NPR’s David Folkenflik, who was a reporter, and a good one, for The Herald-Sun when I was managing editor, had this to say recently about the difference between working for a newspaper and working for NPR:
Yet when you met people socially, and they asked what you did and who you worked for, you’d as often as not get an earful. And that earful would start like this: “You know what’s wrong with your paper?” or “You know what I hate about your paper?” I don’t see people doing this to dentists or utility company employees.
These days, if people ask what you do, and you tell them, you hear, “You know what I love about NPR?” That’s a gratifying shift.
This reminds me of columnist Pauline Kael‘s comment that she didn’t know anyone who voted for Nixon in 1972.
