A story that made the rounds in public radio circles last week has now broken out into the mainstream media.
It all started when NPR’s wildly successful, Peabody Award winning weekly news quiz show – Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! – had the audacity to book Kim Kardashian. Apparently, the main force behind Keeping Up With The Karadashians isn’t intellectual or credible enough for some NPR fans. From Slate to New York to the Chicago Tribune, they’ve all covered the story about the disappointment, anger, and vitriol express by outraged listeners over the most famous Kardashian’s appearance on a public radio comedy show.
It is one thing to be protective of a show or even a network you love and even financially support. It’s another to go on the attack, and even threaten to pull support from public radio, as a number of fans did.
This public radio programming flap became so viral that a Google News search of “Kim Kardashian” late last week yielded these results:
With more than 170 articles written about this non-story story, Kim’s appearance on “Wait Wait” clearly out-performed an earlier guest shot this year from Robert Baer. (Who’s Robert Baer? He’s a former CIA officer who has written a series of memoirs, some of which have made it movies.)
You can listen to the Kim Kardashian guest shot here, as she takes part in a quiz hosted by Mike Pesca, sitting in for Peter Sagal. It is actually quite entertaining.
The blowback got so powerful that NPR’s ombudsman (yes, they have one) got into the act. In a response called “What’s All The ‘Kommotion’ About Kim Kardashian on ‘Wait Wait’?,” Elizabeth Jensen attempted to make a considered response to the audience outrage.
Taking on all these “disappointed” and “disgusted” listeners, Jensen reminded them that Wait Wait is, in fact, a comedy show, and that Kim Kardashian was gracious. But angry listeners insisted that featuring her as a guest on a public radio program lowers the standards and demeans the network.
Mike Danforth, Wait Wait’s executive producer, defended Kim’s appearance by saying, “Of course we tried to book her, because she’s huge…We always try to book people who are culturally relevant.”
But like others at NPR, he did not anticipate the elitist venom that followed the broadcast. And as Jensen quoted listener Max Planck: “I’ll forgive you this time but don’t do it again.” Surely, the NPR ombudsman has more important problems and controversies to explain, defend, or unravel.
Actually, NPR would be wise to “do it again.” Kardashian isn’t just culturally relevant. She’s a force of nature. And her business acumen could easily land her with air time on Marketplace to discuss how to cash in on fame, fortune, digital platforms, and videogames. Or on On The Media to talk about how her enormous fame has made her a multi-media phenomenon. Or even on Fresh Air so Terry Gross could use her world class interviewing skills to show us a side of Kim Kardashian we’ve never seen before (seriously).
NPR specifically, and public radio in general, have a way of presenting personalities and issues in ways that are unlike the way we experience them in other media outlets. And in their quest to grow their audience, interesting, successful, and controversial people are fair game for their many great programs.
There’s a tendency to overreact to vehement core listeners. Oftentimes, a single complaint makes its way up to the C-suite. In this case, the clamor, commotion, and kerfuffle from NPR’s minions don’t merit a response.
So my advice to NPR and the rest of the public radio community would be this:
Don’t let the mob dictate your programming. You grow and stay relevant by trying different things and taking risks.
That said, don’t let Garrison Keillor get any bright ideas.
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