Dear NPR: Forget the Tote Bags, Start Auctioning Ira Glass

It's that time a year again. All week, WLRN-FM (91.3) has been filled with the guilt-inducing sounds of yet another NPR fund drive. It's oppressive and embarrassing for everyone involved. Today on Morning Edition, Bonnie Berman cut to the chase: "By giving now, you'll help keep WLRN's fund drive short,"...

By Lisa Rab

October 16, 2009

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It's that time a year again. All week, WLRN-FM (91.3) has been filled with the guilt-inducing sounds of yet another NPR fund drive. It's oppressive and embarrassing for everyone involved.

Today on Morning Edition, Bonnie Berman cut to the chase: "By giving now, you'll help keep WLRN's fund drive short," she said.

With that in mind, I have a few suggestions for how WLRN and all the local NPR stations can make these annual money grabs more enjoyable for everyone involved. Forget rewarding donors with wine tote bags and Caribbean cruises, people. Give us something we really want:

1) A date with Ira Glass. Do you know many women listen to This American Life and just drool over that geeky, Jewish hunk? We would pay big bucks to fly to New York and accompany him to a lecture at the 92nd Street Y.

2) A better doctor for Diane Rehm. Seriously, people. All those voice treatments and she still sounds like she's 103.

3)Valium for the Planet Money crew. No offense to Chana Jaffe-Walt and the other ace reporters. They just get far too excited about mortgage derivatives.

4)The chance to have Kai Ryssdal balance our checkbooks. Nobody on earth can make stock prices sound sexy, except this guy. Let him do our numbers.

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