National Public Radio style guide

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Warning … potentially politically incorrect post ahead …

So, is there such a thing? A few of my observations about NPR …

  1. No matter where you go throughout the country, local talent on NPR stations all have the same inflection in their voice. It’s hard to describe, really, but it seems that most on-air talent at most NPR stations sound like therapists.

  2. Neee-kaah-lahh-gooo-waah. If a word is Spanish or rooted in Spanish, it must be “overpronounced” in a vaugely Latin American accent. As for words rooted in other languages, they are always pronounced in the standard NPR Boulder Therapist English accent.

  3. Hi Opal!

  4. Related to #2 – whenever there’s an interview with a non-English speaker, the on-air translation doesn’t start until exactly four seconds after the interviewee starts speaking. Sounds something like this …

Bah da la da da de la badada do ga de fa ya beda da da They rounded us up, and took us to the soccer stadium hs de la dada es ta do They kept us there for three days …

Any other NPR observations?

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  1. A willingness to use ambient noise as a technique to help put their listeners ‘into’ the story.

6)Using music, sometimes even during new stories

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GRRRR - newS stories

(slapping myself w/ disgust)