NPR News Agenda From the Tuesday Editors' Meeting
Little green men are always looking for new ways to say "Hi!"
Weird, weird, weird. It's not often that a room full of serious news minds loses it while trying to find the lead story of the day. But it happened. Several times this morning, NPR's top editors broke down into hysterical laughter while outlining options for today's top stories.
It started with Senior Washington Editor Ron Elving, who facetiously described "the big White House shake-up." A U.S. trade representative has transferred to the Office of Management and Budget. The joke here is that every news organization in town has hawk eyes trained on the Bush administration, searching for evidence of the shake-up that just hasn't come. So that makes the lead story out of Washington today, "The White House Makes No Big Changes."
Hmmm. Let's see what else we got?
Well, there's China's President Hu Jintao dining at Bill Gates' house tonight. There's a story about a new sport that alternates chess matches with rounds of boxing, appropriately called chess boxing. And then there's the discovery of a new dinosaur skeleton that might be slightly larger than the largest dinosaur bones ever found... but also might be a hoax. Not exactly hard-hitting stuff.
At this point the editors were wracking their brains trying to find a top, top story. But frustration and miff soon turned to hysterical laughter when Science Desk Editor Alison Richards offered this submission: "Little green men using lasers instead of radio to say 'Hi!'" Alison swears that "serious people" are involved in a new search method for extraterrestrial intelligence.
So what is the story that will lead NPR's news programs today? My vote is for the little green men... not that anyone asked me.
April 18 Agenda: New Orleans
Suggestions:
"Nagin welcomes pimps and welfare queens back to New Orleans but would prefer they be rehabilitated first."
"Mississippi re-builds while New Orleans flounders."
"Hurricane Rita? When was that?"
"Hurricane Season Countdown: 44 days to go... if it doesn't start early this year."
April 18 Agenda: Breather
What a relief! It's nice to know that for a couple of minutes out of one day in thousands we aren't going to be subjected to bloody bombings in the Middle East, perverts raping people in New York or famine starved people in Africa. I'm glad you found none of these stories to beat us over the head with again. Thanks for the breather.
April 18 Agenda: Intelligent Life
How about leading with: "Looking for signs of intelligent life in White House."
April 18 Agenda: Story Of Out Time
Why not cover what is still the most important story of our time:
"Whats Good for Halliburton is Good for America"
--subtitled:
"Don't Drink the Water: Bush Administration Continues to Offer Every Aspect of Government to Highest
Bidder"
April 18 Agenda: Chicago Parks
Why not look for a story in Chicago? Like will all the parks be ready for the summer? I live in Wicker Park and have seen the park there go from boarded up windows to a now busted water fountain. Seriously... it is very possible that a sledge hammer was used to break it.
Not a really hard hitting story, but there are a lot of Chicago parks that just are crap. And really look at all the play areas for little kids? They are beautiful, but are people required to buy a tag from the city so that their kids can play there? No.
But if you have a dog, (some of us don't care for kids) you have to buy yet another permit tag so that they can play in the dog parks.
Really, why not look at how much people have to pay to play at any number of the softball fields in the city?
So many many stories and I bet you might find some more city corruption in the park districts if you just look!
April 18 Agenda: Pheromone Project
Why not lead off with the DARPA terrorist-pheromone project? Your tax dollars at rest...
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