If you somehow had the warped idea that NPR and PBS were the be all end all dispensers of intellectual thought and you watched or listened yet had no real interest well, I guess you'd be like the old wanabee Charlie the Tuna in those old Starkist commercials. Personally I like to listen to Garrison Keillor and genuinely love classical music. One makes me laugh and the other makes me relax. Neither makes me any more devastatingly brilliant than a night of Eddie Izzard or an hour of The Rolling Stones.

I don't watch PBS, but I do listen to NPR in the mornings sometimes.  Who am I going to impress by listening to the news?  My husband is the only other person in the car!

My husband does this all the time. It bores the heck out of me.

It will not make people think you are smarter unless you absorb what you see and hear. If you do not absorb what you see and hear I guarantee people will know just how sleepy and bored you really are, and that my friend does not make you look like the brightest lightbulb on the tree.

That wouldn't make you seem smart, it would make you seem as though you were a liberal.

No. This just marks you as a liberal and there's nothing smart about that.

This may actually make you "smarter" (or at least better informed),but most people will not be looking while you do this.

Be wary; some may think you are dumber than you are.

I used to do this when I was in college. I always listen to NPR on the weekends.