I’m no opponent of public radio, but this is beneath them.

@Paperboy — Good point, “nontroversy” was a silly and unneeded coinage. But actually, even with “non-controversy” substituted, I’d say they’re mis-stating the point. Many of these were obviously and definitely controversies: people spent some considerable time and effort disputing about them. That makes something a controversy, just by definition. This article wants to say that some of these were worthless controversies, with one side having no basis in reality for their claims. That doesn’t make them into non-controversies.

@All — What do you think of a rather recent swing in usage that calls something “controversial” meaning only “provocative” or “risqué”. I’m a fairly strict literalist here and would label something “controversial” only if it has in fact already been the subject of some controversy. These looser usages seem to allow “controversial” if something is just likely to become or potentially the subject of controversy, or if it deals with a topic which in turn is already actually controversial.

The author, John Ridley, is an interestingly-placed figure. He seems more conservative than you might expect from an African-American NPS commentator (or indeed most any NPR commentator); I’m pretty sure I heard him identify himself as a Republican voter at some point in the last decade, though I think in the last Presidential election he did support Obama. He’s the author of quite a few screenplays and novels, all pretty well respected. I’ve liked most of his work that I’ve seen or read, in particular the sort of lightweight but fun and menacing 1999 novel “Everybody Smokes in Hell” and the more heavy-duty 2002 novel “The Drift”.

Sometime around 2004, when NPR was preparing to put Bob Edwards out to pasture, they scheduled a week when Morning Edition was guest-hosted by Renee Montagne (who did become one of the replacement co-hosts, continuing to today) as a sort-of hinted tryout. What I thought was a great feature during that week was inviting John Ridley to do a full-week five-part series of an insider’s view of Hollywood and the movie industry. He was really interesting; and that fooled me into thinking that the hosting shakeup at Morning Edition would result in a livelier program. But I don’t think they’ve achieved that.

As a lifelong conservative, I have to say that comment is overwrought. I think it was a pretty evenhanded piece, skewering the left and the right.