Panel Round Two
NPR
Saturday, November 22, 2014
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More questions for the panel: It's All In The Delivery; F-Harmony.
Transcript
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
In just a minute...
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: In just a minute, Bill calls in to the Diane you a big wet sloppy kiss in our listener Limerick challenge game. Call 1888 lightweight but. Will be back in a minute with more weight don't tell me from NPR. From NPR in WBEZ Chicago this is wait wait don't tell me the NPR news quiz. I'm Bill Curtis replaying this week with Paula Poundstone PJ O'Rourke and Amy Dickinson. And here again is your opposed that Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago Peter Sehgal.
SAGAL: Thank you Bill and just a minute and just a minute bill called into the Diane Rehm's show. It's our Listener Limerick Challenge. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT, that's 1-888-924-8924. Right now panel, some more questions for you from the week's news. P.J., you know how hard things are in the newspaper industry these days.
O'ROURKE: Yes, I do.
SAGAL: However, it was still a shock this week when reporters at the Orange County Register were asked to do what?
O'ROURKE: To...
AMY DICKINSON: That was one of those good news, bad news things where it's like, you get the memo - the good news is you're still working.
SAGAL: Yes. Not only are they going to be writing, editing and producing the paper, they're going to have to...
O'ROURKE: Print it and sell it and...
SAGAL: You're almost there..
O'ROURKE: take out the trash and...
SAGAL: Oh, come on...
O'ROURKE: And deliver it to houses.
SAGAL: Deliver it, yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
DICKINSON: Oh my gosh.
SAGAL: They're being asked to deliver the paper.
O'ROURKE: All right.
SAGAL: The Orange County Register announced that all employees, including the journalists themselves, could - were being asked to take a shift delivering Sunday's paper in return for a $150 Visa gift card. It is demeaning, I know, but nobody will be laughing when one of them wins the Best Delivery Pulitzer.
(LAUGHTER)
O'ROURKE: And a Schwinn.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: You can actually put your Pulitzer in the spokes to make it go (mimics noise of card flapping against a bike wheel).
PAULA POUNDSTONE: They used to always call my house and ask if I wanted to buy the Sunday edition...
SAGAL: Of...
POUNDSTONE: ...Of the LA Times. And I said well, no. I don't. I find - you know, I might even take the other days. They felt the Sunday edition was like a special thing to ask me about. The Sunday paper has no news in it, and that always troubles me.
SAGAL: There's a little news. But it's got some useful...
POUNDSTONE: Very - it's got nothing useful...
O'ROURKE: Yeah, no basically it goes to bed on Friday night.
POUNDSTONE: That's exactly right. I mean, I used to work in a bookstore, so we got it on Thursday and assembled it.
(LAUGHTER)
DICKINSON: (Laughter) It's true.
POUNDSTONE: And it's nothing but, you know, baking tips and...
O'ROURKE: Right.
POUNDSTONE: ...You know, and who writes baking tapes every bloody week? Oh, this just in - turn the oven on.
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: What could be new? Do you see what I'm saying?
SAGAL: I see what you mean.
POUNDSTONE: There's nothing new in baking. Do grease the pan, don't grease the pan.
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: Put a little bit of the flour inside, yeah.
SAGAL: Amy, a new dating app provides an additional feature beyond the standard matchmaking. You use it for little while and it gives you what?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Well, not directly.
DICKINSON: You use it for a little while and it gives you...
SAGAL: Of course, you might need to take your sharpie onto your smartphone and change the F into a B.
DICKINSON: Oh, a grade?
SAGAL: Yeah, it gives you a dating grade.
DICKINSON: Oh...
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
POUNDSTONE: ...My, that's awful.
DICKINSON: Oh you mean like when you take an Uber car and you have to rate the driver?
SAGAL: Yeah.
DICKINSON: No.
SAGAL: But the way it works is - this is a little different. Your not being rated by other people. The app itself rates you as a dating person - a dater based on your profile and your dating skill.
DICKINSON: Oh my God. And then other people who are trying to match with you will see your grade?
SAGAL: Yeah. That's the whole idea.
DICKINSON: Oh my stars.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah, that's not...
DICKINSON: No.
POUNDSTONE: What's that thing? You know, christianmingle.com, they say on their ad...
SAGAL: Yeah.
POUNDSTONE: They say find a mate that God wants you to have.
DICKINSON: (Laughter) I know.
POUNDSTONE: And I just think does God need the Internet?
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: You know, it's supposed to be all powerful.
O'ROURKE: He's - God's an old white guy. He doesn't understand this crap.
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: Then there's another one where it's for farm people.
SAGAL: Farmers Only. It's the official dating website of WAIT WAIT DON'T TELL ME.
POUNDSTONE: Farmers Only.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: It's very successful apparently.
POUNDSTONE: Well, I love it that farmers are excluding us. You know...
SAGAL: Yeah.
POUNDSTONE: ...Farmers Only, like we were trying to push our way into the farming dating cycle.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Now...
POUNDSTONE: Are you sick of all the farming couples being broken up by the city folk?
(LAUGHTER)
DICKINSON: It's like...
O'ROURKE: I am technically a farmer.
SAGAL: I know that.
DICKINSON: Yeah.
O'ROURKE: Yeah, I...
POUNDSTONE: Yeah, you have a farm?
O'ROURKE: I have a tree farm.
SAGAL: I've seen your land.
DICKINSON: So do you get tax benefits?
O'ROURKE: Tax benefits, absolutely, you know, I mean, I may be a Republican...
DICKINSON: I know.
O'ROURKE: ...I'm not stupid.
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: Well, wait a minute. I have 16 cats, shouldn't I get something?
(LAUGHTER) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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