Bring Back Bob!

I've just about had it with Steve Inskeep of NPR's Morning Edition. I started to get fed up with him when he started doing that sort of this-is-why-I'm-not-on-TV (though Charlie Rose does it, too) sotto voce obsequiousness with interviewees (cf. his interview with Pulitzer prize-winning poet Charles Wright from April). Listen to his interview with Brazilian singer Maria Rita this morning (linked below) -- he asks permission to ask her questions and apologizes for making her listen to her own clips on the air. It's as if it's the guest's show. Actually, it's worse. It's as if it's nobody's show.

Inskeep does treacly interviews larded with false humility, excessive flattery, and annoying voice modulations. Plus he regularly uses words like "lovely" and "extraordinary."

The contrast with his predecessor is painful.