Slashdot Mirror
Penny Arcade On NPR
This morning on the NPR shuffle podcast, they included a segment about Penny Arcade. Seems only fair since NPR did Achewood a few months ago. If they just get XKCD on there, then the universe can rest.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
I love seeing Tycho and Gabe (Jerry and Mike if you will) getting the recognition they deserve. Penny Arcade has broken ground in success and shown how it is possible to build a business model providing a primarily free product. The key is having a product people want. I just wish the great works they've done such as Child's Play and PAX had gotten more than just a mention. Perhaps some people who listen to NPR will branch out and look at the seedy underworld of online comics now.
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
No they are still around. But their availability depends on local public radio stations. Much like how you have you local ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX channels which has their own stuff mixed with network stuff. Kinda the same with NPR (however it is more of a looser agreement) So if you have public radio stations in your area then they may choose to have NPR as well. However some Public Radio stations decide to just be Classical Music Stations and cover very little news, Other Jazz Music. Some Public Radio stations are owned by big broadcast companies and feed their own stuff in. Then there are News Stations Public Radio and depending on how much local and national news they do the amount that NPR is broadcasts varies. Oddly enough for a station that has a bunch of rather serious reporters their most popular show is Car Talk with Click and Clack, they were actually voice overs in Disney Pixar's movie Cars as the main characters sponsor, where they answer car questions and make fun of the people asking the questions... And themselves.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Maybe I'm one of the few on Slashdot who "don't get" their cartoons. I do enjoy a few that relate to games I like. But I always thought they were a bit overhyped in the past. (The art is kind of meh IMHO. Topics sometimes too trendy.)
I respect them a lot though. They have been around like a decade. They survived the "eFront.com fiasco" and Internet Bubble. (Which took a lot of backbone.) And after that they set up a nice deal with "Child's Play" charities, conventions, etc.
Call me dumb, but I never really cared much for the comic strip. The creators however are amazing human beings.
Hmm a show about cars being the most popular. Amazingly that is not that surprising to me, the only show I listen to on the local talk radio station is the Car Talk every Saturday. I work most Saturdays driving from place to place to do various things so I usually catch some if not most of it. The ironic thing is I know almost nothing about cars, I guess the host is just that good as he holds my attention well (not the easiest thing to do).
I know I was trolling above, but honestly, I've seen so little with the NPR tag on it in the last year or so that I thought they had gone under...
--- When you start with the conclusion that you want, then throw out any facts that don't agree, is it true?
That happens in all mass media. I had something similar happen to me with the local newspaper here, so now I just don't have anything to do with them from a story/source standpoint.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Not to defend NPR, but you can stream them, get local feeds, get them on XM/Sirius, and so on. Broadcasts aren't limited to 'radio' these days.
In terms of user-supported media (they get surprisingly little government funds as a percentage of overall revenues), they're pretty efficient in terms of their overall reach.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
So I guess they are in the middle now if both sides thinks they are to far in the other direction.
I guess you could call it the middle. It seems to me all they've done was add some commentary by right-wing nutjobs to complement their traditional slate of commentary by left-wing nutjobs. You do get a wide variety of interesting viewpoints, though, so I continue to listen.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
NPR has been cast as liberal by conservatives, but I find it pretty mainstream. Journalism when done correctly and honestly, gets criticized by all quarters.
The only time I had a problem with their coverage recently was when Mara Liasson started to fawn after the legacy of the Bush administration. The wool over her eyes damages her credibility.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
The guy who did it decided to take a break from the strip. His last strip even provided some meta-commentary on how he felt about the strip.
I read the internet for the articles.
They are a bunch of pretentious bourgeois twats who love imperialism and the CIA.
Seize the means of production! You have nothing to lose but your chains, brothers!
Seriously, are you for real? I'd have thought your type died out in the 90's--- if I didn't hear them regularly featured on NPR, decrying imperialism and the CIA. I think that's the beauty of NPR: they run the gamut of opinion to thoroughly, everyone thinks they're propaganda mouthpieces for "the opposition".
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Would it be too much to expect the summary to actually link to this Penny Arcade comic? Or should I go crawl back under the rock I've been living in? :)
Anyway, for the too-lazy-to-google set, here's the link http://www.penny-arcade.com/
It's funny, I used to disdain NPR. The image of tatty-clothes-wearing hippies running a radio station always kind of turned me off. Perhaps not surprisingly, as I've gotten older, I find I listen to them almost exclusively. I can't stand regular for-profit radio anymore. It's all the same, a constant noise barrage littered with commercials and moronic DJ's. It's not that I don't like the music (although I avoid most bubblegum pop), my iPod is wide and varied (Metallica to Rammstein to Sigur Ros to Perfume Tree to Beethoven). But I find something very refined about NPR, and find all that they do well-thought and well-presented. Hell, I've even started listening to A Prairie Home Companion. Click and Clack are my weekend appointment, however, I try not to miss a show if I can help it.
Agreed. I'm middle-of-the-road politically and I would say that as a whole NPR is slightly left. I won't say the bias is willful and deliberate and diabolical and all of that, but I do believe it exists.
And when considering issues of bias, whether we're talking about left bias or right bias, it bears mentioning that often the issue of bias has as much to do with what's NOT reported as what is reported.
No, he listens to Fox News. Everbody knows they're unbiased because they remind you every 5 minutes.
I read the internet for the articles.
I disagree. Even when I support an issue, I can tell when someone is veering a bit beyond reporting and entering into nut-jobbery.
I have encountered bias on NPR. Both left leaning and right leaning. But the amount I have noticed has been less than any other news source.
-
Just a tad under three minutes, and it's some random guy talking about P-A. I was hoping they might be interviewing the duo themselves. :( Their interviews are always quite hilarious. Then again, I guess the point was to convey what P-A is to 'normal' people, which I don't think those two can do, lol.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
The bias is subtle and I imagine unintentional. It is simple things like "the Republican senator from Alaska Ted Stevens has been found guilty...." vs. "The Illinois governor has been charged with....." ....." It also shows up in story selection. Every Palin slip was replayed gleefully over and over. Biden slips were somehow never mentioned. I didn't vote for either but it was pretty clear who they liked and didn't like.
The most obvious case was when Bush was first elected and he and Clinton were at the same function. "President Clinton and Mr. Bush were at
I should mention that I listen to NPR daily and thoroughly enjoy them. I just take everything they say and run it through my bias filter. I do find it irritating when someone claims they are unbiased. In a way Rush and Hanity are more honest. They never claim to be unbiased. I find it best to get your news from a variety of sources.
Is he strong? Listen bud, He's got radioactive blood.
Here's an example that really stood out for me. When the initial financial collapse occurred, NPR did a story on how both campaigns were handling it. The McCain piece, which aired first, had a subtle negative shading - his plans were referred to as "schemes", etc. All of the information was garnered from press releases, and the reporter told the whole story.
Then they ran the Obama piece, in which they intro'd Obama's spokesman, he said his prepackaged bit, they threw some softball questions at him, and it was over. No analysis, just "Here's what the Obama campaign says".
I know, and knew then, that McCain's "plan" was not really a plan, but having NPR dismissively treat it as a prima facie failure while swallowing Obama's (lack of a) plan in one gulp was just a bit much.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Your comment reminds me of polling done on journalists regarding the whole "is journalism slanted to the left" question. First they asked "Are you liberal, moderate, or conservative?"; then they asked opinions on specific issues - gays, abortion, the military, social welfare programs, etc. Then they compared the answers that journalists gave to answers from the rest of the populace, and a striking pattern emerged. While journalists overwhelmingly identified themselves as "moderate" (I think it was 75%), the answers they gave to the other questions closely aligned with those given by the general populace who identified themselves as "liberal" or "very liberal" - something like 95%. The explanation might be that journalists are basically lying to themselves, calling themselves moderates because it fits in better with the image of journalists as fair and unbiased. Or, they are so isolated in the bubble world of journalism that they have become entirely out of touch with what the rest of the country views as "liberal" and "conservative".
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Well I don't have full transcripts however I have noticed type of wording they used and the way they values responses. For example they were interviewing a spokes person for the Evangelical Christians, he was behaving quite well and responsibility, trying to give middle of the road answers to the question. But the questions were focus on trying to make him really speak out against Oboma and try to really make him seem like he is against popular opinion. However a while back when interviewing an abortion doctor she gave some statistics that most people would find to be way off (1 out of 4 women have abortions) unchallenged or unquestioned. In general they make the people who fit in the liberal plate seem more human, and they try to get the conservative plate people to seem more like monsters. They are much better then anyone else at trying to keep balanced but there is a slant, if you pay attention.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The most obvious case was when Bush was first elected and he and Clinton were at the same function. "President Clinton and Mr. Bush were at ....."
Sorry bud, your bias is showing. If by "when Bush was first elected" you mean between the election and Jan 20, it would be incorrect to refer to Bush as president. President-elect or Mr Bush is just fine, no bias required.
If you listen to NPR daily, you've probably noticed references to Mr Obama. He's not president yet, just as Bush wasn't president yet when first elected. Where is the bias?
I'm not saying the reporters for NPR are inhuman and have no bias. I am saying, to claim some liberal bias because they treat democrats and republicans the same way, says more about you than about NPR.