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Fascinating ten minute snippet from NPR this morning on my drive over to the office.

It seems to reflect ideological distress, intellectual bankruptcy, financial distress, and Mandarin Class distress.

In straight order.

First thing I hear about when I get in the car and turn it on is that NPR has had to postpone its spring fundraising and does not know when or if it will happen. This isn't news, it a request. Please give money.

Next is the teaser for a later segment in which they will discuss just how Trump has failed to show global leadership on the Covid-19 pandemic. Their bubble prevents them from making the connection that Trump was to a material degree elected by voters wanting the president to focus on America rather than spending time and money on the rest of the world in ways that never seem to make a difference. This isn't news, this is an advertisement for their own content and the content being advertised is opinion.

Next is the news reader speaking on behalf of a sponsor (forfend an "advertiser", NPR doesn't do crass things like advertising). She wants to inform us that WhiteHouse.com (or some such) is not affiliated with the White House but sells memorabilia. Right now they have two mint coins commemorating the Covid-19 pandemic. Each can be had for the low sum of $100.

When NPR starts running "Wait but that's not all . . . " advertisements more commonly seen on 1am rerun TV channels, then I am guessing that the financial squeeze is beginning to hurt. They would rather embarrass themselves with such advertising than improve the quality of their reporting so that it is accurate and useful for the whole nation rather than just the fringe left Mandarin Class. This isn't news, this is advertising.

Next is a "news report" interviewing some Dean or President at Brown University. She is concerned that they will not be able to open in the fall. In fact, she is desperate to reopen. She is concerned that in all the talk about sectors in financial distress, there isn't enough attention being paid to billion dollar endowment universities.

For the first time we are dealing with some possible news. It is pretty retreaded news at this point. The financial distress and operational stress on K-12 schools and universities has been widely reported for the better part of a month. A real issue but a well established one.

It quickly becomes apparent that though this is in the form of factual reporting and an interview, this is actually NPR offering an advertising and advocacy platform. The Dean is doing a pitch to politicians for special financial treatment and to future students to please come back to campus. It is a sales pitch in polysyllabic words.

The Dean goes through the motions of "its all about the students." Interestingly though, the doesn't really talk about education and learning. It is about the experience. About the experience of being together. Students need to come back to campus in the fall so they can experience being together and going to events and discovering each other.

Oh, and as a secondary issue, yes, some universities are going to go bankrupt if students don't return.

Hard to tell whether learning and education is a tertiary issue or perhaps doesn't rank at all as important to the Dean of Brown University. It isn't mentioned.

It is clear that their recruiting for next year has been hobbled and she said many students are reluctant to return to residential campuses. So the Mandarin Class Brown University costing $75,000 is facing the prospect of losing bright students to local non-residential colleges and universities. Demand has evaporated for their product and as a paid up member of the Mandarin Class, NPR is doing the best to help the privileged to get their message out that they are suffering as well and need handouts from the public.

This also reflects an odd fracturing of the Mandarin Class agenda. Most of the mainstream media left are deeply skeptical and dismissive of early reopening and reduction in quarantining. In their bubble, government control of everyone and everything is a good thing and they are sad to see the reversion to freedom. All dressed up in precautionary principle concern for the well-being of people of course.

Also, conservatives, libertarians and the moderate middle are all clamoring for a return to normal. The mainstream media is deeply invested in the fact that there will be no return to normal and that there should be no relaxation until a vaccine might be invented in a year or two. Oh, and First and Second Amendment rights are really more suggestions rather than inalienable.

But if the MSM continue with that position, then universities cannot reopen. And if the feeder farm for postmodernist marxism is closed down, then just where will they be? The MSM is stuck with an awkward Schrödinger's paradox. They want everything open for government workers and academia but not for the actual citizens and producers of the nation. We are fast entering Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B territory at this point.

It has long been forecast by those in the center and on the right that universities were riding for a fall. Their cost has risen faster than almost any other product or service in the past forty years and the relative value of the degrees have fallen. The learning engine has been hobbled by reducing the number of full professors and their replacement by impoverished adjunct professors on tentative contracts. And overall the conveyor belt of education has been gummed up by bloated administrations, experiential luxuries and indulgence of luxury beliefs such as, well, you know the long litany.

And the fall was indeed coming. But like many sectors which lose productivity, effectiveness and relevance, sometimes the end comes with a bang not a whimper. They got bloated and precarious and a global pandemic has wrecked their model. Will they recover? Sure. Some will. Some won't. But it likely is going to accelerate the point where parents and the tax paying public are no longer willing to countenance the absurdities which have been indulged for the past couple of decades. Become an integral part of the productive system or swim on your own. Dip into your endowment before you dip into the pockets of the public. There is no room for destructive and unproductive parasites. That is my guess of a future attitude. Maybe.

And it won't be because of anti-intellectualism. It will be because of bloat, inefficiency and ineffectiveness.

So was the interview with the Dean from Brown news? No, not really. It was a sales pitch to students and Mandarin Class influencers of NPR. It was a special plea for help, amidst the impoverishment of individuals and the financial losses of other sectors.

Ten minute drive and zero news out of four reports. A zero percent value add rate is not much of an endorsement for their business model.