Secrets of the City

I was inclined to participate until I saw all the typos on both the pages you linked to. So is this show, with its emphasis on involving the public, just a scam to get people like me to volunteer to do all the work the people actually getting paid to do the work are too lazy and/or incompetent to do?

I’d second everything brownpaperbag said
why doesn’t the so-called major media pay people instead of cloaking itself in so-called “citizen journalism’ — most of which is pretty dumb?
no one would regularly view such nonsense

In the Loop is also looking for short (two minutes or less) poems, plays, essays, songs, sound collages —

Oh yes, let me see if I can find a copy of my latest two-minute play. Does it matter if it has an intermission?

Am I missing something? It doesn’t say “citizen journalism” once on either page linked to. Having read mnspeak every day for more than a year now, I can think of a lot of stuff generated by local folk that would work well on this show.

Looks to me like they’re trying to find stuff that would otherwise end up on a blog or YouTube and bring it to a general audience.

Matt’s right. I was in the audience of the last “In the Loop” segment, and have commented in a number of MPR’s public forums in the past.

Some of the creative types here (you know who you are) would be Loopy enough for that show.

yeah but I mostly ignore blogs and youtube anyway

Glad for the debate — though I’d argue whether what we’re up to here is really “citizen journalism,” or just trying to tap into the creativity that’s out there in our audience and the world at large.

We scoured for typos and found just one in the pages we link to here (in transcribing some of our copy for the web, “paying the bills” inadvertently got turned into “paying the pills”). Deepest apologies to anyone who was offended by the errant keystroke. We have a small, busy staff — if you spot more typos, please contact us with the specifics and we’ll fix what needs fixing.

We’ve had some great entries rolling in. Keep ‘em coming, and thanks!

I suppose, at some level, In the Loop is no better or worse than blogging, or MNspeak, or the rest of the ilk. Somehow, though, the fact that it’s broadcast over the airwaves makes it seem worse. I choose to read MNspeak (and post!), but I could accidentally stumble upon In the Loop. It just seems to be enabling the narcissist in all of us.

“Listen to me talk about myself on the radio. Please!”

It’s the fact that there are no transcripts that makes it worse.

Our produced pieces, for the most part, are online in text format. If someone would like to volunteer to help transcribe all the interviews and other live elements, we’ll welcome you with open arms! But in the end it is, of course, a radio show and podcast, ultimately meant to be consumed and archived that way. (The music, for example, just doesn’t come across the same way on a computer screen.)

It’s very interesting to read the reaction against the idea of asking listeners what ideas they have (which is quite different than asking them to tell us what to do). The alternative, is to declare — explicitly or tacitly — that we know all the answers and have all the best ideas. We have some good ones, but we go a lot farther with the inspiration and suggestions we get from our network.

Whatever omnipotence people might sense in the rest of the public radio and the rest of the media is a myth, anyway. It’s all the same game — the difference is how much you really open up your range of sources.

And we’re all just trying to pay the pills, right?

I have to say that while it’s lovely to want to tap into the creative souls of our state…and there are many, according to Shelia Smith over at the Minnesota Citizens for the Arts 20,000 self-identified artists in MN, paying them for their creativity is even more lovely. Because artists have to pay the pills too.

“We have a small, busy staff — if you spot more typos, please contact us with the specifics and we’ll fix what needs fixing.”

“If someone would like to volunteer to help transcribe all the interviews and other live elements, we’ll welcome you with open arms!”

So we agree. You want people to volunteer to do the work the people who get paid to do the work won’t or can’t do.

Hey, MNspeakers! We slapped around an MPR dude! See Horwich’s blog on MPR (sorry, no link) for more.

Here’s the link to Horwich’s blog.

What is dividing and destroying the MSM these days? The Interweb? nope. Corporate consolidation and deregulation? nope. Paris Hilton? Yes, says MPR’s Kerri Miller on today’s Midmorning.

As God is my witness….

Hey, don’t blame us conservatives. We tried to strangle public broadcasting years ago but you guys raised holy hell. Let ‘em sell ads like the rest of the real (unsubsidized) world. (Although I do confess to having watched those celtic chicks. Nice.)

Hey, don’t blame us conservatives. We tried to strangle public broadcasting years ago but you guys raised holy hell.

That’s right, you did. As I recall, Bert & Ernie kicked your team’s can.

Score one for the gay Muppets.

Actually, I seem to recall it was Big Bird who did us in. But rumor is he’s gay too.

Heh. Don’t ask, don’t tell, maz. I hear he hasn’t been doing too well lately. Rumor is: avian influenza.

Re: In The Loop: “It just seems to be enabling the narcissist in all of us.“

As opposed to the entire concept and utilization of the internet?

Before Gore invented all of this (just kidding), the only means most of us had to get our half-formed and vaguely troubling views and philosophies out for public consumption invariably would also lead to our long-term medically-ordered commitment. What’s more narcissistic than a free international network that allows me to share my view about the shortcomings of saunas with Finns as they eat breakfast, or to share my opinions concerning gay sex dungeons with Hindquarter readers? If the answer to “why should they care what I think?” is . . . a long silence, then narcissism is being well served.

And thank goodness, as narcissism has been given short shrift for too long.
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