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When I first heard about Edwards being replaced, I was somewhat ambivalent, but the more I read about the reasons, which I agree with, the more I say, 'don't cry for Bob Edwards, Argentina.'
Basically, Edwards was not just the on air host, but was a kind of editor in chief deciding what got on the air, according to a long analysis a while back in the NY Times. Edwards leaned heavily toward "whimsey" stories, rather than news. It was his editorial judgment that gave NPR Morning Edition its kinds of irrelevant sound.
My main objection, though, oddly, goes back to 9/11. I was at work in lower Manhattan early that morning. I heard the first jet roar overhead and heard the loud explosion a second later. I actually believed it was first a US military jet buzzing the city followed by a truck backfiring. For a moment, though, I thought, no-- I did not just hear a military bombing run on Manhattan!
Then after the second plane hit, my sister and girlfriend called me hysterically telling me what happened and to get out of lower Manhattan. I had a small stereo in my office and started flipping radio channels to find out what to do -- which way to run? which bridges are open? The all news stations, WCBS and WINS were reporting that two planes had crashed into the WTC and that this was probably a terrorist attack. Even tiny WBAI, with its window facing the WTC, was saying that two planes had struck the WTC in some sort of attack.
I flipped on my then-favorite station, WNYC, the local public radio station that carries Morning Edition. Bob Edwards voice was droning on giving the obituary of the guy who invented the supermarket bar code reader, and he said, I kid you not, that this inventor "had changed our lives forever." This went on for about an hour after the first plane hit -- irrelevant, whimsical pseudonews.
The next day, I learned that WNYC's staff had a window facing the WTC and saw the whole thing and called NPR in Washington and told them what was going on. Edwards, I only learned just a few weeks ago in the NY Times article, was the guy who made the decision to continue with the pre-taped, ludicrous, repititious stories like the bar code inventor, even though their news department knew what was happening. According to the NY Times, a big reason for Edwards' getting fired is the editorial decisions he made the morning of 9/11.
I posted a complaint on like 9/13 on the WNYC website and to my suprise, Kerry Nolan, a reporter reponded, defending WNYC's coverage. That was back when WNYC staff actually gave a sh*t about the WNYC website forum, which since then has been taken over by about 5 cranks. Nolan talked about the excellent street level coverage that day.
I understand it was award winning stuff, but they did not start that reporting until about the time the first tower collapsed. By that time, no one could get their signal anyway. If you were in lower Manhattan on 9/11 and you relied on WNYC (ie Bob Edwards) for how to save your ass, you were in dire bad luck!
My main point is that at the moment when NPR ME could have been of service to their listeners in an emergency, Bob Edwards chose to broadcast about how the inventor of the bar code "had changed our lives forever" while in fact our lives were being changed forever by the terrorist attack.
I'll never get over that moment -- searching for emergency information and hearing about the obituary of the inventor of the supermarket bar code.
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