This became worse during COVID as many of the presenters work from home and aren’t as savvy with their momentary mute. Lots of swallowing, coughing, and nose whistling. Particularly during Morning Edition.

I don't know who it is, but one person in particular seems to have a retainer and it is unbearable. Every time they talk about "tthiss" or "thsat".

If it is a female my misophonia suggests it is Mary Louise Kelly. I've gotten used to it. There is also a male voice on one of the weekend shows that might be who you're describing.

I wrote in to a cable TV show a decade ago to call out the nose hair whistling and mouth sounds. They never replied to me, but they rolled off the highs for the remainder of the shows.

There was one NPR broadcaster who used to read the news on weekend mornings for my local station (WHYY), I forget her name, and I haven't heard her in a while thankfully, but she literally whispered the news.

It was like someone I don't know, whispering sweet, unsolicited nothings in my ear. Felt uncomfortably intimate in a way I hated. I was always like, "Lady, I don't know you like that, so cut it out."

Years ago when I moved for my first job out of school I decided to set my clock radio to the local NPR station (KERA Dallas) to wake up to the news. I had to switch to a hard rock station because I'd fall back asleep to their soft voices.

Reminds me of ASMR.

The amount of vocal fry on NPR has become as bad as Mary Louise Kelly's dry mouth clicking. And once you hear it, you can't unhear it.

Language Log investigated the "vocal fry problem" a few years back.

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=17489

"And they want to talk about the crazy ways that young women are speaking. And the first thing they do is attribute it to young women, even though young men are doing it too. So it's a policing of young people, but I think most particularly young women."

Rather, once you've randomly decided that that's a horrible thing.

Men (and women) have spoken with vocal fry for the past several millennia, but I don't recall reading of anyone being annoyed by it until recently when everybody decided that millennial women speaking like that on the radio was anathema.

This is especially notable with Peter Overby. Excellent journalist and presenter, though.

Back in the day, whenever Mr. Overby would come on the radio, I would have loads of fun imagining that he had just been rudely interrupted at the dinner table to do his segment. Then, I would guess at what kind of food he had in his mouth as he gave his hurried report. To me at least, the particular tone of his voice made it sound like he was eating mashed potatoes or a sandwich, and he wanted to get back to his dinner with his family. Yes, I have a colorful interior life inside my head. Don't judge me. But seriously, he has a very unique sound to his voice. I tried to look up his background and where he grew up, but couldn't find anything. It's surprising to me that he hasn't done voice work or animation, as he would be perfect for those roles.

It's a lot worse with tiny headset mics. Large diaphragm condensers like the Neumann will give you that level of detail, but some of the tiny headset mics HYPE that level of detail unbearably. The Neumanns will at least fail to exaggerate what is already unbearable for you :)