The Daily's Michael Barbaro

Here's a reddit thread complaining about his voice and the way he speaks in general.

It's offensive. He shouldn't be allowed to talk. He's like a reverse Siren.

How does one "used to be gay?" Once a homo...

Good comment from the Reddit thread:

I love the content of the daily but can't stand the guttural voice of Michael Barbaro. Chris Beck in his article in SpliceToday describes it best, "Michael Barbaro of the New York Times’ The Daily podcast, sounds like he’s in his death throes in the final two words of every sentence he speaks, and then he’s able to miraculously revive himself instantly to begin the next one. His nonstop vocal petites morts are almost heroic, in a sense, but brutal to listen to."

[quote] Also, apparently he used to be gay and left his husband for a woman.

So he's bisexual.

I don’t like his voice on the podcast either. All those hmms he does and the pauses drive me nuts. Plus, he’s got spooky eyes. Soulless eyes 👀

Yeah, his voice bothers me too. In the olden days, if you worked in radio you had to have a voice for it (or they sweetened it with tech?), but now with podcasts a lot of people who shouldn't be doing public speaking are doing so.

But what bothers me the most about the Barbaro is the fake dialogue with the guests. They know the storyline beforehand and then he pretends to find it out in the course of the podcast. So all the "Hmms!" and "Wows!" are even more annoying.

This is the first time I've ever seen a photo of him. His picture looks nothing like I imagined he would look. I imaged he was short with a comb-over and a little plump.

Remember Michael Barbaro from NY1 News (back when it was a great local NYC station featuring John Schiumo doing "The Call"). always assumed he was gay.

Some Italian men can be funny about homosexuality. One day they're all fine about things, then out of the blue suddenly cannot cope or whatever and want to go back to being straight. This lasts until they get that itch again, then your (or some other guy) gets a text or telephone call....

My trans friends say the same thing, one of them has sworn off Italian men for that reason; they run too hot then cold, and she can't be bothered anymore.

R7

Michael Barbaro was (or still is depending upon one's point of view) actually rather good looking in his younger days. Sort of a northern Italian romantic sort of look with all those masses of curls. Totally opposite of the muscular buff Italian stallion "err my name is uh Eugene...." that comes to mind when thinking about NYC Italian men.

But the voice!.

I can't think of anyone else whose speaking style inspires me to anger.

To be fair MB never started out to do "radio" or whatever voice media. He is a print journalist/writer, etc.... He like everyone else news media nowadays has had to adapt to changing tastes and times. The Daily is one of the NYT's higher rated podcasts, so Michael Barbaro must be doing something right.

His appearances on NY1 news were usually part of a panel of local NYC newspaper reporters brought together on Friday evenings (Inside City Hall) to discuss the week's NYS/NYC and perhaps national political events.

He has a voice for print.

R9, Rather good looking?! 🧐