I'd like to see an analysis from the MRC and Mr. Bozell. I doubt they would come to the same conclusion. I think the writers from the ONION must be working for FAIR on the side.
Is FAIR Being Fair about NPR?
FAIR is a media watchdog group that describes itself as "progressive" -- i.e., on the left.
The study (see Web Resources below) assessed NPR interviews in its newsmagazine programs for June 2003. The study also looked at which experts were invited to speak on NPR over a four-month period from May to August of that year.
Skewing to the Right
FAIR says that NPR is definitely skewing right compared to a similar study it conducted 10 years before. FAIR says that NPR regularly has "elite" (FAIR's term) experts and opinion makers to comment on events. This group of current and former government officials accounts for 28 percent of the interviews and commentaries. Twenty six percent were "professional experts" (academics, think tank experts, lawyers, doctors and scientists). Seven percent were journalists but overwhelmingly (83 percent) these journalists were from mainstream commercial outlets.
FAIR says that NPR has improved in a couple of respects compared to 10 years ago: NPR is doing better according to FAIR at getting ordinary citizens on the radio (up from 17 percent to 31 percent). And says FAIR, NPR has increased the number of commentators of color -- up to 40 percent. Ten years ago, more than 85 percent of NPR commentators were white and predominantly male.
Although there are more women on the air, they are still a minority of voices interviewed on NPR. Of all interviewees, 21 percent are female, compared to 19 percent 10 years ago.
'FAIR' is Fair -- But…
The FAIR study seems about right to me with a couple of exceptions.
In a similar study I commissioned, we looked at NPR interviews over a two-month period from Nov. 24, 2003 through Jan. 23, 2004. It is not entirely fair (as it were) to compare the studies since they were done at different times.
But I think the methodologies were similar in that both looked at the names of the interviewees and tried to determine where they fall on the ideological spectrum. But there are differences between the two studies as well.
For me, I would take issue with FAIR's assumptions and definitions about what constitutes a conservative opinion.
What's Right for You?
First, the definitions:
FAIR refers to The Brookings Institution as a "centrist" think tank. This is, in my opinion, a trickily subjective adjective. Many would consider Brookings to be a solidly liberal organization whose scholars and pundits are frequently heard on NPR.
FAIR might also question, as some listeners have, whether All Things Considered's weekly left-right encounter between E.J. Dionne and David Brooks is really pitting a "true" liberal against a conservative.
But conservative organizations tend in my experience to be unabashedly open about their ideology. Liberals and liberal organizations are less so, possibly because they are so often put on the defensive by a more aggressive and militant conservatism.
As examples -- Brookings avoids describing itself as either left or right. It prefers to point to its "reform" roots going back to the early 20th century (see Web Resources below)
The Heritage Foundation (see Web Resources) on the other hand is open about its conservative roots and ideology.
Other think tanks whose experts are interviewed on NPR do not lend themselves to easy categorization. The Council on Foreign Relations has both conservatives and liberals. So does the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
My study showed that NPR interviewed 33 think-tank experts and only four came from explicitly conservative think tanks. Three came from think tanks that have a liberal reputation -- although they don't describe themselves as such. Most of the experts and other interviewees in this study don't easily lend themselves to a handy political label or shorthand.
Fewer Pundits and More Academics
Second, the FAIR study looks only at the experts. My study also looked at who else was being interviewed. It found that NPR has interviewed far more academics than think-tank pundits. While the Academy is hardly immune from ideology, it does, in my opinion, show that NPR is not relying completely on the usual Washington, D.C. suspects. Many critics on the right often point to Daniel Schorr as NPR's "liberal commentator in residence." Dan would dispute that description and FAIR never mentions him at all.
Third, the timing of the FAIR report does not take into account what else was going on in the news. June 2003 was one month after the White House proclaimed the end of major hostilities in Iraq. There was a certain mood of triumphalism in the Bush administration and the presence of high-profile Republicans dominated the news. That may not have been a time when a lot of opposition opinions from the Democratic caucus were being voiced. It may point out the need for NPR to seek out those opinions even when the Democrats are keeping a low media profile.
It is important that the NPR audience hears from conservative thinkers and politicians. As NPR editor Ken Rudin once explained to me, the arrival of a Republican majority in Congress in 1994 for the first time in 40 years was a shock for most of the Washington press corps -- NPR included. Republicans had not been a factor for so long, journalists didn't know whom to approach inside the Republican caucus. Presumably neither did their listeners, viewers and readers.
Is NPR now ignoring the Democrats in a way it once may have ignored the Republicans?
I have criticized NPR in the past for its narrow reliance on a few bright men (and they are overwhelmingly male). I think that NPR is putting more conservatives on the radio than it used to. This is a good thing provided the balance is maintained.
Intellectual Comfort Food?
Listeners are quick to dash to their e-mails when they hear an opinion that is not their own. NPR's role, it seems to me is not to provide listeners with intellectual comfort food.
FAIR is concerned whether the pendulum has swung too far. That's my concern as well.
I think it may have and NPR needs to do a better job in general and especially in an election year -- to make sure that the range is both wide and deep.
At the same time, FAIR's study seems to reinforce the notion that what constitutes the center in American journalism is rapidly becoming an endangered species. For the left, NPR is never quite left enough. For the right of course, NPR remains a paragon of liberal bias.
NPR sees itself as a bastion of fair-minded journalism. But fewer media critics are able to agree with that.
An Alternative Radio or a Mainstream News Organization?
The FAIR report quotes, compares and contrasts two NPR presidents. In 1993 Delano Lewis said, "Our job is to be a public radio station. So therefore the alternative points of view, the various viewpoints, should be aired." In 2002 Kevin Klose said, "All of us believe our goal is to serve the entire democracy, the entire country."
Why does FAIR perceive these two laudatory goals as being mutually exclusive?
Listeners can contact me at 202-513-3245 or at ombudsman@npr.org.
Jeffrey Dvorkin
Centrist Brookins Institution.
Well, as long as they're mostly quoting centrists, I guess they're balanced enough to keep their public funding. ;^)
"Good times, good times...
Our next guest is from Vermont, Mr. Chuck Schweddy..."
" The top five commentators by frequency of appearance were all white men. "
Notice here that diversity of opinion is not an issue here and that the color of the skin is the issue.
Two Saturdays ago I listened to NPR (National Proletariat Radio) and it was a Bush Bashing free for all.
I remember when Clinton was in office it was, "President Clinton today did...." Now they say "Bush" and never "President Bush" -- the should just rename the channel to, National Bush Hate Radio.
Air America has its morning show called Morning Sedition so they understand that NPR is truly traitorious.
Left wingers employed by Fox:
Alan Colmes
Greta Van Sustern (husband works for Kerry 2004 campaign)
Susan Estrich
Ellis Henican
Eleanor Clift
Geraldo Rivera
David Corn
Geraldine Ferraro
Mara Liasson
Juan Williams
Mort Kondracke
Ellen Ratner
Gloria Allred
Chris Wallace
Julian Phillips
Neal Gabler
Jane Hall
Greg Hymowitz
Conservatives employed by PBS:
Conservatives employed by NPR:
Mr. Dvorkin suggests that perhaps liberals are defensive and avoid the term. No, IMO it's because they consider themselves centrists. For decades mainstream "news" articles routinely labeled opposing opinion "controversial," "divisive," "extreme," "ultra-conservative," and far too often "racist," "fascist," and "anti-democratic."
An amusing and silly liberal tactic being used more and more today is to defend their extreme language and lies by saying their language was "nuanced."
The Err America employee who suggested that the President and other administration officials be executed is raving that critics didn't understand what he really meant. A Sacramento Bee ombudsman responded to my complaints about a cartoon character's advocacy of physical violence against Ward Connerly by saying it was only satire and that I was too stupid to understand. Of course his newspaper rants and raves about violence against the poor by electing conservative Republicans to office. More nuance, I suppose.
NPR sees itself as a bastion of fair-minded journalism. But fewer media critics are able to agree with that.
I think SierraWasp's tagline has it and other mainstream stuff better defined as "preemptive journalism." A good example is the way they use (and ignore) polls to feature (and spike) news.
i don't like their nasal superiority.
npr reminds me of a trader joe's ad.
It is the useual left-wing use of language that annoys me. They have simply described "commericals" as being those "advertisements for some one else" and mask their endless self-promoting/funding raisng messages as not being commercial. Add to that, the many, many (but short) "brought to you by" messages that join almost every pair of programs and, in the aggregate, NPR is commercial radio.
In fact, NPR's misuse of the word "commercial" is like the fairies theft of the word "gay" and of the concept of "marriage." We must learn to recognize this evil and to mold the language to fit our objectives as well as those who conspire to detroy the America we know and they hate.
You got your Jim Hightower trying to make a mountain out of a rare molehill, you have people telling us that AIDS in Africa is
the fault of white, western males for not wanting our @sses taxed off, and gee, its too bad no My Lais could be found
committed by US troops in Afghanistan, etc.
Like most leftists, they FAIR is a misnomer designed to corrupt the language and facts.
And to the left, NPR is hostage to corporate underwriters. Two or three years ago, a column appeared in the SF
Chronicle about the "lack of leftness" in NPR, because of the greed, er, need for funding.
With Joan Kroc's gift, NPR should be spun off the taxpayer teat. And be held accountable as a real licensee of public spectrum.