Hi Julie,
Thanks for asking the “community” for input. It means a lot. You might get even more feedback by jumping on Twitter (@wbur) and Facebook (maybe).

I had fun meeting you during @WBUR Tweetup last Friday. Here’s the “interview” I did with you at http://www.utterz.com/AdamZand:
http://www.utterz.com/u/utt/u-NTEyNDI2Mg#utt-NTEyNDI2Mg

Thanks again for your time then and especially on this forum.
Keep up the great work, cheers, Adam
PS hmm, you were all over the Pakistan Presidential prediction weren’t you

Did you get my earlier comment saluting this effort and linking to our Utterz interview?
Cheers, Adam

Hi Julie and Tom,
I am a devoted fan; what you do is so interesting and relevant and top-notch.
An idea: You’ve done many informative programs on K-12 education that have included experts in the field of education, teachers, and callers. But! what’s missing from the conversation, and what not too many people talk about, is parental accountability. One of the only persons that I’ve heard actually address this was Theresa Heines before the last election. In this day and age of school and teacher accountability, how are parents being held accountable for the academic, social, and emotional education of our youngest citizens?

I really like the Friday news roundup. Perhaps for the second hour you could devote the entire hour to international news. I feel that with a second complete hour devoted to international news, Mr. Ashbrook and his guests could have some deeper discussions into the how and why of international news. Thanks.

I am thankful that South Carolina has a comprehensive, cohesive, unified public radio & TV program that allowed me to be exposed to On Point in the first place. I listen to public radio online (poor radio reception where I am), and I wish the Real stream from WBUR was at higher bitrate - though I know the costs are great. Because I listen online, though, On Point inspired me to donate to WBUR from all the way down in Charleston, and I want the staff to know that the program continues to be one of the most thought-provoking shows around. Quite often I find myself making a point to my peers by saying, “Well today on On Point,…”

Other than a desire for improved streaming, I ask that y’all just keep up the good work: keep the topics fresh and keep the dialogue inquisitive, which Tom and Jane seem to do by nature. As long as this show continues to “ask the next question,” you’ll have my ear to bend.

hi, thank you for the time and energy required to produce such a quality program. i’m 25 and from wisconsin, but am currently living in holland (listening to your show via internet.) recently that enormous mass of floating plastic in the pacific ocean made it into the news again here. naturally I browsed through your archives to find a show on the topic, but unfortunately to no avail. i wonder why there is not more attention given to what is obviously a big issue (geographically speaking at least.) i think a show on this topic would provide much needed information; it would also help me feel a bit better to have companions in outrage. Thanks again for your time and consideration.

“On Point” is just getting better and better and more and more important nationally as you can tell from the top-notch people you get to participate. I love it. Many thanks too for making it so easy to comment online! Love the new site. Best regards to you all.

Personally, I would like to hear a show on the trend for academic institutions to seek donations “worthy” of naming rights - buildings, schools, even campuses. There are major ethical concerns and I wonder if this doesn’t effect the support these institutions receive and where it comes from - do alumni give less because they think it isn’t needed, do legislators feel less pressure to provide budget increases for public universities if they are “successful” in garnering millions in support from big individual donors, corporations, and foundations. Here at UNC Chapel Hill, I am very concerned about the impact of these donations. The School of Pharmacy was just renamed after Fred Eschelman, the CEO of PPD (a large pharmaceutical contract research organization) and the School of Public Health is set to change their name, in response to a $50 mil donation from Dennis Gillings, CEO of Quintiles (the largest pharmaceutical CRO). Would love to hear a show on this. Also, BMJ just published an article from Jeanne Lenzer (Truly independent research?, Aug 21, 2008) that relates to these concerns.

Both Tom and Jane excel at managing guest and caller points, keeping the show efficient while allowing for varying views. The topics are great, often timely, but even better when I can spend an hour getting to know an author or research finding that is not a part of the regular news cycle. I like the new site and when I have time I search the archives and listen to old shows. My only suggestion is MORE! a third hour? a third host? more reports from different countries (the China week was superb)? Perhaps once a week you could spend 10 minutes highlighting some behind the scenes of the show, producer profiles, or other insights into what must be a fascinating enterprise.

Feedback: I love your show. It is intelligent, well produced (bravo) and timely. I listen to your show faithfully although I have to cringe a lot of the time at the left wing bias shown by Tom and too many of your guests. I am probably (based on the comments you get on your show) one of the few conservative listeners you have.

My feedback would be to try to get more conservative counterpoints to your shows. Since Tom is left-leaning and many of his quests are as well it does no good to just have one conservative voice during your political shows. Their should be a similar number of and liberal guest of similar capabilities.

Disagreeing with the previous comment, I think OnPoint already does a great job of balancing viewpoints … Inserting so-called “conservative viewpoints” into certain issues where facts may be stipulated, such as, at this point, global warming issues. Booking some random Heritage Foundation/Exxon Oil flak only gives the public the misperception that there is real, 50/50, scientific debate on that issue (as an example) where there is not.

Furthermore, Tom grills all his guests, left or right or neither, equally and properly. Great show, don’t change a thing!

I’d second the suggestion for a 2nd hour of Weekly Roundup, although I almost always enjoy the literary and cultural pieces that tend to fill the 2nd hour on Fridays as well.

I find On Point to be too topical. One of the problems with US culture in general is that Americans always want everything in the present - they have no tolerance for perspective, background, or history. On an archetypal American desk calenday every leaf would eschew a month and day and just say “Today”, a wall clock would have no numbers, just “Now, Now, Now”. So I think On Point is too heavily weighted to today’s news.

I preferred the format of the old “Connection” series which had more interviews with historians, artists, writers - and they talked about art, history, music, poetry, the classics, etc. On Point has some of this, e.g., the recent Kay Ryan interview, but even that was topical in that she had just been named Poet Laureate.

Love the show. A regular listener, and occasional caller.
Tom is a terrific moderator, and when he is gone, no one does that quite as well as he does.

I would like to see more delving into the war in Iraq. I thought the show about how little news coverage there is was an important one. I would like a show exploring how much the current improvement in Iraq is due to the surge, and how much it is due to the truce made with the Mahdi (sp?) army. It seems when the truce broke down in April, the death rate spiked, until it was renegotiated. How tenuous is this agreement?

More Jack Beatty. So insightful, so urbane, so accuracy in his verbal penurity.

More Jack Beatty. So insightful, so urbane, so accurate in his verbal penurity.

Great show. My favorite on NPR by far. Tom is a class act! You know that the show has something special going on when you tune in and get disappointed when he has a day off!

Bring back Christopher Hitchens and some other guys from Slate to discuss more about Iraq, the US Presidential race, and Religion

I’m not sure your pattern of 1 hour of politics, the second hour on a lighter topic is one you want to continue forever. Each show stands alone, some of what you might consider your lighter shows have ended up being more timely than those you consider timely (to me anyway).

One way to experiment with this would be to make the Friday show a 2 hour weekly roundup. I find that the first hour on Friday goes too fast and then it’s done and a lighter topic comes up. How about on Friday it’s all weekly roundup with the lighter topics being the lighter news stories rather than a totally different show.

If that works, consider an occassional 2 hour show devoted to a single topic that needs 2 hours.

If that works, consider mixing up the way the two hours are programmed.

This in no way means I find Tom’s shows on authors less interesting than the political shows. I actually find his shows on books to be some of his best as his academic background and worldliness shines through.

On a totally different tach, does Tom have a warning about when a station ID break is coming up? There have been times when he’s started a guest off and then, awkwardly had to cut in because of a necessary break. I’m wondering if breaks have to be at an exact time? Couldn’t he break before asking a guest to launch into a complex discussion? This is minor but I do notice it from time to time.

All in all, this is one of the best shows on radio, even if I do listen to it primarily as a podcast.

Great show. Always informative.

How costly would it be to have p.m. listeners hear, “good morning?” Rebroadcast is nothing to be ashamed of.

Sometimes it seems as if area of debate don’t get opened, or that certain topics don’t get examined fully.

I am such an avid listener, and occasional caller, to ON POINT that I download any missed program for later listening on my I-pod. However, when I mention your interesting and informative show to other NPR listeners, they sometimes confuse it with To The Point, another super program.
I rarely record the Friday news shows mainly because as a news junky (C-Span is my only television watching), the discussion seems old hat two weeks later…. sort of like reading old newspapers. Perhaps this is indicative of how ephemeral both the news and our attention spans are. Therefore, I support those comments on this post which ask for more historical, literary, art and music programming. Culture trumps overexposed social and political issues for variety.

Love the show. Where did the archived shows go? I used to routinely browse them and and use them for educational purposes, but no I can no longer get to them. Via your google search, all I ever get is a dead end page. Please pass along to your techies. Thanks.