Welcome to NPR - National Public Radio.
It's not just a place to hear news and features that can be broader and more in-depth than those you find elsewhere across the broadcast spectrum, it's also a refuge for some of "the stodgiest, whiniest, most self-importantly insufferable snobs of all time." And those are the words of a self-professed NPR groupie/adherent.
The commentary on NPR and its listeners, by Farhad Manjoo for Slate, is spot-on (not to mention, hilarious). His focus is on those who write to complain. The best lines: "I've grown to hate these listeners. Oh, I hate them, hate them, hate them. Every time one of their narrow-minded, classist letters makes it on the air, I contemplate burning my tote bag in protest. The problem, for me, isn't just that some people don't like some things NPR covers. It's that these reflexively snobby pseudo-intellectuals see NPR as their own—a refuge from the mad world outside, a 'safe,' high-minded palace that should never be sullied by anything more outré than James Taylor (whom, of course, they love)."
Whether you love or hate NPR, this is a piece worth reading...
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