Carl Kasell is my press secretary

Earlier today at 11, the venerable Carl Kasell delivered his final top-of-the-hour newscast for NPR's Morning Edition.  Although he'll still serve as scorekeeper on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me and will travel the country fundraising for local affiliate stations, I cannot express enough how much I'll miss him as part of my morning commute.

Hearing Kasell read the news lent every story a sense of dignified gravity.  It's not that Jean Cochran or Paul Brown or Lakshmi Singh deliver the news poorly.  To the contrary, I really like the split-second of anticipation that precedes the start of a news update, wondering who among the large cast of characters will be reading the headlines.  I appreciate the different styles, the range of vocal tones, and, of course, the subtly varied ways of saying "From NPR News in Washington..."

But, at the same time, this diversity only serves to underscore the greatness of Carl Kasell.  I treat his unflappable composure and deep, rich baritones as the gold standard of radio newscasts.  As consistently excellent as the rest of the field is, no one can match this.  Beginning my morning without Kasell's calming, authoritative voice is going to take a lot of getting used to.

I'm sure I'll eventually become familiar with hearing someone else.  I've only been a daily NPR listener for about a year and a half, and I can remember feeling similiarly saddened by the departure of Marketplace Morning Report's Scott Jagow only to become accustomed to Steve Chiotakis relatively quickly.  But replacing a 30 year institution is no easy task, and, even as I integrate a new voice into my morning routine, I doubt I will soon forget the pleasure of listening to Carl Kasell.

I had grand plans of sneaking out of work to catch the 11:01 am newscast in my car this morning.  Unfortunately, when I glanced at my clock it was already 11:09.  Though I felt deflated at first, I was able to download the audio of the newscast from NPR's website.  It was mostly flawless, but the audio technician flubbed one of the recorded segments.  Naturally, Kasell took it all in stride and then, with a swift "this is NPR News," he signed off.  Carl, you will be sorely missed.

Now a related aside that absolutely made my day: Mark Memmott spent the morning live-blogging the final newscast and the following party for npr.org.  In addition to learning that a huge crowd gathered to watch and celebrate and that Steve Inskeep was enjoying a piece of white frosted cake with strawberries while laughing with Carl, Mark also mentioned that everyone was sporting "Carl Kasell is My Press Secretary" buttons.

I have wanted one of these buttons since I knew they existed (which, unfortunately, came after the period of time that they were available as a free promotion connected to the 2008 election season).  After scouring ebay and craigslist without success, I even resorted to asking Santa Claus to find me one.  So this morning, when Mark mentioned the buttons, I submitted a question asking if there was anywhere that we could purchase them online.  He said he would look into it and then, moments later, said that he had grabbed a couple of free ones and would mail one to me, along with any other interested Kasell-fans.

Our subsequent email exchange went something like this:

Me: Thanks so much for doing this, here's my address.  Can I pay you for postage?
Mark: You're welcome.  Don't worry about the postage.  It's my gift to Carl.
Me: My gift to Carl is going to be a fatter-than-usual donation to WAMU when I renew my membership this February.  Thanks again.

The point of this tangent, I suppose, is that Mark Memmott is cooler than Santa Claus.  I was not kidding about the donation, though.  NPR continually wows me with the quality of its programming (and its newscasters), but this small, fleeting act of personalized attention impresses me even more.  Perhaps, judging by my level of excitement over a lapel pin, my loyalty is easily purchased.  But I'd prefer to think that this experience says more about NPR than about me; that an organizational culture of treating people well begets donations, just as well-produced, informative radio lures listeners and likeable, long-tenured newscasters breed fans eager to wear kitschy buttons.