Melody Kramer




People Not In News Commenting On The News: Meet Jonah

15 Jan 2015 by melodyjoykramer




Meet Jonah Sutton-Morse. He’s a stay-at-home dad with two daughters (preschool-aged and an almost-toddler) and lives in a Chicago suburb. I met Jonah on Twitter, where he spends a lot of time “trying to figure out suburban Chicago stay-at-home Dad socializing.”

Jonah still gets a lot of his news from public media. “I grew up on Minnesota Public Radio [and listened to] A Prairie Home Companion and Sound Money, along with Car Talk and All Things Considered,” he says.

Jonah was kind to answer some questions about how he gets his news. If you’d like to read the others in the series, please click here, and if you want to take part, just let me know.

1. How do you get your news? Please answer in a haiku or limerick. Your choice.

Do numbers with Kai
People on Twitter Share Stuff
NPR in Cars

2. Please send me a gif or video that captures your attention span.

I don’t really understand animated gifs, but kids are distracting and wonderful. Does this work?  (Ed note: Yes.)

3. How do you take your coffee?

Black, from a Chemex or Aeropress because coffee is about rituals and spilling grounds.

4. Who’s doing it right in news?

Marketplace. They always have a consistent angle, which means even when they’re doing the story of the day or week it’s worth a listen. Plus Kai Rysdall is a great interviewer, especially when talking to random small business people around the country.

5. What’s the first news event that you remember?

In second grade I remember switching to a new school and seeing a newspaper clipping criticizing the first Iraq war. I also remember the “Save the Whales” and “I saw the wall fall” buttons. I definitely remember those buttons & knowing it was the Berlin Wall and Important. That was a couple years earlier but I don’t really remember specific events.

6. What was the best thing that happened to you this week?

My 3 1/2 year old told me that the story of Bilbo Baggins the Burglar Hobbit that is been telling in the car was pretty good & we should make a book, so she started drawing scenes from The Hobbit. Either that or her little sister climbing up stairs.

7. What do you absolutely hate about the news?

I hate the extent to which news seems more about covering what everyone is covering than digging into stories & context that need to be told. But then, other than whatever NPR stories get highlighted in Twitter/NPR One, all I see of the news are headlines people link to that I ignore, so maybe I’m wrong? Margaret Sullivan’s column suggests to me that even news insiders think there are a lot of newsworthy stories not being covered.


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