NPR REINVENTS ITSELF posted to Rappaport's Notebook

From the desk of Robert Rappaport on Monday, November 17th 2008 at 8:01

NPR once had the connotation of being a bit stodgy at times, but the network seems to understand the future of journalism is the present.

CENTRIST MEDIA posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, November 5th 2008 at 8:55

I haven't blogged in the past few days because the temptation has been too great to make some sort of political comment, and this is not a political blog ...

FUNDRAISING IS BACK posted to Rappaport's Notebook

From the desk of Robert Rappaport on Friday, October 17th 2008 at 9:54

When you tune in to your favorite AZPM radio stations this week, you'll no doubt encounter pledge drives. For the first time, KUAZ and KUAT-FM are conducting simultaneous campaigns.

DEDICATION posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, October 16th 2008 at 7:36

Here's a radio newscaster who won't let anything stop the show ...

AN ACCOLADE posted to Rappaport's Notebook

From the desk of Robert Rappaport on Friday, September 26th 2008 at 7:51

In case you missed it, KUAZ was once again named "Best Radio Station for News" by readers of the "Tucson Weekly."

PROGRAMMING CHANGES posted to Rappaport's Notebook

From the desk of Robert Rappaport on Wednesday, September 24th 2008 at 7:25

The KUAZ schedule will be modified Friday to allow for live coverage of the first presidential debate.

RADIO SHOW VIDEO ONLINE posted to Rappaport's Notebook

From the desk of Robert Rappaport on Monday, September 22nd 2008 at 7:21

If you were unable to attend last Friday's live edition of NPR's Talk of the Nation: Science Friday, you can catch a short video of it online.

NPR POLITICAL COVERAGE posted to Rappaport's Notebook

From the desk of Robert Rappaport on Monday, August 25th 2008 at 6:10

If you have any questions about how the presidential candidates sound on the radio, you might be interested in an email I received recently from NPR.

FOLLOWING UP YESTERDAY posted to Rappaport's Notebook

From the desk of Robert Rappaport on Wednesday, August 13th 2008 at 7:46

If you read yesterday's blog, the dust hasn't quite settled on the recent KUAZ programming change, so I'll throw you a bone.

THE NEW SHOW IS... posted to Rappaport's Notebook

From the desk of Robert Rappaport on Thursday, July 24th 2008 at 6:28

If you read yesterday's blog, I'm sure you're here today waiting for the name of the new addition to the KUAZ schedule August 4th. That show is...

NEW WEEKDAY SHOW COMING posted to Rappaport's Notebook

From the desk of Robert Rappaport on Wednesday, July 23rd 2008 at 8:10

Okay, it's not new, per se, but it's new to KUAZ. This particular show is quite popular on other NPR stations and it will debut locally August 4th.

I'M CONFUSED posted to Rappaport's Notebook

From the desk of Robert Rappaport on Wednesday, July 16th 2008 at 7:52

Did you ever notice that when an NPR host is not on the air, that host is "away?" What's up with that terminology?

A DAY WITHOUT E-MAIL posted to Rappaport's Notebook

From the desk of Robert Rappaport on Monday, July 14th 2008 at 7:59

Many people try to get away from it, but can't. However, when it's not your choice to be away from e-mail, it can be quite frustrating. Case in point...

WE'RE BACK! posted to Rappaport's Notebook

From the desk of Robert Rappaport on Friday, July 11th 2008 at 8:23

An overnight power outage crippled Arizona Public Media, to a certain extent, but things are back to normal.

BIO FEEDBACK posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, July 10th 2008 at 8:13

My colleague Robert Rappaport blogs about his latest assignment, writing his own bio for our Web site ...

BIOS SCHMIOS posted to Rappaport's Notebook

From the desk of Robert Rappaport on Thursday, July 10th 2008 at 6:28

This website soon will have long-overdue bios about the on-air staff. For those of you who actually care what we look like and where we come from, you dreams will come true, but there is a caveat...

EAR TO THE BOOKS posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, July 1st 2008 at 7:50

Daily newspapers have been reducing or eliminating their book-review sections during the past year or so (they've spent a decade trying to appeal to non-readers, so why waste space covering reading?), but NPR is expanding its book reporting, especially online.

END-OF-WEEK NOTES posted to Rappaport's Notebook

From the desk of Robert Rappaport on Friday, June 13th 2008 at 10:08

It was an interesting week here at Arizona Public Media. The blogs were launched, new ideas are in development and a certain staff member came back from vacation with a story of a random meeting.

SMILE posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, January 4th 2008 at 7:06

    Some of us in the radio biz already know this, but it comes as a surprise to a lot of people: You can actually hear a smile in someone’s voice. Now there’s a study to prove it. The conclusion, according to one of the researchers: “When we listen ...

UNDER WRAPS posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, November 9th 2007 at 7:42

    National Public Radio is ashamed of classical music, its cultural mainstay since the network’s beginnings in the early 1970s. How can I say that? The classical presence is severely downplayed on the home page of the new NPR Music site. NPR describes this as “a free, multi-genre Web site ...

CELEBRITY UPDATE: ME posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, October 10th 2007 at 7:40

    In case you’re tired of reading the latest turn-of-the-screw stories about unfit actress moms and drunken TV-star drivers,, here’s a piece of my exciting life:
    Yesterday I stayed home, sickish. My wife transferred her cold to me, and on Monday I was afraid I’d be in for ...

HEARING AID posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, September 11th 2007 at 7:35

    We radio announcers can listen to ourselves any number of ways. Of course, there’s the old hand-cupped-to-the-ear technique made famous by Gary Owen (an actual DJ at the time) on Laugh-In back in the late 1960s. But we also have many technological options. Here in the KUAT-FM control room ...

PERILS OF THE CLEANSED COLON posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, July 25th 2007 at 7:48

    After reading yesterday’s confession by yours truly, another broadcaster—not one who works here—sent this message:

The first time I ever filled in for the afternoon shift at KBAQ, I had to juggle underwriting credits for both news and traffic. My first break involved a very funny aligning ...

CONFESSION posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, July 24th 2007 at 7:30

    Every time I read the underwriting credit that mentions "mobile phlebotomists," I have a barely suppressed urge to giggle. "Phlebotomists" is a funny word to begin with, and making them "mobile" is somehow hilarious. Beyond that, if you know what phlebotomy refers to, and you conceive of it as a ...

KUPBEAT posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, July 11th 2007 at 7:58

    I just stumbled across something unexpected: Kupbeat, an archive of interviews conducted by Edward Kupperstein, KUAT's former radio boss and, before that, program director and, before that, music director. According to the home page, "KUPBEAT is a celebration of Edward Kupperstein's dedication to the the arts community in ...

BAG IT posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, July 9th 2007 at 8:53

    Newsman Robert Rappaport and I both rolled our eyes at the funding credit for the 8:01 NPR news this morning: The NPR Shop is hawking the “Nina Totin’ Bag,” an accessory decorated with Warhol-style images of NPR legal-affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. I guess you can use it to carry ...

PAYDAZE posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, July 9th 2007 at 7:41

    I wasn’t aware of this until an unhappy colleague pointed it out, but the Arizona Daily Star’s Eric Swedlund has posted a searchable online database of the salaries of University of Arizona employees (and those at the other state universities). There’s a small uproar in the comments ...

I SEE THE LIGHT posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, July 2nd 2007 at 9:27

    It’s a little disorienting, after two and a half years of leaving home at 4:30 a.m. to start my KUAT-FM shift at 5, to wake up an hour later, leave the house at 5:30 in actual daylight, and arrive by 6. This was my first day ...

TOM MACHAMER posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, June 26th 2007 at 7:14

    Back in the early 1980s, the local news didn’t have to wedge into little slots in Morning Edition and All Things Considered, as it does now. (KUAT-FM doesn’t carry those programs, but our local news is simulcast with KUAZ, which does.) Newscasts back then lasted a full 15 ...

THRIVING posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, June 6th 2007 at 6:55

    From the Washington Post:

    A bunch of European composers who haven't had a hit in decades have been very, very good to radio station WETA.
    Since dropping news and talk programming for classical music in January, the Arlington public station has seen its fortunes soar. Ratings have more than ...

VICTORY posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, May 4th 2007 at 7:35

    The pledge drive is finally over! The end comes a week late, but no dollars short: $51,429 is the initial tally, on a goal of $50,000. After two weeks of this, I feel like I've just been through fundraising boot camp, plus a tour of combat duty ...

SO SPECIAL posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, March 28th 2007 at 6:53

    We interrupt this lazy stretch of non-blogging to link to a commentary by Eric Williams, who echoes a complaint I’ve had for 20 years:

    It's an amazing bait-and-switch. Every few months, your local PBS station begs you - and Viewers Like You - to support their programming for the rest ...

TRYING TOO HARD posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, January 24th 2007 at 6:40

    Last night, after a long afternoon of radio fund-raising, I met my wife and two of our friends for dinner at a restaurant we’ve patronized for many years. The place has changed hands several times, although the food remains fairly consistent, and a new regime seems to be in ...

COMFORT ZONE posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, January 2nd 2007 at 6:49

    Because we don’t have enough relief announcers to provide full relief during the holidays, I wound up working on New Year’s Day. At least I didn’t have to come in for my usual morning shift, after an evening of quiet but rather late celebration; instead, I got ...

BAD NEWS posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, December 14th 2006 at 7:17

    NPR News is heavily playing the story of Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota undergoing surgery after an apparent stroke. This is valid national news—control of the Senate hinges on Johnson’s health, because his state’s Republican governor could replace him with a Republican—but to what ...

MUCHO PIN8 posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, December 13th 2006 at 6:57

    Radio announcer conundrum of the week: How to pronounce the last name of dead-at-last Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet? The answer, according to Slate’s Andy Engber, is that you can find a justification for just about anything. Engber finally dug up a video of the man pronouncing his own name ...

DEAD AIR posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, December 11th 2006 at 6:35

    Read what the New Yorker’s Alex Ross has to say about the impending death of classical radio in our nation’s capital.

THIS IS A RECORDING posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, November 24th 2006 at 6:39

    We have a shortage of relief announcers here at KUAT-FM, or at least a shortage of relief announcers willing to work on holidays, when we full-timers could actually use some relief. Hey, my first two shifts as a relief announcer here in 1976 were Christmas Eve and Christmas afternoon; that ...

ONE STEP FORWARD... posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, November 15th 2006 at 7:08

    A couple of weeks ago, the KUAT engineers installed some new digital transmitter equipment. Very nice, except that now, for technical reasons I won’t go into here, we’re operating on a delay. In other words, what you hear through your speakers is something I did a full eight ...

FOLLOW THE MONEY posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, November 13th 2006 at 6:48

    The Washington Post informs us:

    A new report from the National Endowment for the Arts blasts public radio, saying it fails to fulfill its obligation to provide music that commercial stations won't touch. The NEA says public radio—once dominated by classical, jazz and other minority forms of music ...

ORCHESTRA IN A BOX posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, November 7th 2006 at 10:43

    Via Artsjournal.com, here’s a link to a notice of a Knight Foundation study showing that all the trendoid things orchestras have been doing to lure new audiences are basically worthless. Note this:

    The report, which is based on both the experiences of participating orchestras and audience research in ...

BAD CALL posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, September 22nd 2006 at 7:57

    Responding to my post linking to explanations of radio and TV call letters, soon-to-depart KUAT-FM announcer Michael Dauphinais says, “I heard a story once about KNTU, named after North Texas State University. Seems that the school's name was later changed to University of North Texas … but for obvious reasons ...

DECODER posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, September 20th 2006 at 8:05

    While I was doing an Internet search just now for something completely unrelated (information on the Warehouse District downtown, if you must know), I stumbled upon this great list of the origins of radio and TV call letters. KUAT's is one of the more straightforward: the UAT stands for ...

THIS IS A RECORDING posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, September 20th 2006 at 7:34

    During my vacation, I not only soaked up a great deal of Tuscan and Venetian scenery, drank too much wine, ate too much oily high-carb food, hiked up and down too many steep hilltown streets, and stared numbly at too much Gothic and Renaissance art; I managed to read six ...

CREDIT TO THE CREDIT READER posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, August 25th 2006 at 6:53

    Apropos of my recent post about the odd NPR funding credit, KUAT news guy Robert Rappaport has reactivated his own blog and revealed the identity of the voice of NPR underwriting. His name is Frank Tavares, and you can read about him here. Robert also provides a link to an ...

STREAMERS posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, August 21st 2006 at 6:48

    Burt Schneider, afternoon host over at KUAZ-FM, files this report:

Alan Campbell [a former KUAT-FM morning announcer] checked in the other day. He's programming five streaming stations on the internet from his hideout in Monterrey, Mexico. He says one of his stations has just passed the 10,000 listener ...

THE PLOT THINS? posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, August 11th 2006 at 6:58

    The only amusing thing about yesterday’s rout of two dozen people accused of planning to blow up airliners headed for America is that newscasters refer to an “alleged plot.” OK—journalists are trained not to prejudice a case in their reporting; news reports should not refer to “perpetrators” or ...

GLASS HOUSES posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, August 9th 2006 at 7:21

    The Big Boss here at KUAT is campaigning to beautify and professionalize the appearance of the spaces where civilians are likely to pass by, including the corridor that skirts the KUAT-FM booth and the radio newsroom. As of yesterday, beautification and professionalization have come to mean, in part, opening the ...

PRONOUNCEMENTS ON HEZBOLLAH posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, August 4th 2006 at 8:27

    Burning issue of the day for radio people: How, exactly, do you pronounce “Hezbollah”? On NPR and PRI programs I’ve heard HEZ-bo-lah, hez-BOH-lah (from a Lebanese-American) and hez-bo-LAH, which covers all the bases. Here’s the official position of the BBC: hez-buul-AA. (Note not just the final-syllable stress, but ...

LIBERAL COMEDIAN SUES BLOGGER posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, July 14th 2006 at 7:39

    This is old news, but only now have I caught up with it via another blogger. The sainted Garrison Keillor isn’t above using bully tactics to protect his lucrative Prairie Home empire from harmless parody. Read all about it here.