Some of those critics this week highlighted social media posts of Katherine Maher, NPR’s CEO, praising Democrats, calling President Trump a racist and promoting progressive ideas.
Why are they criticizing her for calling a loud-and-proud racist a racist? Because it hurts their feelings?
Sounds like they're telling on themselves.
Reality has a liberal bias.
True. I feel like there should be an xkcd for this statement.
He literally pleaded 'non-contest' to being a racist, when investigating for bias in his slum rentals. https://www.newsweek.com/fair-housing-acts-50th-anniversary-look-back-investigation-trump-familys-879437
The link you provided doesn't say that, "Trump and his father, who were both named as defendants, responded by accusing the Department of Justice of defamation, and filing a $100 million countersuit. The messy legal battle ended with the Trumps signing a consent decree, an agreement that allows both parties to end a dispute without admitting fault."
Translation: While being sued for discrimination the Trumps sued the DOJ for accusing them of defamation for a large sum of money and dragged it out in court until the DOJ decided the case was costing them too much with no end in sight and was forced to mutually drop the cases against each other, thus allowing the Trump's to not be tried for discrimination. They used their wealth to avoid consequences, so much the same as we're seeing now.
Okay but the material facts of the case included that their employees were instructed to identify applicants who were black and refuse to rent to them because they were black.
That’s not a judgement, it’s just central evidence uncovered by the DoJ.
Which, if you’ll pardon the expression, is a kind of no contest that he’s racist.
I think the issue here is that you no longer can have "balanced" political discussion when one side cannot help but regurgitate conspiracy theories, disinformation, and just 100% proven false statements in bad faith. The minute you platform these people any meaningful "debate" evaporates and you're left with discussion not based on anything in reality. And trying to only works to drag the Overton Window to the right.
This is one of the reasons I stopped listening to NPR in the first place. During the Trump administration they kept letting Trump's mouthpieces say whatever they wanted for like 15 min, and then give like 3 min to the opposition to explain how everything they said was a bold face lie. There just wasn't any push back from the actual journalist.
That and they canceled Ask Me Another, which is pretty much the only thing I would ever give them money for.
The standard NPR segment is 4 minutes. A feature is 8 minutes and maybe once a day they go over.
It may have felt like that, but I assure you that it wasn't that bad.
IDK, I feel a lot of their programming, especially recently, has been pretty stern that there's conspiracy theories with no basis in reality. I recall them having pushed back on lies by conservative interviewees as well.
They finally changed (or learned) after January 6th. I distinctly remember yelling at my radio that they were allowing Trump's lackeys to repeatedly spew lies, and for the sake of "balance" those lies went essentially unchecked, and they'd hand the interview off to a Democrat who was baited with a leading question about "what you think about the claim that Democrats are running a child prostitution ring in the basement of a pizza restaurant", or something else equally ludicrous. The first time they stopped presenting those lies with "you decide" ambivalence was the Big Lie, which is the first time they started fact-checking in real time.
So yeah, recently they've started figuring out how to push back against obvious bullshit, but during the Trump presidency their coverage was absolutely horrendous, and they were played like a fiddle by Republicans who knew damn well NPR journalists had to take every salacious claim they made at face value, which essentially rewarded them for being as insane as possible and consistently working the Overton window in their favor.
A side note here is that there's a VERY strong difference between American and British journalism, in that Americans put a premium on decorum, and Brits put a premium on counterpoints. Sometimes they can be so direct and probing that it comes off as quite rude, and we can be so polite and courteous that we lay out the red carpet for liars. NPR has traditionally specialized in the "politely ask more questions and eventually you will get to truth" style of journalism, and they're only now starting to lean into a slightly more confrontational style of "no, that's wrong" argumentation. They're not particularly good at it, mind you, but they're kinda getting there.
Oh hell yes I can't name names at the moment. But I remember seeing a number of different clips of American right wingers going on BBC proper to be interviewed by some right-wing lunatic in the uk. Thinking that it's going to be some sort of Cakewalk and they're just there to look good. And then just get totally shredded. It makes me a little sick inside to cheer for the British lunatic. But you got to take small wins where you can get them. I wish all media had a fraction of the spine they do over there. It's still far from perfect. But it's so much better.
Yes that was at least one of them. Shut right down in a hurry. LOL
That could be true nowadays, I haven't listened to them since the Trump administration. I don't really think it makes up for it though. If the journalist only has the spine to stand up to the GOP with a Dem in the Whitehouse, then I don't think they should be on air.
are you seriously implying that NPR is scared of which party is in the white house? I feel that a rather extreme accusation that warrants a lot of proof. I would more easily believe that things you saw were more of a result in a change in American politics, that the media was slow to react to. This is the first president and party that is believing and spouting conspiracy theories and outright lies, with a huge percent of their voters believing them. Our government has been struggling dealing with this unexpected twist, so it only makes sense for journalists, or anybody involved in politics, to now know how to deal with this new setting and take time to adjust their plan of action.
They’ve been doing that at least since the GWB years, which is why I stopped listening to them then.
Yeah.... tbf pretty much every news outlet post 9/11 went completely insane.
Good. Fuck that guy and his bullshit. NPR and PBS are the only ones following the Fairness Doctrine (you have one viewpoint, and then the opposite presented to the listener)
The problem with that stance is, not all ideas are equally credible and deserve airtime. As the adage goes, "If one person says it's raining outside, and another says it's sunny, a reporter's job isn't to present both as fact. It's to open the fucking window."
What the right are really angry about is that their lies aren't being given the same weight as the truth for the most part at NPR.
I've found NPR to be pretty good at that. It's particularly apparent when it comes to Trump's lies about the 2020 election; they are consistent about pointing out when claims have been conclusively disproven, and often use the word "lie".
That said, I agree with Berliner's fundamental point; I've noticed an increasing slant in the stories NPR emphasizes. It's not that their reporting is unfair, but their choice of what to cover aligns pretty closely with the positions of the progressive left.
Is the slant created by NPR or by the political climate, though?
Let's use an extreme:
If a person says that all strawberries are red, then another person says "hey, this guy said that strawberries give cancer!" and NPR says "What the first person said was that all strawberries were red," then all good. Then 1,000 people claim that no, what was said was that strawberries cause cancer. And NPR insists on indicating that no, it's just a statement about strawberries being red - will you say that the "red strawberry" slant was caused by NPR?
Did you.. Read the article? I agree with you, but you may be thinking the headline means something it doesnt since it also agrees with you.
Wish NPR had the guts to have a left wing bias. Between fund drives, hand wringing, pearl clutching, and some biographic segment on the death of an obscure vaudeville act reviewer, they're pressed for time to come up with anything else
Lmfao at the "vaudeville act reviewer" piece
Who comes up with their stories/segments??
Some of those critics this week highlighted social media posts of Katherine Maher, NPR’s CEO, praising Democrats, calling President Trump a racist and promoting progressive ideas.
I thought this could be pretty bad coming from a CEO of a news source, until I looked into it more. She had said those things before being the CEO of NPR, as a public citizen vs as the CEO of a neutral news source. Good job hill on not providing sufficient context.
How dare you question the journalistic bastion thehill.com!
A little more context. This was in the aftermath of the "shitholes countries" comment by Trump. NYT, which pushed the attack on Maher, called Trump racist as did GOP majority leader Paul Ryan because it's an undisputed fact Trump says really racist shit.
This world is so stupid, also Chris Rufo should not be taken seriously.
Look, I left NPR when they refused to call “enhanced interrogation” torture, and dog-paddled along with every other corporate news outlet in the run-up to Iraq II: He Tried To Kill Mah Daddy.
Juan Williams, the Fox News host, was a main contributor then. Unsurprisingly, he also participated in the propaganda snowjob.
NPR is the best some people who have to commute and only have the radio can do, but it’s several planets away from “progressive” - and this guy saying “no collusion” is fucking outrageous. Fuck that guy.
It's certainly a lot more center than folks like Berliner think. I'm one of those commuter folks and I think my local NPR station talks more about pie than politics lately. That said, their news hour is about straight to the point as it gets here; this happened, that guy said this, and these people died and/or were arrested.
And the commentary...? I think I hear more Trump voter sound clips than Biden voter ones, too. And neither are criticized or lauded, even if I behind the wheel am shouting to myself "how are these people this stupid." It's all just in the context of "these voters in this purple state have said..." which is fine.
I wasn't as tuned in during Iraq though, as I was a teen at the time. I can certainly see them trying to be fairly moderate though. It's only "left leaning" now because the right has become too detached from reality. They frequently talk about scientific studies (e.g. climate change has killed X) and in today's climate, that's "liberal". Lol
That's exactly what I was trying to tell to some other commenter saying that NPR has a more left slant. Eh no, not really. It's the same position. But the far right made those positions sound lefty.
I don't understand your comment.
It's making a lot of references to the war on terror. Here's my bad translation:
Op thought npr wasn't progressive enough for OP when NPR didn't call the waterboarding, that happened at Gitmo, torture. OP does concede that NPR is a better news source than others, especially when they are commuting and want to hear news on the radio.
Totally with you. I lost a lot of faith I had in NPR in their reporting during the run up to and early years of the Iraq war. Their coverage of the Sanders Democratic Primary runs of 2016 and 2020 was also pathetic. I managed to get a lot of my former Republican friends to listen to it instead of talk radio now but I personally have such a hard time with it.
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News