Posted on 03/16/2011 5:38:08 AM PDT by Kaslin
In the public policy conversation today, there is nothing funnier than hearing the leadership of National Public Radio deny there's a liberal bias at play over there.
Even when the Daily Caller posted sting video of their top fundraiser Ron Schiller describing America as remarkably undereducated and the Republicans as ruined by racist, gun-toting, phony Christians, NPR's reaction was repeating Sentence One: Who, us, biased?
Schiller resigned, and then the NPR Board ousted CEO Vivian Schiller (no relation), who hired him. She was only a sacrificial lamb. Nothing has changed, policy-wise. The new interim CEO, Joyce Slocum, picked up exactly where the last boss left off.
"I think if anyone believes that NPR's coverage is biased in one direction or another," she suggests, "all they need to do to correct that misperception is turn on their radio or log onto their computer and listen or read for an hour or two."
This is some serious denial -- like arguing that if anyone doubts that Japan is a terrific spring vacation spot right now, they should just observe the TV news and see how wonderful it looks.
This anti-NPR sting video reveals an NPR fundraising drive that's clearly focusing on financiers that are hostile to conservatives. Last year, leftist philanthropist and hedge-fund billionaire George Soros announced a $1.8 million donation to NPR and days later, Juan Williams was canned for offending liberals by appearing on the Fox News Channel.
The same week that NPR unveiled that donation, Soros announced another million-dollar contribution to the censorious left-wing thugs at Media Matters for America, to "more widely publicize the challenge Fox News poses to civil and informed discourse." Their campaign slogan to advertisers and cable companies is "DROP FOX." (Am I the only one who finds it curious that the "Open Society" folks want Fox closed?)
The reporters at NPR are in even more denial than the executives. NPR rushed to interview Susan Stamberg, hailed as a "founding mother" of NPR, who insisted that executives have caused some "terrible, terrible hits," but the "news" product is superb: "The work that we do has been so consistently extraordinary, the strongest news organization in electronic broadcasting, and that has been untarnished."
Since NPR lives in a bubble of their own arrogance, their media reporter David Folkenflik sought no opposing view. (He didn't even fish through NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard's box of listener complaints, such as NPR's recent erroneous on-air declaration that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was dead.)
Folkenflik allowed for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to say NPR doesn't need federal funds, but that's not an evaluation of NPR's professionalism. It implies Republicans are indifferent to a liberal political slant.
Most Republicans do want to focus simply on how NPR is an unnecessary federal expenditure because it's truer today than ever. In response, public broadcasters predictably cry that rural stations will shut down -- as if NPR really cares about those people they consider uneducated, less-than-Christian, gun-toting hayseeds.
Anyone who looks at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting grant budget knows the government offers scads of money to multiple NPR and PBS stations in urban areas. In the Baltimore-Washington TV market, there are three stations -- why three? -- that took almost $7.5 million in "community service grants" in 2009. The $4 million-plus given to D.C. superstation WETA is more money than TV stations receive in 19 states.
The public radio situation has even more pots in the fire, with three D.C. stations -- why three? -- and four Baltimore stations -- why four? -- taking another $2.2 million in 2009. If poor rural stations were so precious to CPB, couldn't they limit themselves to one station per market?
And why is allegedly suffering NPR building a 330,000-square foot headquarters in downtown D.C. right now, complete with roof terraces, a fitness center and a theater for live performances?
But NPR is also in denial about how evolving technology has ruined the argument of "scarcity" of news. Take NPR anchor Michele Norris asserting on Sunday's "Meet the Press" that if Republicans defunded the CPB, people in small towns in Indiana would no longer have news.
"These are small stations where people don't necessarily have access to news because a lot of the news stations and radio have fallen away. Take the state of Indiana. We just heard from Gov. Daniels. If public broadcasting went away, there are people in small towns, small stations, that would not have access to news."
Apparently, people in small-town Indiana don't have television, cable, satellite, newspapers or access to the Internet. Everyone's on a starvation media diet of nothing but NPR.
These are about the most insulated and arrogant elitists anywhere. No wonder George Soros likes them. Fine. Take his money. Do his bidding. Leave the taxpayer alone.
If you are falsely accused and can prove it, you stay and fight.
I heard folks on NPR debate this topic with someone who was Conservative. They were claiming that they had high standards and provided reporting of the very highest quality. He responded with a few examples of where NPR got things very wrong, and he mentioned Giffords' "death".
The NPR host was shocked! Do you serious -- seriously -- think that one or two examples of errors is evidence of anything?
1) They demand evidence
2) We give them evidence
3) They say our evidence doesn't count
They deserve no respect.
The point for us should be that these people are SO WARPED IN THEIR PERCEPTION OF REALITY that they actually BELIEVE what they are saying.
Their view of the world is so wierd that they really think they are fair and balanced. They are not smoking dope. they are just NUTS. Their problem is that EVERYONE they have ever met in their closed little circle is just like them and they have never met an opposing viewpoint in their entire lives.
They are the proverbial fish that doesn’t know he’s wet.
I went to a baby shower with my wife a few years ago and there were a bunch of these “fish” there as well. They were SHOCKED! SHOCKED! that anyone existed that didn’t conform to their worldview.
Don’t commercial TV stations still have to keep a list of complaints from viewers? Does that same rule apply to PBS? If so, it would be interesting if we all made an effort to write a complaint to our local PBS station.
The irony, of course, being that liberal "argument" generally makes a strawman out of some isolated data and uses that to "prove" some general "fact".
They can remain so long as they can sell their product. It's the rule that made every other going concern that survives, successful.
NPR thinks Pelosi is a Moderate.
It could not have been said better.
Excellent analogy!
What a bunch of liars, hypocrites, and candidates for the rubber room.
It is tremendously insulting that they think that ANYONE is stupid, ignorant, or brainwashed enough to believe this.
“Nurse Ratched, another 55 gallon drum of thorazine for our friends at NPR please.”
Not that I disagree with any of the article, but it neglects to document any bias in actual NPR news. If you want to counter the idea that NPR news is not biased you do that by showing bias in the news stories. Not by talking about fund raising and donors.
This is a common problem with articles that try to address news bias. They consistently fail to point any out. I don't know why. It's not like it's hard to find. I can pick up practically any paper any given day and point it out.
If you don't provide hard specific examples of bias there's nothing to pin down the target.
That stupid blonde twit (no misspelling here!) on the Morning Joe show tried to downplay the video by calling Shiller an ad salesman. I guess this suggestion is that salesmen will say anything. Shiller is the voice of NPR and he made his voice clear and unambiguous.
They didn't claim to be blameless. They just deny bias in the news. Which is why this article should have documented some.
Deep down inside, NPR knows that the same fate awaits them as what happened to AIR AMERICA!
Dead and GONE!
Defund and remove tax exempt status ASAP.
National PUBIC Radio; the yeasty, foaming, crotch of liberalism..
Deep down inside, NPR knows that the same fate awaits them as what happened to AIR AMERICA!
Dead and GONE!
I disagree. There seems to be no end of Volvo driving latte sippers who are willing to send them money. Fine and dandy, so stop giving them ours.
They are like the boy in the bubble. They don't know what happens in the real world.
They think people in Southern Indiana all wear overalls, don't have electricity, and wear big floppy hats from the 1890’s. Their idea of rural areas is frozen in the 1940’s. They've seen Ma and Pa Kettle, Grapes of Wrath (required for Cinema class), and the Wizard of Oz and they have an idea that this is how things were and are in rural areas. The black and white images are frozen in their minds. Since they are so isolated in their restricted thinking, I bet the think that if they go to Southern Indiana that it will actually be black and white.
NYC was the center of the universe in her world view. She could not understand how those of us out here in fly over country were able to put food on the table, except maybe from our own garden.
She was a nice kid and I hope she has figured it out by now.
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