Dr. Zorba Pastuer
Pardon the spelling. This guy has the most annoying laugh I’ve ever heard! He’s like a male Fran Drescher.
Tibs.
Nationally: Ira Glass. I hate his voice and I hate his stupid show. It should be called “These Whiney Yuppies”. The most entertaining person I ever heard on his show was a Canadian. “This NORTH American Life”, I guess.
Locally: The guy who does the Alabama Report in the morning. His voice is so passive, he must be nodding off. And he pronounces Gov. Siegelman’s name as SIG-il-man every time. I know it’s a small detail, but get it right.
Oh, really?
NPR gets less than $800,000 in grants from the NSF, NEA, and the CPB. That’s the extent of Federal funding of NPR. By my rough calculations, that comes out to less than 3/10ths of a cent a year for every man, woman and child in the United States.
Not much of a theft, is it? You know that penny you didn’t bother to pick up on the sidewalk this morning? That penny would take care of three citizens’ Federal share of funding for Public Radio.
If you’re looking for budget busters, Public Radio ain’t it. Try looking at the $10 Billion grant made to the airline industry lately. Now that’s a redistribution of wealth to get upset about!
http://www.npr.org/about/1999annualreport/npr1999annualreport.pdf
Bill Redlin (sp?) is the worst. He’s the local morning drive guy who does interstitials and introduces local news segments on D.C.'s WAMU. (And there are a lot of local news segments.) I’ve also heard him do the national news feed at least once.
I have his voice, I hate the fact that he always sounds like he needs to clear his throat, I hate the way he intentionally mispronounces corporation, yadda yadda yadda. When he’s out, his engineer, James White, substitutes. White has the most mellifluous voice – why can’t we have him every day?
I also don’t like Terry Gross from Fresh Air. She does all these softball interviews (which is OK – that’s what the show is about), but then she never listens to the answers, nor does she allow the conversation to flow naturally into any area other than the ones on her question list.
–Cliffy
Okay, what about Daniel Shore? He does news analysis, and while I’m sure the content is very good, he sounds like he’s not only about 120 years old, but that he’s talking through a mouthful of loose lips and saliva. Ewww!
Also, the woman who reads the stock analysis (is it Linda Worthheimer?) says “on a volume of one billion shares”… the way she says “billion” makes my skin crawl!
What about Joanna Sloburner (completely unsure of spelling here) - at first I thought her little-girl voice was sorta cute, but now it just sounds hollow and juvenile.
Ahhhh, it’s fun being critical.
First of all, Daniel Schorr IS about 120 years old. He’s been doing news and commentary on television since there was television. Most of what he has to say is invaluable, because it’s well thought out and is tempered by his years of experience.
However, as of late, the business burps have been read by Anne Taylor (not Linda Wertheimer, who co-hosts All Things Considered), whose voice reminds me of someone who keeps her hair in a Miss Manners-ish bun and who very clearly has taken way too many elocution lessons.
Finally, it’s spelled Joanne Silburner.
Robin, who spends way too much time at the NPR website.
Robin
I find Daniel Shore’s voice comforting, and I like Ira Glass. The guy that does the sports essays on the morning news (I think he wrote a book on golf?) kinda bugs, but what is worst is the strange transformation that takes place after weekend edition when ‘puzzle-master’ Will Short (sp?) comes on for the puzzle, and the otherwise sane reporter, Leanne Hansen, helps out and suddenly becomes a bimbo. But that’s the hazard of that part of the show.
I also can’t stand Garrison Keilor in his "Writer’s almanac’ capacity. It reminds me of this wretched thing they had on WFHB in Bloomington, IN, called the “linen of words” where a pompous, english-accented hag would come on and read Plath or something and it made me want to stick icepicks in my ears.
I love the woman that they have report from Belfast-- great accent.
I really don’t care for Juan Williams - can’t quite put my finger on what it is about his voice that makes me want to drive my car of a cliff.
I also have issues with the woman who does all the in between program stuff for Terry Gross on Fresh Air. Hello? Heard of affect?
Lind Worthheimer is just plain creepy - I can actually hear her butt hole cramp up when she says the word “news” :eek:
Also, female reporters from Ireland sound so uptight you could mine diamonds from the dark side of their moon 
One last thing - work on getting rid of the lissssp if you’re planning on going into broadcasting, ok? 
Doh!!!
I meant Ann Taylor, darn it!
Sorry, Linda 
Ditto. The only thing that makes me switch stations faster is the Radio Reader, whose voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me.
Since the commercial radio cherry has been popped, I nominate Don Geronimo and Mike O’Meara (sp?) of the Don and Mike show. There is a place for you two and it is called 5th grade.
I find noone offensive on NPR, mainly because I hardly ever listen to it.
Finally, how can anyone truly hate the man who coined the term feminazi? I don’t agree with a lot of what Rush says, but I love the way he gets the holier-than-thou crowd all wound up.
Frank Deford? I love him.
I forgot Mare Liasson. She’s fine on the radio, but I’ve had some (very very trivial) interaction with her in person and she came off as incredibly brusque and pushy. Probably good traits to have in the news biz (especially for a woman), but ever since then I can’t listen to her without thinking how glad I am not to have to deal with her on a regular basis.
–Cliffy
Glad I’m not the only one tired of hearing this guy and his drawl.
“I don’t understand why you think people’s names from other languages have to be anglicized.”
Anglicized, hell. It’s just jarring to hear someone report in unaccented English and then sign off in a manner that screams of their Impeccable Ethnic Heritage*. You think that if there are any Americans reporting on a foreign news service, that they do a report in the foreign tongue and then lapse into an American accent when they say their name?
*this applies mainly to Maria Hinoooooochoaaaaaaaaaaasssssssaaaaa, NPR News.
howie carr
delilah(i hate her but i listen to her anyway)
howard stern
Cliffy, thanks for the reminder about Terry Gross. I’d forgotten how much I hate her, and you nailed why perfectly.
To expand on your list of Terry’s faults:
She seems to think jazz is the only music in the world, judging by her musical guests and the albums that get reviewed on the show.
She’s just plain dumb. When Comet Shoemaker-Levy was about to smash into Jupiter, she interviewed one of the three co-discoverers of the comet, and wanted to know if there was any way we could hear the sound of the collision.
Whenever I’m in a foreign country, I still pronounce my name the way it’s pronounced in English – flat midwestern “a” and all. That’s what my name is; it isn’t any other pronounciation that might be suggested by those letters.
–Cliffy
P.S. That should have been Mara, not Mare.
Hey I like the voices of Ira Glass & David Sedaris. A few years ago, my girl & I were in Chicago and we stumbled upon a live taping of This American Life. (It was the Tales from the Net show taped at the Museum of Contemp. History). I remember the both of us being in such suspense over finding out what Ira Glass really looks like. (at the time, Glass would never allow his face to be seen in interviews. To preserve the mystique, I suppose) With a distinctive voice like his, one can’t help but for a mental picture of what he looks like. I pictured a small, Woody Allen-type guy. We were both surprised at his actual appearance. He’s actually a taller-than-average guy…with his glasses, he actually kinda looked a bit like Buddy Holly. Anyways…it was very cool to see the radio show done live. They take TAL on the road every now & then, and I urge you to go check it out if you’re a fan…
OK…back to the OP…Most annoying guy on NPR? I’d have to second the votes for Juan Williams. I absolutely couldn’t stand him on Talk of the Nation. He frequently displayed a bias in his questions and often seemed totally unprepared for his interviews. The fact that the host who preceded him, Ray Suarez, was an incredibly smart guy & skilled interviewer, didn’t help. Many stations (including my local one, WBEZ) were about to drop the show altogether. Luckily, NPR dismissed Williams from the program & and saved it in the nick of time.
We do like our NPR on the SDMB, do we not?
Terry Gross (Fresh Air) is a really lousy interviewer.
TG: We have with us Dr. Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State, who has just published a new book, The Diplomatic History of Communist Eastern Europe
MA: Thank you, it’s nice to be here.
TG: When you were growing up, did the kids in school make fun of you for being smart?
MA: ?!
She does have very interesting guests and topics, though, so that kinda makes up for it.
I travel through D.C. on occasion and have to agree. I’m sure Redlin is a great guy, but he sounds like he’s just shoved down a short stack of pancakes drenched in syrup. It makes my skin crawl.
Terry has some great shows, but she tries too damned hard to sound cool and her forced laugh really is a bit much at times.
One other thing–and no one has pointed this out–is the guy who is the announced for NPR. His friggin’ voice sounds like a busted chainsaw and just drives me nuts–to the point that I will turn down the radio just so I don’t have to hear him. It’s really grating, like fingernails across a chalk board.
I seem to recall that she also asked “If the comet was going to hit Earth instead of Jupiter, would you still want it to be named after you?” :rolleyes: