First thing, the example you gave is not a valid list.
example_list = [u'nowplaying',u'PBS', u'PBS', u'nowplaying', u'job', u'debate',u'thenandnow']
Suppose if above is the example list. Then you can use the following recipe as give the itertools example doc that can return the unique values and preserving the order as you seem to require. The iterable here is the example_list
from itertools import ifilterfalse
def unique_everseen(iterable, key=None):
"List unique elements, preserving order. Remember all elements ever seen."
# unique_everseen('AAAABBBCCDAABBB') --> A B C D
# unique_everseen('ABBCcAD', str.lower) --> A B C D
seen = set()
seen_add = seen.add
if key is None:
for element in ifilterfalse(seen.__contains__, iterable):
seen_add(element)
yield element
else:
for element in iterable:
k = key(element)
if k not in seen:
seen_add(k)
yield element
