Customer Reviews

Listener Supported: The Culture and History of Public Radio

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If you're a public radio fan wanting to know what Garrison Keillor is really like, or how angry Bob Edwards actually got when he exited Morning Edition unwillingly after almost 25 years as host, this is not the book for you. It is a highly readable, highly personal perspective on the philosophies and politics that shaped NPR and made public radio a force in American media. Those most apt to appreciate it are among the thousands of people who have been employed in public radio over the last 30 years -- including career veterans who will recognize the names and remember the events that Mitchell recalls.

Jack Mitchell's book fails to uncover anything that couldn't have been found reading the wikipedia entry for NPR. The book documents albeit in a dry manner the history of public radio in a chronologically linear manner. The author's vantage point in the uncovering of these events have not been reflected in the narration of the events.

I am still waiting for the book that will open the hood on the operations of the NPR.

Jack Mitchell paints a vivid picture of public radio and its evolution. As a former Wisconsin Public Radio reporter who worked under Mitchell, it was an enlightening book, indeed. He accurately describes the news philosophy of public radio and deftly addresses the ridiculous bias claims constantly leveled against public radio. More importantly, though, Listener Supported explains how this rare medium ever developed in the first place. This is an especially important book because commercial talk radio, where loud opinion with no credentials reigns, is having a negative effect on reasoning ability. As we lose newspapers, there will be fewer and fewer outlets for news produced by journalists who seek out facts. Mitchell's book makes the case for why public radio is an essential ingredient in our democracy, and more important than ever.

LISTENER SUPPORTED provides a useful(if somewhat dry)account of National Public Radio's development from its difficult birth in 1967 to the end of the 20th century. Mitchell has impeccable insider credentials for the task: he was NPR's first employee, the first producer of All Things Considered, and three-time chairman of NPR's board of directors.

In keeping with his current job as a journalism professor, Mitchell takes a detached, academic approach to the problems and controversies that have beset NPR over the years. The book would be more engaging if Mitchell displayed more personal passion and would have attracted a larger audience if he had chosen to dish behind-the-scenes gossip about NPR's on-air personalities.

LISTENER SUPPORTED is worth reading just for the story of the machinations of Bill Kling, President of Minnesota Public Radio (a.k.a. Public Radio International). He used Prairie Home Companion as a vehicle to become a competitor to, as well as a customer of NPR. Kling is proof that entrepreneurial spirit exists even in the ivory towers of public radio.

The least interesting part of the book, for this reader, was the final section dealing with critics of the "Right" and of the "Left". Mitchell categorizes critics of the left as "Frustrated Progressives", "Frustrated Pacifists", "Frustrated Curators", "Frustrated Mass Educators", "Frustrated Populists", or "Frustrated Community Builders". He offers no neat pigeon holes for the rightest critics.