F*&^ you NPR
Lately NPRs coverage of issues has annoyed me. Today were two examples of a disservice NPR does in it's attempts to be pithy/edgy/whatever.
Airline Safety: NPR launched a lengthy segment on whether or not outsourcing airplane maintainance was a safe, cost-effective practice or a cheap assed attempt to save a dime that causes planes to fall from the sky. I don't know what the conclusion was because I had to take the kids in. But the intro featured an approving reporter using a local south-american handy-mans ability to overhaul a toaster as 1. proof that 3rd world handy-men were fully qualified to overhaul planes and 2. evidence that we Americans are too quick to toss old toasters/airplanes and buy new.
Athiest Convention: The next segment was on the recent Athiest Convention. The intro gave a snapshot of the event including trading porn for the bible. Seriously? I understand that the word porn is good for rating (hell Brian may even read this post because of it) but a) this wasn't a convention sanctioned activity and b) how many people were seriously doing that? 1 or 2 people outside the hall? That's a pretty misleading thing to say. And it's easy because it plays into a stereotype of Athiests as people who reject god so they can pahhttay! In the real world, Not So Much. Especially when the biggest consumers of online porn are Red states.
posted by P-Dog @ 9:28 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I heard the first piece and was also surprised/dismayed that a blender fixing 3rd world "technician" would qualify as a airplane tech. On top of this, the FAA had not been following their own standards for site inspections.
The conclusion basically questioned the wisdom of using 3rd world techs. This was conveyed by sharing a story of a plane having an emergency landing due to a critical part of an external cabin door being installed backwards. This resulted in air leaking into the cabin causing howling noise and pressure problems.
PruDoggie - you need to listen more closely.
Here's the transcript: http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=113877784
I'm confused as to what you found on the NPR program to be a disservice.
The analogy of the blender repairman to the aircraft mechanic was that both are proud and resourceful which was indicative of the manner in which they treat an item that may indeed be fixed but not truely "repaired" properly (by FAA or industry standards).
You were lost from the beginning because they didn't mention pie in the initial soundbite.
Porn.
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