved closer to "mainstream" seriousness. Except for their annual April Fool jape - which just about all commercial stations also engage in - and the often forced humor of the Morning Edition joke news on the half-hour, when is the last time you heard something that made you laugh out loud, such as playing a musical interlude that added an ironic reference note to the preceding story? Now the music is all about inducing listeners to buy CDs, and the treatment of news is all about ducking conservatives' accusations that public broadcasting isn't "real" journalism. Some of the deliberate banter between anchors that I've been hearing lately hearkens back to local TV news in the 1970s when big-buck consultants were telling stations that their anchors would be more likeable if they engaged in a little light-hearted chatter between stories on the latest murders and car crashes. If you want to get an idea of what NPR was like in "the real good old days" listen to the CBC daily broadcast of "As It Happens". They know how to have fun and a laugh with their audience while still slamming home the serious news reporting - often being more audacious in their questioning of sources than the "serious" news crew at NPR.

"Fair Game" is a matter of taste, but I was delighted when I found it even though it meant staying up until 2 a.m. to hear it through in my market. Here, at last, we had someone who was intelligent and articulate enough to conduct serious interviews, but also is possessed of a wicked sense of humor that went out of its way to deliberately skewer the phonies and the powers that be. Humor is one of the most effective tools for informing and persuading. Why do you think that Limbaugh has been such a success with his listeners? You can get right-wing vitriol from any of a dozen sources on the AM dial. He doles out his news and views with a liberal dose of entertaining humor that keeps 'em coming back for more.I'm with Scott. It's not either-or. Why can't we have a blend of everything from the dead-pan seriousness of BBC news presenters to the shake-em'-up, take no prisoners wit and satire of a Faith Salie? For those of you who don't find her to your tastes, you can always spend that hour getting your jollies by listening to an audio book version of "War and Peace" or "Ulysses" or whatever sufficiently dour production floats your boat.

24. Sean Wanderer said:

I love Faith and Fair Game. A good mix of lightheartedness on the drive home was very refreshing after a day of hard news at work. I hope that Faith's unique talents and friendly interview style are recognized and included in the PRI/NPR family in the future.

26. Zed said:

Jim -

Here's why it's a shame this program is gone. From the New York Times (06/09/2008) -

"Over the last decade, college graduates ages 25-54, who make up an increasingly large portion of the population, have abandoned radio eight times faster than nongraduates. Today, they listen to 15 hours and 45 minutes of radio a week, while their peers without degrees listen to 21 hours and 15 minutes weekly."

So, your contention that they'll come around in the future and listen to the old saws like Morning Edition and All Things Considered is wrong. This group does not like what NPR has to offer right now.

So gloat that Fair Game is gone, but enjoy what's left while you can. Within 10 years, NPR is gonna be hurting.

28. Clark said:

I have to agree with whomever suggested Fair Game would be better suited to the podcast format. Uninspired, unfunny, puerile... I couldn't hit the button fast enough to get to "Marketplace" on the neighboring station at drive time.

Ah, but then this weekend the announcement that Justice Talking, one of my favorites, is going away as well. Now I am riddled with guilt, having willed the death of Fair Game so long and now losing a good show to balance the karmic scales.

I hope Salie's tittering over the lame bon mots of her keep-your-day-job correspondents finds its audience elsewhere.

30. MM said:

I kind of in-between the young/old demographics that seems to be fighting it out here, at 37 (same age as Faith Salie) and I LOVED this show. I'm a journalist who listen to tons of podcast to keep up with current events, and my weekly playlist is a lot less funny now. I agree with those who said it needed more time to build an audience, and maybe a later time slot. Please bring the show back, even if it's stripped down and web-only. Don't need the skits as much, but Salie is a great interviewer.