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NPR’s Slow Slide to the Right
The timing could not have been worse for the latest in a series of controversies to hit the nation’s scandal-prone public radio network. But the fact that it was pledge week didn’t prevent NPR from caving in to conservative pressure and canceling their distribution of “The World of Opera,” last Friday after it was revealed that host, Lisa Simeone, had taken part in Occupy DC, a spinoff of Occupy Wall Street movement, a protest against corporate greed which is spreading to cities nationwide. Simeone, an independent producer, was also sacked from the public radio documentary series “Sound Print” for her political activities.
In justifying their actions, NPR spokeswoman Dana Davis Rehm stated that it is a conflict of interest for a journalist associated with NPR to take a role in a political protest movement, ignoring the fact that Ms. Simeone is a freelancer and not an NPR employee, and a music host, not a journalist. Leading Time Magazine’s James Poniewozik to jest: “Public radio listeners! Have you long worried that your station was undermining capitalism through its broadcasts of the Ring Cycle? Tired of having your children brainwashed by the socialistic messages of La Traviata?”
For hundreds of listeners who flooded NPRs own blog and switchboard with messages of outrage over the weekend, however, it was no laughing matter. Many saw the incident as merely the latest chapter in the network’s slow drift to the right in an effort to appease republican critics in congress, which funds the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, a major source of NPR’s operating budget.
Critics also pointed out that the network has a double standard when it comes to the political speech of its hosts and reporters. While dropping Ms. Simeone for taking part in a protest rally, NPR routinely permits its own staffers to sound off on the issues that they report on. Saturday morning host, Scott Simon, published an Op Ed in the Wall Street Journal supporting American military interventions in the Middle East and likening antiwar protesters to “a Halloween parade.” NPR reporter Mara Liasson doubles as a commentator for Fox television where she lambasted congressman on a fact finding mission in Iraq before the US incursion and called on them to resign. NPR’s Cookie Roberts regularly spouts off her centrist-right views in handsomely paid corporate speeches on everything from health care reform to the minimum wage.
The media watchdog group, FAIR, (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) criticized NPR for its excessive dependence on “elite” and “inside the beltway” sources for its stories and said that woman are dramatically under-represented, only one in five of those appearing in its news stories. They also found that network favors Republican over Democratic sources by a three to two margin, and routinely gives short shrift to protest movements like Occupy Wall Street.
For years the “liberal bias” of NPR was an article of faith for those on the right. But I can attest from my own experience as a former freelancer for the network that this is far from the case. In 1996 Morning Edition broadcast a piece of mine on hunger in our nation's cities. The story contained interview segments which suggested that more people than we think go to sleep hungry in America. It was broadcast nationwide on the day that Clinton's new welfare regulations went into effect.
The segment was well received by other journalists. But when I pitched another story to my editor in Washington, he said that I had been criticized for "liberal bias," and that they were not going to give me any more news assignments. In other words I was sacked as an NPR freelancer for daring to suggest that millions are going hungry in America. Radical stuff!
When I read in the Huffington Post last week that Lisa Simeone had been taken off the air by NPR because she participated in the Occupy movement, I was disappointed but not surprised. Sad to say, the hope for a truly independent voice free of commercial and political interference died years back. In the NPR of today punditry of the most biased and superficial kind is OK, but activism and deep analysis of our political and economic malaise are off limits. No wonder former NPR listeners are flocking to the internet and independent radio shows like FAIR’s “Counter Spin” and Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now” for the stories that they are unlikely to hear on “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered.”
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99 Comments so far
Show AllSupport your local community radio station. Maybe try to get your own show on it. You know you can do a better job than NPR and the rest of the bigger players. You do this already, most of you, in conversations with friends-- this is actually a great form of radio in itself. Spread yourself around. Marshall your facts and viewpoints, and get them moving in coordinated fashion.
Be the radio you want to hear in the world.
Our local college station is a public station and takes donations during pledge drive. They have better music, and better local reporting and get their news from a variety of sources. I send my money to them.
MPR and NPR are gone from our donations (me, my wife and my company as a former sponsor). I noticed it when Monsanto became the underwriter for Marketplace and they went from 2 to 3 stories a year about Monsanto to never mentioning them except to praise them.
"Slow" slide? The article's content doesn't support this misplaced headline modifier. As noted, NPR hasn't been listenable to progressives since back in the 1980s. I guess it's good that some are finally figuring that out but don't think because you are late to the party that it only started when you got there.
"don't think because you are late to the party that it only started when you got there" what a wonderful way to put it. I can't even listen to Garrison Keillor anymore without wanting to puke. But, perhaps, that is a separate issue.
NPR's "slide to the right" isn't recent, and it's the willingness or ability of complacent and credulous listeners to see through its pseudo-liberal camouflage that's "slow".
With a few anomalous exceptions, NPR programming is a genteel, ostensibly politically moderate, sop to a target demographic comprised by the conventional, shallow centrist Amerikan intelligentsia-- those who eschew abysmal commercial network or satellite/cable radio/TV programming, and who have enough disposable income to literally buy into what passes for a worthy cause.
NPR's news reporting and analysis is solidly Establishment: authoritarian-following, exceptionalist, and reactionary, down to the pretentious, unctuous imitation-BBC tone intended to convey Unimpeachable Respectability.
Even if there are occasional remants of skeptical investigative reporting in the hard-hitting muckraking tradition, NPR is simply the "upscale" corporate media outlet for Manufacturing Consent.
Excellent points, as usual, OB. I can't stand Scott Simon and his Saturday show, "Weekend Edition". Simon, by the way, is a big supporter of all things Israel and wrote that infamous essay back in 2001 supporting our plans (really, the Neocon plans) to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. At the same time he calls himself a Quaker! Yeah, like Nixon was a "Quaker". One critic of Simon referred to him as the "Fighting Quaker". I also wanted to ask you folks if you have noticed over the years how "fluffy" the coverage on these various shows has become? Especially during the bottom of the hour, there seems to be more and more features that come from the entertainment industry or items that no real journalist would waste their time on. I once heard an interview that dragged on for 15 minutes with an obscure folksinger that I had never even heard of and it left me wondering if they just weren't really trying anymore to tell us what is happening in the world. You'll notice that NPR has plenty of features on business and the stock market and corporate America but they have little or no labor coverage, a sign of the priorities.
What is really pathetic is the large number of left-leaning folks who listen to this stuff and really feel as if they are being given an alternative to the propaganda from the commercial networks and continue to send their money in during NPR's tedious pledge drives. NPR has no problem with shills like Mara Liasson, Cokie Roberts and Juan Williams (before he shot his mouth off about Arabs on planes and was fired to save face), but they can't abide the efforts of someone like Simeone who was working for Occupy-DC on her own time and never discussed politics on her music show. Hypocrites! Craven cowards before their real bosses in Congress. I asked this question on another website - what's next NPR, loyalty oaths?
Yes, homegrown broadcasting is one answer. I believe that the restrictions on micro-broadcasting have been lifted by the FCC. I would love to see those kind of community voices flourish in this country and take back OUR airwaves (they legally belong to us!) and spread some real voices out into the ether.
The unctuous tone really is horrendous. I can't even listen for ten minutes, it hurts my teeth.
For the record, It's "Cokie" Roberts.
Cokie Roberts has been a corporate shill for years. Recall her right-wing positions as a regular panelist on ABC's "This Week." She could always be relied upon to counter anything a Democratic guest said. She was the most annoying part of that show--even worse than George Will, and that's pretty bad. I never listen to her on NPR. Unfortunately, she still turns up occasionally on "This Week" to undermine any progressive positions offered by other guests.
"even worse than George Will"! Now THAT is awful. I find him insufferable.
NPR has long been radio for urban effettes whom disdain the coarser offerrings from corporate media. It is absolutely no surprise that any serious progressive who listens to it for anything other than the latest Manu Chao or Femi Kuti single will be sorely disappointed.
I used to enjoy Talk of the Nation with John Hockenberry at the helm. Ray Suarez was ok, but I slowly stopped listening after he went away. I guess Bill Moyers had warned Americans better than most people where NPR was going. It was no use - one man can't fight a system.
That "system" includes PBS and it is quite telling that when the great Bill Moyers (who has won more than 30 Emmys!) announced that he was returning to the air with an interview show PBS said that they wouldn't be able to find a spot for him in their broadcast schedule. Yeah, right. PBS - the Petroleum Broadcasting Service.
"Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me!" Hands down the funniest radio program on the air. This American Life, excellent interviews and well researched stories, Krista Tippet on Sundays, Science Fridays (kinda hit and miss on that one cause scientists don't always make for great interviewees) Press Club interviews and Q&As, BBC late night, etc. NPR ain't all that bad.
"NPR ain't all that bad". You may be right, but nothing you've said thus far is evidence of your rightness. To the contrary.
Talk about a hater. Would you like some prune juice with extra vinegar with your comment? Those show are great, so feel free to return back to your deconstructionism news.... I've got it tuned in right now listening to the BBC World News.
It ain't all that bad if you like your news, stories, interviews, etc mixed in with neoliberal propaganda. I guess a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. It doesn't make the medicine any less deadly. But then, you probably like eating Genetically Modified food in your burger and fries. Hell, if you can't taste it, maybe it's not there!
Wake up bubby, propaganda is everywhere, including DM, which IMO grows tedious after an hour. Keep sucking up on the constant badness and soon you'll be pissing vinegar. What am I saying you're already full of negative shit to begin with. FYI I live/work a small scale farm, so fap on that for awhile.........Oh and I'm enjoying "As it Happens" on my local public radio station RIGHT NOW!!!
I have never seen Amy as a democratic apologist or Obamabot. That's way off key.
NPR is like most things it has some valuable content and some garbage. If we can't tell the difference by now, if we can't choose the truth above propaganda or corrupt dishonesty or at least recognize them...there is little hope anyway.
NPR has become our commercial TV of yesterday--a source of much quality entertainment but utterly devoid of any kind of trenchant political or social analysis (as noted above.) When the rich and powerful are an important part of the funding process, then programming which does not offend them will follow, as surely as night follows day. And ditto government involvement.
When NPR refused to cover the stolen 2000 election I knew it was over. I no longer listen to or support NPR. I am a broadcaster and I am appalled by the lack of integrity from people like Linda Wertheimer and Noah Adams and many others who sat by and did nothing as NPR because a right wing propaganda machine. It's way more subtle than FOX but it is what it is.
Will the most virulent C D Obama Bashers eschew electoral politics in 2012? The choice will be between Obama and Romney or person of a very 1% attitude. I have been down to Zicotti Park for a few days now. A lot of good thinking here, but can the 'movement' grow to get change.
No particular rage against Obama, here. Sorry O Bashers.
There will be an election next year. Maybe, Obama will adopt some of the themes here. Certainly, he is closer than say a Ron Paul in one corner, Perry in yet a third, with the silver-spooner squaring up the dance. OWS is very new. Their
understandings expressed as they are, could be revolutionary.
Armed militias might arise to revolt, but the right wing is more likely to have the upper hand and a Spanish style Franco regime will be something that emerges.
Maybe Obama cannot overcome the electoral advantage held by the GOP.
And those who cannot see the difference, will get another Texas Governor elected.
And he will be worse than George Junior.
NPR lost all journalistic credibility for me back in 1994 when it caved into police pressure and backed away from plans to broadcast the commentaries of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Witness for the Prosecution: NPR Slants the Case Against Mumia Abu-Jamal
http://www.fair.org/extra/9511/mumia.html
All Things Censored: The Poem NPR Doesn't Want You to Hear
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/espada/npr.htm
Back in the days when we still had a PBS network (instead of what it's become, a right-wing version of "Lawrence Welk" re-runs), I was a great NPR admirer. It's gone. It's over. Bought and paid for by just more frickin' lobbyists, business nazis and spineless spinners. And this after a woman left NPR 250 million bucks hardly 10 years ago. Bet all the bigwigs have nice second homes now! Boston has a huge new PBS studio that produces nothing but spineless drivel. Genuine sorrow---the right wing-nuts destroying everything piece by piece for their stinking Bible fantasies.
WOOP: We the Workers of the World Walk Out On Profit....a proposal for direct worldwide action from the only point of power we have left---our daily work, which Profit the suicidal addict must have. Let's starve it to death instead. Let's WALK OUT....
Slow Slide????
Glad that others are finally starting to recognize what blogger Matthew Murray has been documenting for several years now on his excellent blog "NPRCheck" (google it)
Anyone who actually believes NPR has anything at all to do with the "public" needs to have their head examined (to see if there is anything inside it).
Above all, NPR has become a moneymaking venture -- and a very profitable one at that for a few people at the top of the pyramid (NPR's CEO, and hosts like Inskeep, Norris, Simon, etc)
Their "news" is driven by avoidance -- of anything that will affect corporate donations and/or criticize the entrenched political powers.
I stopped listening to Neocon Public Radio back in March of 2003. Its pro-imperialist propaganda was no different then that of any other Neocon propaganda outlet, like CNN or Fox News.
NPR commentary is all shallow histrionics, narcissism, and inappropriate flippancy. Whatever may happen anywhere in the world, the most important thing (to NPR) is how very thoughtful is the NPR coverage.,
Yes! One thing that really pisses me off about so-called public broadcasting in this country is the very high opinion they have of themselves. This is particularly evident during the pledge drives when they try to make you feel guilty for not sending money while telling you what a quality alternative they are to commercial broadcasting. All this while featuring more and more ads which they disingenuously refer to as "underwriting messages". Whoops, there's another euphemism that they use, kinda like "enhanced interrogation" instead of torture. That "thoughtfulness" routine is most evident with Mr. Smarmy himself, Scott Simon. He is just SOOOO sensitive when interviewing someone but then he can instantly segue into some dumbass entertainment item or something he really loves talking about, sports. I really miss Bob Edwards. He sounded like a real grownup.
Back in early September of 2001, I used to play a game while driving to work. I'd tune in NPR and leave it on until I heard the word "Israeli." Sometimes I switched within seconds, but usually it was mere minutes. Pick a word and try it yourself. "Republican" would be a good start.
By the way,
For anyone who does not know about the funding game that NPR plays, here it is in a nutshell.
NPR (parent organization) itself gets a relatively small percentage of their total budget from the Federal government.
the folks at NPR actually love to claim this at every opportunity, but when they do so they are only giving you a small part of the story.
Instead of funding NPR directly, the Federal government gives the vast majority of their public radio broadcasting funding to local stations, a large fraction of which are NPR member stations, who then turn around and pay NPR through the back door (as it were) with "membership dues" and purchases of NPR programming.
Make no mistake: NPR still gets a large chunk of their operarting budget from the Federal government. It's just not obvious that this is the case.
And it would be perfectly feasible for Congress to continue Federal funding for local stations (including the ones who are currently NPR member stations) while ensuring that it did not go to NPR. In other words, disconnect NPR from their umbilical cord by effectively forbidding the local stations from spending federal dollars on NPR dues or NPR programming.
If this actually happened, I suspect that a lot of these NPR member stations would actually be relieved that they no longer had to work as sharecroppers for a lot of high paid NPR execs and hosts.
And the local stations could get REAL quality news from Democracy Now or pacifica or the Real News and other sources -- as opposed to a bunch of right-wing-cow-towing propaganda.
Thanks for the expanded information about NPR. I do disagree with the article in that there is nothing "slow" about NPR's slide to the right. They have been obvious tools of Israel for many years and really started showing their true colors since September 2001.
And the biggest hoot is from The Right.
You know, as they continue to call NPR one-sided, liberal, etc. And try to defund it on that basis.
If only NPR *were* those things, we'd have an actual media alternative in this country.
I have to hand it to the Righties. They built up an incredible propaganda network, blaring 24x7 on thousands of talk stations and on Fox.
Part of the reason people believe the big lie is that these outlets are so ubiquitous and so consistent.
NPR, voice of the socialist left. And we Have Always Been at War With Oceania...
NPR is a piece of s---! The lousy "Corporation for Public Broadcasting" shell is a McCarthyite propaganda tool. Public radio and public TV should be termed what they are, media outlets which are funded through taxation to serve the public. That is socialistic in its design, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Whoever pays the piper calls the tune! Corporate America values the influence of public media and will pay whatever it costs to control its sources of funding and the general public does not. Check mate and game over!
maritimus49
> Bill Moyers (who has won more than 30 Emmys!) announced that he was returning to the air with an interview show PBS said that they wouldn't be able to find a spot for him <
What a shame! The bastards have no respect at all for someone whose feet they're not qualified to smell. Hope Bill will find some other way to reach his audience. Maybe the 99% can set up their own TV station.
NPR has responded to a lower calling and it's darkening future holds NO promise.
My brief, respectful and carefully-crafted letter to NPR's ombudsman on this matter was "deleted without being read"....
This "slide to the right" isn't terribly slow......
Actually it was quite abrupt, but it happened about 20 years ago.
Here is the Salon Article where Seymour Hersh describes the rape/torture of Iraqi children at Abu Ghraib--which any decent, moral journalist would cover--and that includes Amy Goodman:
War Room
Thursday, Jul 15, 2004 9:26 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Hersh: Children sodomized at Abu Ghraib, on tape
By Geraldine Sealey
Topics:War Room
After Donald Rumsfeld testified on the Hill about Abu Ghraib in May, there was talk of more photos and video in the Pentagon’s custody more horrific than anything made public so far. “If these are released to the public, obviously it’s going to make matters worse,” Rumsfeld said. Since then, the Washington Post has disclosed some new details and images of abuse at the prison. But if Seymour Hersh is right, it all gets much worse.
Hersh gave a speech last week to the ACLU making the charge that children were sodomized in front of women in the prison, and the Pentagon has tape of it. The speech was first reported in a New York Sun story last week, which was in turn posted on Jim Romenesko’s media blog, and now EdCone.com and other blogs are linking to the video. We transcribed the critical section here (it starts at about 1:31:00 into the ACLU video.) At the start of the transcript here, you can see how Hersh was struggling over what he should say:
“Debating about it, ummm … Some of the worst things that happened you don’t know about, okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib … The women were passing messages out saying ‘Please come and kill me, because of what’s happened’ and basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It’s going to come out.”
“It’s impossible to say to yourself how did we get there? Who are we? Who are these people that sent us there? When I did My Lai I was very troubled like anybody in his right mind would be about what happened. I ended up in something I wrote saying in the end I said that the people who did the killing were as much victims as the people they killed because of the scars they had, I can tell you some of the personal stories by some of the people who were in these units witnessed this. I can also tell you written complaints were made to the highest officers and so we’re dealing with a enormous massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there and higher, and we have to get to it and we will. We will. You know there’s enough out there, they can’t (Applause). …. So it’s going to be an interesting election year.”
Notes from a similar speech Hersh gave in Chicago in June were posted on Brad DeLong’s blog. Rick Pearlstein, who watched the speech, wrote: “[Hersh] said that after he broke Abu Ghraib people are coming out of the woodwork to tell him this stuff. He said he had seen all the Abu Ghraib pictures. He said, ‘You haven’t begun to see evil…’ then trailed off. He said, ‘horrible things done to children of women prisoners, as the cameras run.’ He looked frightened.”
So, there are several questions here: Has Hersh actually seen the video he described to the ACLU, and why hasn’t he written about it yet? Will he be forced to elaborate in more public venues now that these two speeches are getting so much attention, at least in the blogosphere? And who else has seen the video, if it exists — will journalists see and report on it? did senators see these images when they had their closed-door sessions with the Abu Ghraib evidence? — and what is being done about it?
(Update: A reader brought to our attention that the rape of boys at Abu Ghraib has been mentioned in some news accounts of the prisoner abuse evidence. The Telegraph and other news organizations described “a videotape, apparently made by US personnel, is said to show Iraqi guards raping young boys.” The Guardian reported “formal statements by inmates published yesterday describe horrific treatment at the hands of guards, including the rape of a teenage Iraqi boy by an army translator.”
Nancy Pelosi knew this and took impeachment off the table, while Obama and Eric Holder focus their gaze steadily forward, not back.
No moral person can support any facet of this administration.
Ignore them. We must care for each other now. That is the magnitude of the paradigm shift before you.
Read every contributor to this sadly too typical CD thread. ...........bicker, bicker, nit-pick, nit-pick...without end.....why is it so imperative for one leftleaner to compulsively outfact a mostly kindred spirit?....phew what a great weakness on our side .......WHY NOT SAVE THE VITRIOL......THE STRONG JUICE and put it WHERE IT BELONGS......SQUARELY AGAINST THE OTHER SIDE.........I believe in the sane conservation of energy.
My approach includes: Ask yourself, at the present time is there any other news show in alternative media who consistently presents as high truthful accuracy as DN currently does? ....Perhaps MM and Prof West will respond more like "you" would like them to do (AND ,me, TOO) once a candidate to challenge The Great Prevaricator in the 2012 Primaries is found and ready to challenge?........In the meantime, stop carping about accurate shortcomings of our own mostly fellow travelers.............THAT WOULD BE THE APPROACH OCCUPIERS ARE TAKING.......get away from wasteful,damaging irrelevant BICKERING!
I find it terribly frustrating that most of the people I know locally are plugged into our NPR affiliated public radio and naively accept that it is _the_ definitive progressive and truthful voice in America. Ever since our local station ran the Monty Pythonesquely-titled "Socrates, the soldiering years" with a naval academy historian as the guest during Bush's drumbeat for war and a later incident when a longstanding host mused about whether it was possible for an atheist to have a morality, I just haven't been able to force "my beautiful mind," (to paraphrase Barbara Bush) to listen to it. NPR is nothing but another head of the mainstream media hydra -- one that uses a higher grade level vocabulary so the better-educated target market finds it comfortable. Meh. Luckily, my area has a truly liberal and very successful community station as well as a post-Air America station so there is no excuse for people to still listen to NPR here unless their car has problems or they want some cooking tips.
A casual uninformed remark: I listened with satisfaction to NPR for decades and then drifted away from radio altogether for some years. With a new audio system across the house, I started tuning in again recently (the last year) and I was struck by how little the same old programs resonated with me and I felt really uncomfortable about it. The mystery cleared up when I started paying attention to the backers and the advertising. I'm glad to see that my impression is confirmed. So, I'll have to look for "content" somewhere else. What shame! It was very good for a long time but now it's unbearable.