Devoted NPR listeners on the West Coast may have noticed a sudden minute-long drop-off of audio during this morning’s broadcast of Morning Edition. The reason: Today is Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day, and some rascal was messing around with the control board.
Two weeks ago, TL;DR, the internet-centered companion show to WYNC and NPR's On the Media, ran an episode criticizing Vivek Wadhwa, an author, entrepreneur and academic who writes about women in tech, for overshadowing the voices of actual women. WYNC took the episode down early last week because it didn't include comment from Wadhwa himself, and announced TL;DR would do a follow-up piece now that the show had become part of its own story.
NPR featured a weird (or, as some who love Moscato might say, "wiggity wiggity wack") story Thursday about how black people love Moscato. The article, titled "Moscato: The Gateway Wine For People Of Color?," was produced by NPR's Code Switch blog ["news from frontiers of race, ethnicity and culture"]: The Gateway NPR For People of Color.
Writer, performer, and frequent NPR contributor David Rakoff has died following a three-year battle with cancer. Rakoff was born in Montreal, and lived, variously, in Toronto, London and Japan before settling in New York City, which he called "the great love of my life" and was the subject of much of his writing. Rakoff worked as an actor — usually playing, he later wrote, "Jewy McHebrew" or "Fudgy McPacker" — and in publishing before quitting to become a full-time writer, penning the interview column "The Way We Live Now" for The New York Times Magazine for several years in addition to his work as a freelance journalist and contributor of personal essays to This American Life.
Maurice Sendak, the author and illustrator behind classics like Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen, died today at age 83, leaving behind an incomparable and enormous body of work. Since the news of his death, bits and pieces of his life — quotes, drawings, videos, illustrated envelopes — have been circulating around the internet; we've collected them here in one place.
NPR's The Salt blog warns that the hippie dippy organic yogurt you make today could outlive you.
In your tricky Tuesday media column: how to get fired at the Washington Post, NPR listeners are just so ugh, Lane Brown to New York mag, Michelangelo Signorile to HuffPo, and a shocking report about women in media.
On Friday, Gawker broke the story of a horrifically ill-conceived installment of Warren Olney's current affairs show on public radio, To The Point. Using the Jerry Sandusky child rape scandal as its jumping-off point, the show somehow drew a dotted line to the topic of gays and lesbians' suitability as foster and adoptive parents. The thinking behind it (and there wasn't much) was that Sandusky was ostensibly a heterosexually married man who had access to foster and adoptive children he could prey on. "With 500,000 children desperate for loving homes," Olney's intro went, "we'll look at efforts to widen the pool of available parents. Should gays and lesbians qualify?" I don't know, Warren. Should they?
In your wispy Wednesday media column: Jared Kushner's latest scheme, Michele Norris's replacement, the gradual death of print continues, Harper's Bazaar revamps, and Chris Matthews make a funny.
In your magic Monday media column: Michele Norris takes a hiatus at NPR, fuckery at Gannett, The Daily Beast TV is here, newspapers roll out a false slogan, and Charlie Rose on morning television would be... good.
In your drizzly Wednesday media column: a prime time shakeup at MSNBC, key staffers laid off at the Village Voice, Reuters' editor writes a crappy memo, The Daily does something right, and Gary Knell's upcoming ass kissing campaign.
In your sparkling Monday media column: Sean Hannity mulls the end, NPR's chief hints at post-government funding, Bill Keller's split personality, magazine ad revenue report, and Conde Nast goes Hollywood.
