NPR

[RobbyPants]

I listen to NPR a couple of times per day (to and from work), and I've always liked what I feel is a fairly objective view on things. Given Juan Williams getting fired on Monday, NPR has been on the news quite a bit, and conservatives are coming out of the woodwork complaining about NPR and people defending the move as "liberal authoritarian".

So, how liberal is NPR? Maybe it's my own bias, but I've seen them as fairly neutral, with a slight leaning at best. Is this just more conservative denialism, or am I off base here?

[cthulhu]

They are left leaning, but realistically it is a fairly good look at the news. Well, from the coverage you get in Australia

[Surgo]

I really think this is just conservative denialism. MSNBC is slanted. Fox News is slanted. NPR just reports the news.

[violence in the media]

NPR is left-leaning in the sense that they don't generally allow their guests to talk in sound bites or shout each other down. Their interview shows are more conversational than confrontational, and they don't usually have someone on just to be a punching bag. Similarly, their political discussions often feature people who disagree with each other, or approach topics from different angles.

[Zinegata]

Can't say to be honest. I live in the 'ppines.

Wiki says left though, based on an '05 study

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Public_Radio

Personally though, after all the Williams coverage on Fox, I'm tempted to say NPR currently leans stupid more than anywhere else. Really. They got O'Reilly and The View Girls agreeing on something just one week after that epic flamewar. That takes epic levels of retardation to pull off.

[Kaelik]

The problem is that Left/Right is not relevant if you are trying to be correct.

If one person says that God Created the Earth 6000 years ago, and wants you to murder all the gays, and another person says that Gay people are people too, and presents a few reasons for allowing them to marry (sane ones, like equality, reducing STD spread, the fact that they raise kids too, ect.) it's left to agree with the sane one over the insane one. It's only "balanced" to treat them both as equally right, but that is false.

So if something is left or right in general, that doesn't necessarily mean they are biased, sometimes it just means that the world favors one over the other.

Also, that study it sites claims that Fox News and the Drudge Report are left leaning in bias as well, so... Take it for what it's worth. Which is nothing.

Clearly, whatever system was used to determine the bias of a news source does not accurately reflect real bias.

[Zinegata]

Kaelik, answer the man's questions, or don't. But if you want to rant about how "Left and Right don't actually matter" to disguse the fact that what you really want to is to bash religious people again, start a new thread and stop your blatant trolling here.

Because really, your shit is tired and useless. And you're not worth wasting any more time or posts over.

Bye.

[RobbyPants]

Kaelik does make a point in that I've never heard NPR really entertain any of the more insane positions on their show, other than from random callers who get through. They do have plenty of conservatives on their show, but more to discuss stuff like Tea Party upsets or stances on the size of government or taxes. They leave out all the insanity and hateful rhetoric.

Sometimes I forget how hateful and naive some people can be until I make the mistake of reading comments at the bottom of an article that's even tangentially related to Islam or gays.

[mean_liar]

Juan Williams had a history of violating this:

http://www.npr.org/about/aboutnpr/ethic ... _code.html

IV.1. Conducting ourselves in a manner that inspires confidence in us as independent and fair means avoiding actual and apparent conflicts of interest or engaging in outside activities, public comment or writing that calls into question our ability to report fairly on a subject.

V.10. In appearing on TV or other media including electronic Web-based forums, NPR journalists should not express views they would not air in their role as an NPR journalist. They should not participate in shows electronic forums, or blogs that encourage punditry and speculation rather than fact-based analysis.


He was disciplined multiple times. NPR takes its CoE very seriously to the point where it's employees are barred from attending the Rally to Restore Sanity.


EDIT

More here:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2010 ... n-williams

Key paraphrase necessarily to contextualize:

"But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see an African American male in Dashiki with a big Afro, I get worried. I get nervous."


EDIT 2

To address the actual topic, NPR is corporatist and left-leaning. They are also a very good and accurate news outlet.

[RobbyPants]

Yeah, I heard that it was a CoE violation that got him fired. If I make the mistake about reading the comments on any article I find, people keep crying about freedom of speech.

Incidentally, it looks like Juan is getting a 2 million dollar contract to work for Fox. Go figure.

Near as I can figure, Fox wants to take a jab at NPR.

[CatharzGodfoot]

The fact that everybody seems to think that NPR is biased against them is a decent indication that, while not necessarily right, NPR is at least balanced.

[Jilocasin]

Sarah Palin certainly wants to take a jab at NPR, of course she goes about it in a rather inane way.

[tzor]

... and conservatives are coming out of the woodwork ...

Mysteriously comes out of the woodwork …

NPR is definitely liberal (at the very least liberally biased). The actual degree of liberalness depends on the specific shows and hosts. The NPR web page, for example, was infamous for the famous web animation “how to speak tea bag” which was as insulting as insulting gets (now with absolutely no newsworthy content)! Weekend edition is liberally fluff biased, but I think that is because it’s just hard to find conservative. Morning edition is clearly biased, conservatives are based, liberals are praised, and tea party people are constantly the but of insults. All things considered used to be only slightly biased; they used to consider when a person would tell them facts that conflicted with their liberal world view, but this is sadly occurring less and less.

Here is a sample, looking at today’s morning edition:
Let’s ass kiss the President: Coming Face To Face With The President
Let’s demonize Fox News and the traitor: Fox News Gives Juan Williams $2 Million Contract

Tonight in All Things Considered:
Let’s bash the republican on some minor incident in their lives (like not voting): Fiorina Takes Her Message To California's Middle
Let’s continue to bash the traitor: Williams Flap Ignites Controversy Over Objectivity
Let’s all blame next year on the Republicans: Will GOP, Obama Make It Work In 2011?

I’ve already emailed my local NPR station to stop taking payments from my checking account.

Well it’s time for me to get back into the woodwork … see you next year!

[CatharzGodfoot]

... and conservatives are coming out of the woodwork ...

Mysteriously comes out of the woodwork …

NPR is definitely liberal (at the very least liberally biased). The actual degree of liberalness depends on the specific shows and hosts. The NPR web page, for example, was infamous for the famous web animation “how to speak tea bag” which was as insulting as insulting gets (now with absolutely no newsworthy content)! Weekend edition is liberally fluff biased, but I think that is because it’s just hard to find conservative. Morning edition is clearly biased, conservatives are based, liberals are praised, and tea party people are constantly the but of insults. All things considered used to be only slightly biased; they used to consider when a person would tell them facts that conflicted with their liberal world view, but this is sadly occurring less and less.

Here is a sample, looking at today’s morning edition:
Let’s ass kiss the President: Coming Face To Face With The President
Let’s demonize Fox News and the traitor: Fox News Gives Juan Williams $2 Million Contract

Tonight in All Things Considered:
Let’s bash the republican on some minor incident in their lives (like not voting): Fiorina Takes Her Message To California's Middle
Let’s continue to bash the traitor: Williams Flap Ignites Controversy Over Objectivity
Let’s all blame next year on the Republicans: Will GOP, Obama Make It Work In 2011?

I’ve already emailed my local NPR station to stop taking payments from my checking account.

Well it’s time for me to get back into the woodwork … see you next year!

In Tzor's world, covering a presidential rally is ass kissing, quoting Fox News is demonizing them, and "Weekend edition is liberally fluff biased, but I think that is because it’s just hard to find conservative".

Tzor, I'm glad you're here to provide the Christian Conservative viewpoint. Any time I question my support of the Democratic Party or wonder if those Republicans might not be so crazy after all, I just have to look to you to restore my faith.

---

Also, I like your new avatar.

[Sashi]

Reality has a well-known liberal bias.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Maybe I should clarify. While reality does have a well-known liberal bias viz the age of the universe, the shape of the solar system, evolution, and other scientific theories, the liberal bias isn't always obvious.

That is to say, the age of the universe, shape of the solar system/earth, and workings of evolution aren't immediately obvious without significant scientific work.

The same is almost as true with other things more important to politics, like economics and criminal justice. It's not obvious, for example, that being "tough on crime" isn't always the best way to fight crime, or that trickle-down economics don't work.

So my normal view is that most Republicans are completely reasonable people who regard what their own gut instincts and trusted individuals like pastors tell them as more sensible then the results of scientific research. That stance itself seems like a reasonable 'gut instinct', and science (especially when it becomes ensnared in politics) is not infallible (unlike non-antipope popes). This doesn't make Republicans stupid or bad people, although it does often (though not always) make them wrong.

Then people like Tzor start ranting about media bias by linking to articles that clearly show no bias beyond the slightly selfish ('We were right to fire the guy we fired'), and shatter my naive misconceptions.

[Zinegata]

Near as I can figure, Fox wants to take a jab at NPR.

Oh, there's no doubt about this. Fox got an opening, and they're pouncing on it like a savage animal .

But really, the problem is that while NPR officially fired Williams over ethical issues (which begs the question "Why only now?"), they kind of made it blindingly obvious the real reason is they think he was a bigot. Which most people thought was silly when you actually watch the full interview.

[RobbyPants]

The actual degree of liberalness depends on the specific shows and hosts.

I think I listen to snippets of Morning Edition (when the morning show I like is at commercial break) and Talk of the Nation. I catch about ten minutes of All Things Considered. So, really, my biggest exposure is Talk of the Nation. Niel seems to be pretty good about letting both sides talk.

Let’s all blame next year on the Republicans: Will GOP, Obama Make It Work In 2011?

I didn't hear this piece, but that title doesn't sound biased. There's two parts to that equation: one liberal and one conservative.

I’ve already emailed my local NPR station to stop taking payments from my checking account.

Funny. I was thinking about signing up, today.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Blatant hypocrisy.

[Username17]

NPR goes out of its way to be "centrist" in reference to US politics. US Politics are, on the global scale, seriously right wing. So NPR is centrist right wing in terms of overall world politics. They don't seriously consider having proletariat masses rise up and seize all property, for example. Nor do they give much air time to reasonably popular radical left wing ideas such as parliamentarizing the senate or nationalizing food distribution channels.

But they do let the Teaparty talk. Like, at all. Even though they don't give American Communists any air time, at all.

So while listening to NPR will drive you more towards the democrats than the republicans, that's still Right of Center, because the US does not have any major left wing parties.

-Username17

[Cynic]

Frank: thank you. For a while, I've been trying to get exactly those sentiments in a communicably sentence.

[K]

Fox news is a propaganda front, so any news organization is liberal in comparison since they offer ANY facts or opinions that are not scripted by conservatives.

I mean, being open to multiple sides of an issue and debating their relative merits is liberal. Objectivity IS liberal.

Now I'm not going so far as to call Juan a bigot, but he is clearly not objective enough to be on a news outlet that is not a conservative sock puppet.

[mean_liar]

The inverse of Frank's argument is, "because NPR never invites the American Nazi Party to their interviews, they must be left", which is clearly hyperbolic bullshit.

You can be leftist without being a communist.

You can say, "they don't entertain political parties outside nominal American bounds", but no commies != necessarily rightist.

[Username17]

The inverse of Frank's argument is, "because NPR never invites the American Nazi Party to their interviews, they must be left", which is clearly hyperbolic bullshit.

You can be leftist without being a communist.

You can say, "they don't entertain political parties outside nominal American bounds", but no commies != necessarily rightist.

More than half of Americans believe that healthcare should be socialized. Almost all of Americans believe that fire departments should be socialized. Americans are in favor of huge swathes of socialism. But American news outlets, NPR included, hardly ever talk to anyone who self identifies as a socialist.

And yes, they do invite neo-nazis to do interviews. They portray them as "the crazy extreme end of th right wing" but they get talked about at all. The farthest to the left that ever gets on the air in this country is Dennis Kucinich.

The entire debate about cap-n-trade you got on American news media was the "left wing" answer of "yes" and the "right wing" answer of "no". Carbon emissions are a serious fucking problem, and cap-n-trade is a market driven approach. That is the right wing answer to the problem. Left wing answers would include centrally planned quotas, emissions taxation, cleanliness subsidies, and so on and so on. But that wasn't the debate as presented in the US media. The debate was "Use capitalist tools to address the problem or let it fester until we toxic beachfront property in New Mexico."

Note, this effect isn't remotely limited to the US. The BBC's reporting on the Zimbabwe crisis was hysterical. The country had some mismanagement and Mugabe scapegoated some Whites for the problems and did a poorly conceived land reapportionment deal. Some of the Whites in question had UK citizenship and the UK responded by using their financial muscles to freeze Zimbabwe currency out of currency markets, making it essentially worthless for purchasing foreign goods and starting the country on the road to hyperinflation. A tremendous humanitarian crisis that is probably 70% Mugabe and 30% England in the making. But the BBC reported it as 100% Mugabe's fault, 0% England.

This is because while the BBC bends over backwards to have "no bias" that really just means that it is very strongly biased towards a British Centrist point of view. Which is still way to the left of NPR, because British Centrism is way to the left of American Centrism.

-Username17

[mean_liar]

I am curious if you can actually come up with an example of the Nazi Party getting NPR airtime.

I am also curious why you think that when the healthcare debate was going on, NPR didn't cover socialist answers to the cost and quality questions. They did a MONTH-LONG effort - a favorable one - discussing European healthcare models ( http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=91972152 ). They peppered their website with information and links to information on the subject sufficient to provide all kinds of data as well as analysis supporting socialist delivery models.

Mostly, I assume you are full of intensity and assumptions and short on reality.