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Published on Friday, March 25, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
NPR Is Not Left Wing Opposite of Right Wing Media Machine
Our publicly supported media is not perfect, but we must defend it against this current asault
Like Jake LaMotta and his brother Joey in the bloody boxing classic Raging Bull, we are gluttons for punishment. So here we are again, third week in a row, defending NPR against the bare-knuckled assault of its critics.
Our earlier pieces (here and here) on the funding threat to NPR have generated plenty of punches, both pro and con. And although most of the comments were welcome, and encouraged further thinking about the value of public media in a democratic society, a few reminded us of the words of the poet and scholar James Merrick: "So high at last the contest rose/From words they almost came to blows!"
Nonetheless, reading those comments and criticisms made us realize there are a couple of points that these two wizened veterans of public broadcasting -- with the multiple tote bags and coffee mugs to prove it -- would like to clarify.
For one, when we described the right wing media machine as NPR’s "long-time nemesis," it was not to suggest that somehow public radio is its left wing opposite. When it comes to covering and analyzing the news, the reverse of right isn’t left; it’s independent reporting that toes neither party nor ideological line. We’ve heard no NPR reporter -- not a one -- advocating on the air for more government spending (or less), for the right of abortion (or against it), for or against gay marriage, or for or against either political party, especially compared to what we hear from Fox News and talk radio on all of these issues and more.
Take, for example, talk jocks John and Ken on KFI-AM Radio in Los Angeles. They beat on California’s state legislature like a cheap pinata. According to the Los Angeles Times, "Within a matter of moments, they refer to various lawmakers as 'traitorous pigs,' 'con artist' and 'Republican dirt bag.' They use gruesome sound effects to suggest the mounting of one legislator's head on a stake -- his entry into the duo's hall of shame."
The personalities, "whose frequent targets are taxes, labor unions and illegal immigrants, not only reach more listeners than any other non-syndicated talk show in California but also have the ear -- and fear -- of Sacramento's minority party."
"'There is nary a conversation about the budget that does not involve the names John and Ken,' said Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), the state Senate leader." And that's true whether what they say is grounded in fact or simply made up wholesale out of flimsy, opinionated cloth.
So what do conservatives really mean when they accuse NPR of being "liberal?" They mean it’s not accountable to their worldview as conservatives and partisans. They mean it reflects too great a regard for evidence and is too open to reporting different points of views of the same event or idea or issue. Reporting that by its very fact-driven nature often fails to confirm their ideological underpinnings, their way of seeing things (which is why some liberals and Democrats also become irate with NPR).
That’s why our favorite new word is "agnotology." According to the website WordSpy, it means "the study of culturally-induced ignorance or doubt," a concept developed in recent years by two historians of science at Stanford University, Robert Proctor and his wife, Londa Schiebinger.
Believing that global climate change is a myth is one example of the kind of ignorance agnotologists investigate. Or the insistence by the tobacco industry that the harm caused by smoking is still in dispute. Or the conviction that Barack Obama is a closet Muslim, and a radical one at that, who may not even be from America.
Those first two illusions have been induced by big business in a cynical attempt to keep pumping profits from deadly pollutants, whether fossil fuels or nicotine. The third, dreamed up by fantasists of the right wing fringe, is in its own way just as toxic and has been tacitly, sometimes audibly, encouraged by certain opponents of President Obama who would perpetuate any prevarication to further blockade his agenda and deny him and fellow Democrats reelection.
None of them is true; rather, they fly in the face of those of us who belong to what an aide to George W. Bush famously called "the reality-based community [who] believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'" He told journalist Ron Suskind, ''That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."
To the accusers of NPR, the created reality of however they define "liberal" is not the same as what they mean when they call themselves "conservative." If it were, the two would be exact reverse images of each other. Where media are concerned, all you have to do to know this is not the case is to hold them up, side-by-side. If "liberal" were the counterpoint to "conservative," NPR would be the mirror of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and James O’Keefe, including the use of their techniques as well as content. Clearly it isn’t.
To charge otherwise is a phony gambit aimed at nothing less than quashing the public’s access to non-ideological journalism, narrowing viewpoints to all but one. We know from first-hand experience that any journalist whose reporting threatens the conservative belief system gets sliced and diced by its apologists and polemicists at Fox and on talk radio.
Remember, for one, when Limbaugh, took journalists to task for their reporting on torture at Abu Ghraib? He attempted to dismiss the cruelty inflicted by American soldiers on their captives as a little necessary "sport" for soldiers under stress, saying: "This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation... you [ever] heard of the need to blow some steam off?"
The Limbaugh line became a drumbeat in the nether reaches of the right-wing echo chamber. So it was not surprising that in a nationwide survey conducted by the Chicago Tribune on First Amendment issues, half of the respondents said there should be some kind of press restraint on reporting prison abuse. Half or more said they "would embrace government controls of some kind on free speech, particularly when it has sexual content or is heard as unpatriotic." Many of those people came after NPR for reporting what actually happened at Abu Ghraib.
But to clear up one other thing: what NPR also isn’t, is what it could be.
In our support for its much-needed survival, admittedly we may have been a bit fulsome in our praise. Like many commentators who posted after our previous two pieces, as regular listeners we know there is room for improvement, the need for more diverse voices and for more courageous journalism that reports not merely what the powerful say but what they actually do for their paymasters.
Americans need more and sustained reporting on what the journalist William Greider calls "the hard questions of governance" -- those questions of how and why some interests are allowed to dominate the government’s decision making while others are excluded. Who gets the money and who has to pay? Who must be heard on this question and who can be safely ignored? None execute this kind of reporting better than Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez’s on Democracy Now!, which, while carried by some public radio and television stations, is not distributed nationally by either NPR or PBS. Public media – radio and television – too rarely challenge the dictum: "News is what people want to keep hidden; everything else is publicity."
Yet in the words of Confucius, better a diamond with a flaw -- a big flaw -- than a pebble without. For all that it provides -- but mainly because it is a true journalistic, rather than ideological, alternative to commercial and partisan broadcasting -- we continue to support government funding of public media until such time as a sizable trust or some other solid, independent source of funding, unfettered by political interference, can be established that will free us to tell the stories America most needs to hear. Short of that we’ll need the courage, as one of our journalistic heroes, the late George Seldes, wrote, "to tell the truth and run."
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70 Comments so far
Show AllUmm, the title offers a perfect reason for eliminating NPR. So why the subtitle and the story?
I wish it was.
I come to this from a "Death of the Liberal Class" perspective. My view of the "liberal bias" of NPR is that for all its posturing it has never put itself on the line to tell the truth and therefore has nothing very important to say.
NPR covered a story about a West Virginia mining disaster a few years ago and had a company official come on the air and blame the disaster on lightening or something really bogus like that. The NPR way to cover the story was to let the corporate official tell his lies without challenge or rebuttal and not to give any context or history which would help us to understand why a coal company official would be so deceitful. From listening to the report you would think that the coal company was the miner's friend. (those of us who have grown up around coal know that the company is never the miner's friend) I emailed the reporter and asked, "why do you let him spout that drivel? Why do you put such lies on the air?" He responded, " of course its lies--isn't that obvious to you?" The cowardice, the unctuousness, the unwillingness to dig for the truth particularly if it embarrasses the corporate power that runs America is the real hallmark of NPR's supposed journalism. Now the corporate powers are strong enough and in control enough that they can tell NPR they don't need them for cover anymore. After all that NPR has done for them. How rude, how ungrateful. And such a shock to discover that their usual white washing of stories is not even appreciated by the forces they usually side with. But from my perspective it couldn't happen to a nicer, more deserving gentile bunch of people.
I wouldn't walk across the street to give them
a quarter...after the 2000 election theft which
the rovian phalanx deftly took over the editorial
helm of PBS and never was election fraud men-
tioned ever. For the majority of cruise missile
liberals, if it isn't discussed on NPR, it is
nonexistent. So when the saudi funded pakistani
run "faux" terror attack came while our air force
was running 'play stupid' exercises, mostly in alaska,
NPR played comfortably numb. The best thing that
could happen to this country , we've decided, is for
Repugnants to win every election. We'd have been
'better' off with mccain winning....so there would have
no FAUX expectations. American DESERVE neocon
rulers...
NPR is to FAUX news as Dimocrats are to
Repugnants....codependents, facilitators....
Proof that that is no difference between bush ,
osama and obama? After a college student snuck
into a bush arranged 'AUCTION' of public lands for
private gains, Obamas attorney general prosecuted
the HERO. If these were actually opposing forces,
obama would have at least pardoned college student.
and Osama? that he is still alive is proof of his use
to the empire.
benningwentworth,
I haven't seen you around lately. I couldn't agree with you more if McCain and PALIN had won we would not be in such state today. If McCain and Palin have done everything that Obama did as of today, you would see uproar and protest a hundred times more than in Madison. Obama, is Democrats gift to the Repug.
thanks....i've been REAL
busy listening to 5:51 by
bruce cockburn, track 5
album name
small source of comfort
(too much traffic in my mind)
also been obsessed with march 6
cover of NYTimes magazine
Lori Berensons statement...
"I WAS MUCH FREER IN JAIL"
Because then NPR wouldn't ever be properly funded?
The fact that the right-wing media is so anxious to dismantle public media is good enough reason, to me, to keep funding NPR. If it pisses off the likes of Hannity, Palin, and Bachman, it can't be all bad.
Yeah, I know: NPR is pretty disappointing politically. But they are the only news outlet to reach 99% of Americans that isn't driven overwhelmingly by an eagerness to cover only sensational, shocking, angry, and conflict-focused stories (and only domestic, of course -- nothing of substance about the rest of the world, please, unless it's bad, scary, news) ... all for the unabashed purpose of selling more ad time to drug companies and Bud Lite.
I'd rather continue paying my $1.35 in taxes annually to support NPR, and work to improve their programming, than yank them off the air out of frustration ... promptly leaving 50% of Americans with nothing left to listen to but Limbaugh and Beck.
Those are the 50% of Americans who will be choosing our next politicial "leaders". And, I hate to break it to you, they won't be tuning into Amy Goodman when PBS is gone. God help us.
"Those are the 50% of Americans who will be choosing our next politicial "leaders". And, I hate to break it to you, they won't be tuning into Amy Goodman when PBS is gone. God help us."
Still don't get it, do you? There is no difference in either of the two parties when it comes to financial criminality (TBTFs/The Fed, etc.) and most certainly when it comes to our foreign policy of kill every fucking thing and one that moves.
NPR and PBS are irrelevant. Whether they live or die won't make any difference at all in the daily lives of the ordinary citizen. That's just the sad truth.
Pull the plug already.
Right on! Keep posting and I agree with you. :-)
FLAPdoodle...Cspan has also devolved to
a constant stream of right wing turdspittle.
grover norquist , andrude breitbart ,
palin clones, the whole drooling crew from
POLITICO, they have a railroad spur for their
deliveries of Ritalin...the only commentator
missing is LAURIE MILROIE the drooling
coauthor with judith miller of "saddam Hussein"
benningwentworth,
I don't watch these characters (no TV), but with my laptops I keep LiveStation on Aljazeera and sometime change to BBC, while I email and updating both laptops. :-)
Ah,. there it is - the fatal flaw in your thinking, a flaw that permeates all of your posts.
If the right wing is against it, that means it must be a good thing. In other words, the right wing is doing your thinking for you - telling you what to be against.
Did it ever occur to you that the right wing propaganda is defining the issues, prioritizing them, and setting the terms for the debate? "Here are the important issues, here are the two possible positions to take, and here are the terms for the debate" is what they are telling you, and you fall for it.
Your positions are being defined by the opposition.
NPR is not disappointing politically, it is disappointing as journalism, disappointing morally, ethically, and professionally.
One example - day after day after day Diane Rehm provides a platform for right wing think tanks on every issue. Very, very rarely does she ever challenge their talking points and propaganda scripts, and very rarely is there an effective counter-voice included on her panels.
The difference between her show and right wing radio shows is that she is more effectively disseminating the message - the same basic message as the right wing shows - and making it seem reasonable and legitimate, and sucking in people who would not be sucked into the right wing shows.
I don't want to blame the staff of NPR for the fact that it gradually became, starting in the 1990's, just another megaphone for the corporate and military machines...fighting those things is like trying to stop the tide from coming in. But the fact remains that for more than a decade NPR has been subverted into a machine to make the corporate/militarist message seem reasonable to liberals. And the old NPR that we remember from the 1980's and earlier died a long time ago. We are better off with a 1000 obvious right-wing news outlets than with NPR's fake liberal news.
Flapdoodle said it best when (s)he wrote: "he fact remains that for more than a decade NPR has been subverted into a machine to make the corporate/militarist message seem reasonable to liberals... fake liberal news."
Sorry, Mr Moyers. We love you and respect your accomplishments enormously--but don't you see that you seriously foul your reputation by defending NPR?. After two previous sessions on CD, are you having some sort of problem understanding this angry chorus of voices telling you to take that message back with you?
(And as for the common delusion that Garrison Keillor is the 21st-century avatar of Mark Twain, the loss of that cultural icon would cause me to shed few tears. Habitually enveloping the audience with folds of creamy batterwhipped bullshit is not the same as dispensing wit.)
(And can we talk about how infuriating that snide elitist tone used by NPR anchors has become over the years?)
Folks, support Pacifica, ProPublica, KBOO, and countless other worthy truth-tellers instead!
The "snide elitist tone" is the main reason I quit listening.
NPR is "Dunning-Kruger" run amok, in my opinion.
The arrogance of the folks at NPR is exceeded only by their idiocy.
"Habitually enveloping the audience with folds of creamy batterwhipped bullshit is not the same as dispensing wit."
Oh god, that's one beautiful line.
> "We are better off with a 1000 obvious right-wing news outlets than with NPR's fake liberal news."
Really? Man, post this over on freerepublic.com! They will LOVE you, Dude! Like, BIG time! You're their wet dream come true.
What's an "obvious right-wing news outlet" to you is just a regular news outlet to a really scary number of people that I meet every day ... have you visited Nebraska or Idaho lately?
Whoa! Nebraska? Really? While it IS scary to think of how many people actually believe Fox offers "news," there are actually some in Nebraska who eschew the whole Limbaugh-Beck ideal--and who support NPR because it's the only easily-visible alternative to Foxvomit. Mainstream media seems to be fraught with self-important wombats whose masters are owned by BigCorp. NPR arrogant? Sure! But have you watched Katie Couric lately? How about Brian Williams? Now there's some arrogance for you.
Flabpdoodle64:
"But the fact remains that for more than a decade NPR has been subverted into a machine to make the corporate/militarist message seem reasonable to liberals."
****
Well said! This is precisely how outfits like NPR and the married-to-the-status quo New York Times and Democratic party--all institutions of the "liberal class"--now function.
By tuning into NPR, liberal democrats, who would sooner slit their wrists than subject themselves to listening to the crazies at FOX News, can feel intellectually superior while being uncritically spoon-fed essentially the same procorporate/promilitary, establishment propaganda. NPR simply fashions a more sophisticated rhetorical package to appeal to the liberal demographic. NPR is as adept as corporate-controlled CNN, MSNBC, or the NYT at concealing the machinations of a corrupt elite, thereby ensuring the retention and expansion of elitist power.
..
If NPR/PBS were a mag-rag, you'd see it in rack at the Whole Foods checkout counter...
Politics to the left is fashion. Politics to the right is red meat.
Mr. Moyers,
There is a famous line: the pen is mightier than the sword...
That line, so often quoted, is false...
The sword will always slay the annoying pen...
That is why living journalists do not challenge power, and why murdered journalists no longer do...
Anyone unaware of the murdering of irritating journalists as a routine act of power needs to do more research...
Given this, it is unreasonable to expect the truth from a journalist...
Of what value, then, the media?
Propaganda...
As was said in, of all people, a Beach Boys song: "The pen is mightier than the sword, but it's no match for a gun."
Bill Moyers says "better a diamond with a flaw -- a big flaw -- than a pebble without."
Unfortunately, cubic zirconia is much closer to the reality.
And NPR certainly does NOT "tell the truth."
Hardly. Their lies may not be as blatant as those on Fox, but they are lies just the same -- primarily lies of omission.
Moyers is letting his loyalty to a quaint ideal get in the way of rational thought.
NPR and PBS were always lousy versions of public media, funding-wise.
Now they are often lousy content-wise as well.
Defending NPR and PBS is like defending Obamacare. You can only see it as not a total waste of time if you don't realize what REAL public media or medicine could be like.
Screw "defending" the current lousy funding system!
Let's FIGHT for real public funding instead!
Why the hell are WE always on the defense if THEY are the "Reactionaries"?
-matti.
The only time the pen is mightier than the sword is when the pen writes the truth, the people hear it, understand it , believe it, and act to change the things they should and can for the common good and the pen gives them the wisdom to know the difference.
However the sword is only a sword. People see it, understand it, believe it, and support it without the truth or wisdom to know the difference between what they should or should not change for the common good.
The right wing is no more correct about NPR being rightwing as they are on the perception of the Christ being here to save the Christian believers and smiting everyone else. Of course the problem is that mainstream media, including NPR, has no capacity to explain or cover progressive perspectives. Progressives have to learn to dig, discriminate and put a myriad of clues together to pierce the veil of illusion.
"According to Maitreya, the way “mega-giants” rob the health and wealth of individual nations does not come out in the media, because within governments everywhere individuals profit from this situation. “This has got to come to an end”."
- World Teacher Maitreya through an associate as reported by Share International
To all that have commented, at least there is one opposing viewpoint from NPR in the midst of so many right-wing fanatics like Glenn Beck, Rush, O'Reilly. You need counter balance in views. While some one noted that in the 80's they were more Democratic leaning, today they seem to be more in the middle, not judging one or the other side more. I still think it is worth watching as they present their journalistic style in a moderate toned voice, unlike the rantings of Glenn Beck or Rush who seem to be totally angry all the time. It gets tiring to listen to their yelling at the audience. People can differ on matters, but there is no need for hostily towards your guests or other points of view.
NPR does not "counter-balance" right wing media, it complements it.
Nationalist Public Radio, I won't lift a finger for you, if you go the way of trash bin of history.
NPR uses the term 'harsh interrogation', instead of the word 'torture' when describing certain U.S. practices towards prisoners (only Iran and other members of the Axis of Evil torture).
Last September, after the commemoration of the evelenth, NPR reported that there were two beams of light in the Manhattan sky on the night of the eleventh, when in fact a third one -- for Building 7 -- was perfectly visible next to the other two.
NPR refused to call Loughner's murderous assault on peaceful and innocent citizens in Tucson an act of terrorism.
Even after murderer Raymond Davis had clearly been identified as a CIA operative in Pakistan, NPR continued to claim that he had diplomatic immunity, ignoring both his actual status within the U.S. government and the letter of the Vienna Convention regarding diplomatic immunity.
Who needs this kind of propaganda?
I was disappointed, too. I got the impression from the article that the authors had actually read the criticisms that many people voiced about the lame and corporate friendly coverage of NPR. Yet, after considering these very legitimate complaints they went right ahead and used such a lame excuse to support NPR by telling us that is still a lot better than the right-wing echo machine. Well, yeah, but it could be so much better! I would also not compare NPR to a diamond, albeit a flawed one. The flaw that we have been complaining about is the right of center coverage and the spineless stance before corporate power. NPR looks more and more to me like a bureaucracy that will compromise what ever principles it once had in order to remain viable in the new reality of the broadcast world. I can give an example from just this afternoon. I happened to tune to my local NPR affiliate, WFIU, in Bloomington, IN. It was 5:20 pm and I noticed that something was happening that is more and more frequent. This program, "All Things Considered" comes on at 5pm and lasts for 90 minutes. It used to be that showbiz and pop culture items were aired during the last part of the show. Not anymore. This kind of stuff can pop up at any time. They were interviewing Kevin Kline about his latest project. Now I have nothing against Kevin Kline. He is a very talented actor. What I object to is that this kind of report would have been featured in years past toward the end of the show after the real news. I have also seen even more of this on the weekend shows. I once heard an interview with an up and coming but obscure folksinger that lasted for 15 minutes! Is this really the quality broadcasting that NPR is claiming as they now go into another of their regular pledge drives?
Mr. Moyers, I will say it again. I have great respect for what you have contributed to the broadcast world. You have a slew of Emmys and I believe that they were rightfully earned. That said, I just can't agree with your support for what NPR has devolved into. It's decline has led many of us to seek other sources for our news. The many excellent internet websites and sources such as "Democracy Now!, Pacifica, and the Real News Network are a wonderful alternative to so-called "public" broadcasting. What really worries me now is that the internet providers are adamant about removing Net Neutrality from the web and making it a tiered service that would become less accessible. Now, why would they do that? Two reasons come to mind. First, predictably, to make more money but second, to remove these alternative sources of the news and commentary from as many people as possible. I simply do not trust NPR and PBS to tell me the truth about what is happening in the world.
I turned on NPR Morning Edition a few weeks ago and and listened to the host interview a man named James Lewis who is the Director of Technology and Public Policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The interview is titled "Social Media: Essential Tool in US Foreign Policy", March 8 2011, you can read the transcript on NPR's website.
.
Near the end of the interview the host says something to the effect of "how does the state department, which is used to dealing with relationships of states adjust its approach to deal with something like wikileaks or al queda?"
.
To which Mr. Lewis responded "the people who did wikileaks intended to harm the US... but I don't think Twitter, or Google, or Facebook have a political agenda. The State Department should 'work with' social media companies to 'encourage' them to do things we like ... but its a balancing act between the things we like and the things that could cause us harm."
.
Really NPR? But I guess we should expect no less from NPR than to have the host imply that wikileaks and al queda belong in the same category of "social media" or non-state elements ... or whatever. And then to have the guest explicitly affirm the hosts insinuation AND then claim that google is non ideological (unlike wikileaks and al queda!) Ridiculous....
.
Bad propaganda and more "culture" stories about Bollywood? Yeah .. no thanks.
What Mr. Moyers and, somewhat surprisingly, those who have commented here have not stated is NPR's fairly obvious bias toward Israel. A few years ago I made a mild criticism on NPR's web site concerning a report that ignored Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. NPR responded be saying that my comment should be directed to their ombudsman rather than, for some unknown reason, to NPR itself. At that time I had the apparently naive notion that NPR might address my concerns about their report since they have a segment once a week in which they read the letters of their listeners on the air. It appears that NPR has come with a unique way of dealing with this and that is by not allowing a comment to be sent to them about the way that the Palestinians are treated at the hands of the Israelis [and, perhaps, on other issues also] and instead to urge its listeners to send any letters that may criticize NPR to its public relations person.
"...NPR's fairly obvious bias toward Israel."
Not only that. There is more to it. NPR has become an outlet for the conservative faction, not to say rightwing. Not that I listen to this listener supported (cough, cough) propaganda radio, but I remember vividly that the only people that ever get to deliver their message are republicons. 'All Things Considered' is a farce. It must be renamed in 'All Republican Things Considered". Since Daniel Schorr has passed away, the only impartial voice has left NPR. He was the only one who dared to question the policies of WashingtonMart.
National Pusillanimous Radio
"Until the govt. finds a better way of propagandizing NPR's demographic, they will keep it going."
Probably the best single sentence I've read on the matter.
Since a while now I suspect that the republicon 'outrage' against NPR is nothing but a decoy. It is the conservative/corporate talking heads who get the most airtime on NPR. Plus, the corporations that 'support' NPR, are many times over a true detriment to our Nation. Why would I want to listen to a radio station that appears to be 100% biased towards the right(wing) side of life?
On second thought, I did enjoy listen to 'Car Talk' and even became a member of HPR (Hawaiian Public Radio). When Daniel Schorr passed away, I witnessed the drifting towards the right and decided to leave the sinking ship.
By demanding defunding of NPR the republicans envision a NPR that is solely funded by listeners and corporations. In other words: free republicon propaganda.
you might say that this whole FAUX outrage
is the schtick that passes under the radar.
They've long since figured out that americans are
too polite (read defenestrated) to question
anothers purported beliefs. Like the " I'm born
again " schtick The puppeteers have managed to
erect the political theatre of their dreams..
Why else would slime like gingrich get so
much air time??? Their strategy for elections (aside
from the obvious trading 2 for 2 with the dims) is to
decoy us with a herd of CLOWNS, then at the last
minute put all their resources behind some passably
humanoid like Ryan.....here comes the clown parade
now....
Just today I made the mistake to listen into 'all things considered'. They were talking about South Dakota being the state with the most stringent rules pertaining abortion. Two clinics for the whole state. Now they want to write a 72 hour waiting period into law. I could not believe when I heard that the host was introducing the author of this bill and off the republicon goes with his utter bullshite. On 'public' waves. To allow such a backwards (and that's a big understatement) person to speak on radio is totally beyond me. It is obvious that some people in this country don't have a clear mind.
I haven't listened to Neocon Public Radio since March, 2003. There is nothing "progressive" or "left-wing" about it. Only brain-dead John Birch Society weirdos would think otherwise.
To the title: correct, Common Dreams, Truthout and the Smirking Chimp are... that's why we love them. If the bat-shit insane right wing manages to get rid of NPR then hopefully their viewership will find the alternatives listed above. Then we might finally gain some real victories against the Reich wing. Hopefully [the Right wingers'] hell is real because they pass the prerequisites with flying colors. Lefties are more like Christ and we'll be the ones to save the world.
*Edit: I suppose the listed sites aren't the left-wing version because they actually use facts. Right wingers can't use facts because they tend to nullify the repug's arguments.
At this point I consider commondreams.org to be a moderately trustworthy news and opinion outlet. When I want breaking news I use Al Jazeera's English language page.
PBS is watchable, except sometimes the News Hour's bias enrages me. Their idea of balanced coverage is to bring in one business-friendly consultant and have him recite a seriously dogmatic line, and then a second business-friendly pundit provides the "second opinion". Then some seriously scummy corporations buy advertisements (call it what it is!) so as to influence News Hour coverage.
The difference between PBS's normal programming and their pledge 11 days programming is night and day. We learn that the little people send money when the station shows old Pete Seeger footage, not to mention 1960s protest bands singing on the Ed Sullivan Show, and then the station owners are so glad to get rid of that left-wing stuff and cover at least 50% ideological clods who are obviously reading their cue cards off of a pretty small script.
Our local PBS affiliate is in love with Lawrence Welk. That and Britcoms. These people are businesspeople just like everybody else, and if they take big corporate money they must act like twits 100% of the time or else the cash disappears. I was enraged when my local affiliate was going to actually show something about religious pacifists in jail during WWII, for once in their existence and, being afraid to lose big business money, they yanked the show at the last minute.
Now the wealthy embezzlers want to completely yank PBS away, hoping to restore their monopoly over the citizens' souls. It doesn't work anymore. We use the web now.
The News Hour is more in-depth than the network news shows, or CNN. More in-depth propaganda, that is. They routinely lie in their coverage of events. The most maddening aspect is the continual assumption that US foreign policy is benevolent, despite overwhelming historical evidence to the contrary. In their coverage of Aristide's return to Haiti recently, they reported that he had been "ousted by rebels" in 2004, when the truth was that he was ousted by a US coup d'etat. They simply REFUSE to tell the truth about US foreign policy, even if it means fabricating stories.
Classic NPR coverage occurred a few days ago when they interviewed extremist rightwinger John Negroponte, one of the major supporters of the Contra terrorists against the democratically elected government of Nicaragua in the 1980's
about the remarks of another Republican, Richard Lugar, who questioned
Obama's rationale for bombing Libya.
Why did they pick an extreme rightwing militarist Republican to comment on
another Republican?
If an intraparty dispute made for an interesting story why not interview Peace Democrat Dennis Kucinich on his impeachment proposal?
There are 0 hits in a search on NPR.org All Things Considered or Morning Edition on Kucinich and Libya but 4 on rightwing militarist John Negroponte.
This perfectly illustrates the problem with NPR coverage...
Here is another telling example - do a search on NPR.org All Things Considered
and Morning Edition and you will find not a single interview with Noam Chomsky.
There is an oblique reference to Chomsky from one book out of a series being
reviewed by a Librarian, the infamous story on Chomsky's being refused entry
to speak at an Israeli University where he is not even actually interviewed,
and a reference TO Chomsky from a musician.
But not one single substantive interview with one of the most brilliant public
intellectuals of our time, legendary theorist of transformational grammar and
decades of political insights.
This is the problem with National Petroleum Radio in a nuthouse err, nutshell
Well done. John Negroponte is a war criminal and should be prosecuted as such. As to the lack of hits for Kucinich and Chomsky, yes, that is very telling. Similarly, PBS has the same censorship about Chomsky. He actually appeared on "The News Hour" back in 1990 and was interviewed by Robert Mac Neil. Chomsky apparently started to discuss something in detail and he was cut off and I would guess was never asked back again. Think of it - one of the foremost intellectuals of our time, the author of dozens of books of political analysis, a committed political activist who has deep understanding of U.S. foreign policy and he has only been on The News Hour ONCE in it's 30 year history! However, there is no shortage of spokeshacks from the Council on Foreign Relations, the Heritage Foundation and the CATO Institute along with a bevy of retired Generals who are asked on to tell us why we need to be in endless wars in the Middle East. And all of this is increasingly paid for by commercials (NOT underwriting messages!) from the likes of Monsanto, Bank of America, WalMart, Boeing, Bank of America, and Pacific Life (which uses images of Humpback whales to sell you insurance). It is fortunate that we have excellent alternative sources on the Internet. However, remember that Net Neutrality is being attacked, and, if eliminated it will become a tiered system of access that will favor corporate interests and make it harder and more expensive to access these sources that we rely on.
Jesus was a liberal and look where it got Him
Never tell your neighbors you're the son of God.
Trylon
It always confused me that republicans would want to cut funds for NPR. This is the network that respects the" values" of the conservatives. No obscene words , comedy, music, no bad girls or boys, just plain clean entertainment. They show their hypocrisy.( I never thought that if public funding was denied the corporations could use it for purely propaganda.) When they have a public fund raiser it is usually music that most of us enjoy and don't get very often on other networks. Also the republicans are cutting funds for Head Start for children under five. Many low income families cannot afford cable and NPR would be the only exposure toddlers would have to education programs such as they are.
In the summer of 2002, NPR did a series on the root of the conflict between the West and the Middle East. The story promised to begin at the beginning, and explain the genesis of the issues between 'Christendom' and Islam. Great, I thought. This will be good.
The first report began with the Crusades. I turned the channel. Why? Because the first hostile contact between Europe and Islam happened when the Muslims invaded Western Europe (the Moors, Andalusia, etc.) Why did NPR leave this part of their comprehensive history out? I suspect that the facts--the invasion of Europe by the Muslims--interfered with their meta-narrative: the invasion of the Middle East by Christians. This sounds like a small point, but it is indicative of the criticism NPR engenders from conservatives: biased news and reporting.
I love NPR, and I have been a listener for more than 20 years. With that said, you have to know what you are getting into when you listen. Howard Zinn famously said that there is no such thing as neutral history. There is no such thing as neutral news, either.
And Mr. Moyers? I desperately miss your show!
used to listen...long time gone....
Good comment