I have almost 300 unheard segments of Lopate's show in my podcast library. (BTW, the podcast was renamed at the same time as the series, so now all those unheard episodes, some dating back to 2012, were instantly relabeled as "Midday on WNYC" - a neat bit of revisionist history for the electronic age.)
My interest in his show is based more on his eclectic guest lineup than his interviewing style, though I do like him as an interviewer more than you do. However, I've noticed that when he's had a guest host fill in - and the guest hosts I've heard have included such notables as Zoe Kazan and Martha Plimpton - the quality of the questions does not suffer. At all. This makes it seem like he's relying on his staff for research and question writing more than, say, Terry Gross is. And it's why I don't think the show's quality will noticeably suffer with Lopate gone. On Saturday, December 23, 2017 at 4:35:00 AM UTC-5, Dave Sikula wrote: > > I think that both of them had attitudes from a less-enlightened era, but > were also victims of WNYC overreacting to what sounds like some pretty > minor offenses. Suspension-worthy, yes, but maybe not of termination > quality. > > That said, Lopate is one of the worst interviewers I've ever heard, > constantly interrupting his guests, asking questions they'd just answered, > or making stupid jokes. I still have a number of podcast segments of his on > my phone, and in 90% of them, there's invariably a point where I shout > "Shut up, Leonard!" (That said, he's still light years ahead of our local > radio dummy, KQED's Michael Krasny, who never fails to make a boob of > himself in his desperation to let listeners know he's read books.) > > --Dave Sikula > > On Friday, December 22, 2017 at 11:05:48 AM UTC-8, Mark Jeffries wrote: >> >> The two veteran NY personalities were both fired for alleged >> "inappropriate comments and bullying" over the course of several >> years--Leonard Lopate called the decision "unjust" and Jonathan Schwartz >> said when the two were initially suspended that this was "the most hurtful, >> outrageous and saddest [incident] I’ve ever experienced [in my life] — and >> more"--Lopate's midday show has been renamed "Middays on WNYC" (why not the >> original "New York & Co." title?) with rotating guest hosts, while Paul >> Cavolconte of sister station WQXR will take over Schwartz's weekend shifts >> and run the 24/7 stream of standards, which has already been rebranded >> "WQXR's American Standards," which will piss off the 75-year-old classical >> music hardcores who do not consider Cole Porter and Gershwin worthy--if, of >> course, they're online to begin with)--the below link includes the report >> heard by "All Things Considered" listeners in NY last night: >> >> >> https://www.wnyc.org/story/new-york-public-radio-fires-hosts-lopate-schwartz >> >> Considering the ages of both Lopate and Schwartz, it's safe to say that >> their careers are pretty much dead, although Lopate may try podcasting and >> Schwartz may come crawling back to SiriusXM, where he lost his job as DJ >> and programmer of their "Siriusly Sinatra" standards channel after a >> dust-up with the Sinatra family, who licenses the use of Francis Albert's >> name and requires programming to be at least half the Chairman's records. >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
