NPR's reporter responds...
Oops, I made a mess.
This weekend, I wrote an email to Weekend Edition Sunday about NPR's poor coverage of hip-hop, specifically in reference to two pieces I'd heard back-to-back on the show, one of which was about cyphers on the subway in NYC. Earlier today, the blog posting was linked to by Current, the magazine of public broadcasting, and one of the reporters, Jon Kalish, responded on the email list of the Association of Independents in Radio (of which I am a member).
Thanks to all who have weighed in on my story from Weekend Edition Sunday about rappers performing on NYC subways. It was quite an experience tagging along with the hiphoppers those two nights I went out with them. Much to the chagrin of Mrs. Kalish, I have taken to wearing my jeans so low that my boxers show. I'm glad my editor at NPR let me handle the story in both a featury and slightly personal way. One of my regrets is that I didn’t get to use any sound of a rapper known as Zeps. He was partial to gangsta rap but had a day job at a law firm.
Zeps was one of the rappers who used words such as “bitch,” “fuck” and “nigger” in front of children and elderly people in the trains and in a ferry terminal. He was one of about three dozen 20-somethings who were either rapping or “dancing on the seats” while the train was making its way downtown one Sunday evening. Maybe you had to be there but I think the scene certainly warranted a “gee whiz” approach to this story. I guess it could have been done any number of ways. But for this piece, to get at the issues involved, and considering that it was for a weekend show, I decided to bend over backwards to bring as many listeners as possible into the story.
Whether NPR does that too much isn't for me to say, though I am aware that the Arts Desk, for which I toil, has generated pieces recently about the rapper Juvenile and the rise of reggaeton in the Bronx.
The assertion that I don’t understand what I’m covering strikes me as a rash judgement that ignores my 27-year track record with NPR. I know, I know, the record doesn’t always count for much in the blogosphere. But please know that I started doing stories about hiphop culture when this young podcasting lad was still in diapers.
I've done pieces about graffiti artists, rappers participating in an anti-apartheid recording project, Ice Cube’s endorsement of a Nation of Islam “scholarly work” and mixtapes, to name a few.
I happen to free-lance for NPR, so the suggestion by my little podcasting friend that “it's OK to hire someone who gets it,” or as he later puts it “hire someone who understands what he's covering,” doesn’t really apply. NPR acquires free-lance pieces from many people, so I would invite those who think my tone or approach to this hiphop story was wrong to try your hand at reporting for NPR. Hey, they’ll even work with free-lancers who are still in their teens, but that usually invovles some adult supervision.
jk
Manhattan-based newspaper/radio reporter Jon Kalish...
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This weekend, I wrote an email to Weekend Edition Sunday about NPR's poor coverage of hip-hop, specifically in reference to two pieces I'd heard back-to-back on the show, one of which was about cyphers on the subway in NYC. Earlier today, the blog posting was linked to by Current, the magazine of public broadcasting, and one of the reporters, Jon Kalish, responded on the email list of the Association of Independents in Radio (of which I am a member).
Thanks to all who have weighed in on my story from Weekend Edition Sunday about rappers performing on NYC subways. It was quite an experience tagging along with the hiphoppers those two nights I went out with them. Much to the chagrin of Mrs. Kalish, I have taken to wearing my jeans so low that my boxers show. I'm glad my editor at NPR let me handle the story in both a featury and slightly personal way. One of my regrets is that I didn’t get to use any sound of a rapper known as Zeps. He was partial to gangsta rap but had a day job at a law firm.
Zeps was one of the rappers who used words such as “bitch,” “fuck” and “nigger” in front of children and elderly people in the trains and in a ferry terminal. He was one of about three dozen 20-somethings who were either rapping or “dancing on the seats” while the train was making its way downtown one Sunday evening. Maybe you had to be there but I think the scene certainly warranted a “gee whiz” approach to this story. I guess it could have been done any number of ways. But for this piece, to get at the issues involved, and considering that it was for a weekend show, I decided to bend over backwards to bring as many listeners as possible into the story.
Whether NPR does that too much isn't for me to say, though I am aware that the Arts Desk, for which I toil, has generated pieces recently about the rapper Juvenile and the rise of reggaeton in the Bronx.
The assertion that I don’t understand what I’m covering strikes me as a rash judgement that ignores my 27-year track record with NPR. I know, I know, the record doesn’t always count for much in the blogosphere. But please know that I started doing stories about hiphop culture when this young podcasting lad was still in diapers.
I've done pieces about graffiti artists, rappers participating in an anti-apartheid recording project, Ice Cube’s endorsement of a Nation of Islam “scholarly work” and mixtapes, to name a few.
I happen to free-lance for NPR, so the suggestion by my little podcasting friend that “it's OK to hire someone who gets it,” or as he later puts it “hire someone who understands what he's covering,” doesn’t really apply. NPR acquires free-lance pieces from many people, so I would invite those who think my tone or approach to this hiphop story was wrong to try your hand at reporting for NPR. Hey, they’ll even work with free-lancers who are still in their teens, but that usually invovles some adult supervision.
jk
Manhattan-based newspaper/radio reporter Jon Kalish...
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posted by Jesse Thorn at Tuesday, January 30, 2007
8 Comments:
You got zung, son!
At least your letter wasn't snide.
How completely dismissive and defensive to the point of not listening to your very valid concerns about the very offensive story. I love public radio, but have not felt so exluded from it's audience than when hearing Kalish's story.
keep it up jesse.
Hello
I think your letter, Jesse, was devastating and, to use some young-people's lingo, "right on."
Now having listened to the piece, I can't say I totally agree with your implication that Kalish didn't know what he was talking about. He clearly has been thinking about the subject for a while, and his curiosity and thoughtfulness in the piece are genuine.
But it would be disingenuous to suggest that the overall tone of the piece was not condescending, both toward the rap and the intelligence of the listener. The weekend edition intro to the piece actually borders on the contemptuous, though Kalish cannot really be held accountable for that.
But tone aside I just don't get what the story is here. Apparently there are street performers on the NYC subway! Yet Kalish does not do a story about the wacky, wild scene that goes down when guys come through the cars singing "FIRE NEXT TIME," or the car-to-car conga sessions sessions or breakdance circles that I've seen since moving to NYC in 1994.
Personally, I'd be furious if someone came into the C train and started cursing in front of my five year old. It actually happens all the time in NYC, but when it's a performer/captive audience situation, it gets more complicated and galling in equal measures. I think Kalish did well to challenge the performers on this, but he didn't exactly hold their feet to the fire on it either.
Finally, there is Kalish's gloss on the phenomenon as a return to hip hop's roots. I think that's an interesting point to make. But at the same time, it seemed to suggest that freestyling had somehow disappeared for several decades and is now just coming back. I'm not an expert by any means, but that can't be true, can it?
No--these points are all so under-explored that they feel like feints for what I can only conclude is Kalish's main story here: rap music "forced" on shockec subway riders. Some recoil in horror, some discover a new respect for this art form and their urban neighbors. Everyone turns off their radio happy.
A nice narrative cliche as it goes, but there's a problem: it doesn't seem to really be happening. The subway riders that Kalish turned to for the google-eyed-suburban-outrage reaction he seemed to expect basically offered instead a sane response: "that's life in NYC, and I kinda like it."
Yeah. Me too.
The only person who legitimately seemed agog in this situation was Kalish. So in this sense, I think it indeed works as a personal essay, charting one man's reaction to an interesting but hardly groundbreaking social phenomenon.
But even if we redefine the piece this way, it's still a personal essay about the boisterous invasion of an traditionally black music into the closed space of a subway car, where the boisterous, loud musicians quasi-literally hold captive an audience of (Kalish presumes) non-rap listeners.
Jesse is right: this is exoticism, and I share his offense. It's also, in my opinion, boring. I hear the cafeterial ladies rolled their eyes when the kids from Fame started dancing on the tables, too. Stop press.
Kalish is right to defend his record as a reporter and clarify its status as a freelance piece. He's certainly free to disagree with Jesse's assessment of the piece and NPR's cultural coverage in general.
But I think the fact that Kalish does not respond directly to Jesse, and indirectly does so only with insults, tells me just about everything I need to know: what a snob.
As an overweight 35 year old dad with hurty knees whose currency with rap basically ends at De La Soul is Dead, I'm not a pitchforky insider to this culture, nor am I by any definition a young podcasting lad. My own podcasting and blogging efforts are basically pathetic. And, like Jesse, I have done actual radio, including reported pieces (albeit not for NPR, but PRI).
So I have no suggestions for what sniffy bona fides Kalish should use to brush aside my own critique of his work. But I do think he owes Jesse an apology.
John Hodgman.
Great analysis, PC!
Thanks John for providing such wonderful insight.
I think Kalish owes Jesse an apology for his snide remarks, too.
Wow, I can't believe a man with such a clear journalistic pedigree would resort to the "If you think I'm so bad, why don't you try it" defense in the last paragraph. I assumed that someone who had been making high quality critical analysis for NPR for so long would have long ago been disabused of the notion that this is a valid rebuttal to an honest critique.
My favorite part is that Mr. Kalish's response to criticism that his story was paternalistic and condescending is to refer to Jesse as "this young podcasting lad" and "my little podcasting friend."
Way to make Jesse's point for him AND come off looking like a total jerk in the process. Congrats!
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