Social media outlets were abuzz yesterday with discussion about the ethics of stealing music after 20-year-old Emily White’s post, “I Never Owned Any Music Anyway” appeared on NPR’s All Songs Considered blog. In the piece, White, talks about how she has more than 11,000 songs in her iTunes library, but has only bought 15 CDs. […]
David Lowery is a veteran rock musician known for his work with the bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker. Over the last quarter decade he’s had plenty of experience with the music industry, both independent and major labels, and has recently expressed strong criticism for the way services like Spotify compensate artists. On Monday he […]
Flush from his new $100 million five year radio deal with Premiere Networks, Glenn Beck is going to bat for the latest poster child for the American right, lemonade stands. “I don’t know about you but I just can’t take it any more . . . we can’t have any lemonade stands,” he’s lamenting on […]
The This is NPR blog notes that Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage dropped by All Things Considered earlier this week to talk about “his reservations in accepting the role of character Tyrion Lannister.” I’m glad Dinklage overcame his reservations, since I love Game of Thrones, and his Tyrion character in particular. I’m also glad […]
An interesting YouTube video of a dialogue between an NPR reporter and national security critic Glenn Greenwald is making the rounds. The argument took place in November 2010 at the NYU School of Law during a round table discussion about “Free Speech and Incitement.” You’d think this exchange would be old news by now, but […]
The extent of broadcaster fears of a Federal Communications Commission indecency fine were illustrated yet again on Wednesday, when NPR’s Fresh Air Bowdlerized the title of Nick Flynn’s 2004 memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, soon to be released as a movie. “Imagine working in a homeless shelter,” Fresh Air host Dave Davies began […]
The FCC just released the tentative agenda for its March open meeting, to be held March 21. LPFM and translator stations are on the agenda: Creation of a Low Power Radio Service Report and Order: The Commission will consider a Report and Order to implement a market-specific FM translator processing scheme, adopt application caps to […]
NPR isn’t going to sit idly by while critics call a news story on domestic drone use “much more akin to a commercial for the drone industry.” “Just because you don’t like the subject of a story doesn’t mean that the story was wrong,” responds NPR Ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos to Glen Greenwald’s Salon takedown of […]
NPR asked its jazz listeners to rate their favorite songs, and gleaned from those responses a list of the top ten Jazz songs of all time[1]. What is interesting about the lists is not that they can establish what is “best,” whatever that might mean, or what is most popular (sales records, etcetera, show that). Looking at […]
NPR has finally gotten around to responding to a column in Slate describing the network’s army of listener e-mail and letter writers as “snoots.” In March, Farhad Manjoo went medieval on NPR listeners who protest various items on popular culture aired on All Things Considered and Morning Edition. He was particularly incensed at listener tirades […]
