2 posts tagged “public radio international”
I just love radio and audio broadcast. Thanks to the Internet I am able to listen to public radio from all over the world and through podcasting I am able to listen to all types of information from all sorts of sources. Today I discovered "The Sound of Young America" from PRI (Public Radio International) broadcast over WNYC. This unique show bills itself as the “anti-Prairie Home Companion.” Now I still find "Prairie Home Companion" to be entertaining but I am pretty much over listening to it on a regular basis so it's great to find "The Sound of Young America". As I type this post I'm listening to an archived edition of the show which features an interview with one of my favorite musical groups the Lifesavas. Awesome stuff!
I was born in 1966 and grew up in the 1970s and the 1980s. I was very fortunate to have very refined parents with a love for life and knowledge. In the mornings when my family would wake up to prepare themselves for work and my sister and me for school, my father and mother would both have public radio playing. My father's radio was in the bedroom and the public radio broadcast would come on to awake him by alarm. My mother would already be in the kitchen with the radio turned down a bit so as not to awake my father, my sister, and me while she prepared breakfast but I would be listening in my bed to the radio from the kitchen from the moment my mother woke up at about 6:00 AM to start the day.
When my mother would pick my sister and me up from school, NPR would be playing in the car. The "All Things Considered" music was beginning its inculcation in my brain then back in the 70s and 80s. I don't remember much about the details of NPR and public radio programming in those days but I do remember it being very interesting and radically different from the fodder of the commercial airwaves. I was a critical thinker even then.
I still listen to public radio today but I must admit that NPR is really starting to become trite, hackneyed, and a parody of itself. I still give mad props to WGBH and WBUR in Boston for holding things down while I lived there and God knows WEMU in Yspilanti with its jazz, blues and news programming made Ann Arbor, Michigan one of my favorite places to live. Nonetheless, while I admire the work of KUNM and KANW here in Albuquerque, it seems as if both stations are stuck in the mainstream of NPR offerings. I wake up to Morning Edition which is a fairly good source of the morning news but when I evenutally log on to the New York Times and BBC web sites after arriving at work, I find that "Morning Edition" has done nothing more than rehash the headline stories. I do like to catch podcasts of "All Things Considered" and will always find time to listen to "Fresh Air" with Terri Gross and "Latino USA" with Maria Hinojosa but on the weekends I lay in bed half awake and half sleep, wondering if there's more to NPR programming than "Car Talk", "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me", "Whad' Ya Know?" with Michael Feldman, or "Prairie Home Companion". All of these shows are pretty good in and of themselves but after years of listening to public radio, isn't there something more? I must admit I still have a very weak spot for Ira Glass and "This American Life", nonetheless I need more ...
I was very happy to reconnect with my college classmate Maxie Jackson who works for WNYC, a few weeks ago, and he recently informed of some exciting news in the public radio arena. PRI (Public Radio International) is going straight at NPR's Morning Edition with a show that does seem to offer something more. It's called The Takeaway. I'll be listening and will report back after a few weeks.
