National Pathetic Radio
If the resignations at National Public Radio continue at last week's pace, there may be no need for Congress to defund the aging dinosaur, because there will be no one left there to turn the lights on.
The latest is Betsy Liley, NPR's director of institutional giving. Conservative activist James O'Keefe secretly recorded phone conversations between Liley and a man masquerading as a potential donor from a fictitious group called the Muslim Education Action Center, which the man said had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The fake donor said his group was worried about a government audit. Liley told him that a $5 million contribution might not have to be reported to the IRS. Liley has been placed on administrative leave.
This incident followed the resignation of Vivian Schiller, NPR's president and CEO, and Ronald Schiller (no relation), another NPR fund-raiser, who was caught on video calling tea party members "seriously racist." Ronald Schiller also said, "Speaking of Zionist influence at NPR: I don't actually find it at NPR. ... No. I mean it's there in those who own newspapers, obviously; but no one owns NPR."
All of this is damning enough, but it begs the larger question of whether in a multimedia age the federal government should subsidize a network that could stand on its own if it wanted to. The same people who are quick to allege bias when it comes to Fox News and talk radio are just as quick to defend NPR from liberal bias, claiming NPR is, to borrow a phrase, "fair and balanced."
The problem for NPR and other media is not only bias, but also blindness. Large numbers of Americans believe NPR and the broadcast networks are hostile to their beliefs. Rather than address that justified perception, the media deny what to their conservative critics is obvious.
NPR's interim CEO, Joyce Slocum, told the Associated Press, "I think if anyone believes that NPR's coverage is biased in one direction or another, 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. What they will find is balanced journalism that brings all relevant points of view to an issue and covers it in depth so that people understand the subtlety and the nuance."
If that were true, would the ultra-liberal George Soros have contributed $1.8 million to NPR to, according to Fox News, "hire 100 new reporters for 50 of its member stations"?
Space keeps me from listing all the examples of NPR's left-wing bias. Here are a few, courtesy of the Media Research Center (www.mrc.org). Rebutting the Republican rebuttal to the State of the Union address, "NPR's John Ydstie tried to claim both conservative and liberal economists disagreed with Paul Ryan on the notion there was a 'failed stimulus.' " That's called picking only those economists who reinforce your point of view and not naming them. It's like reporting, "some people say..."
Also according to the MRC, "The NPR weekend game show, 'Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me!' did a mock interview using George W. Bush soundbites from his book tour to present him as a drunk in the White House." And, "NPR's Neda Ulaby set out to criticize conservative critics of the National Portrait Gallery's "Hide/Seek" exhibit of LGBT art, and included zero conservatives in her piece."
There is much more, including the reliably liberal Nina Totenberg. In her "reporting" on Elena's Kagan's nomination for the Supreme Court, Totenberg presented Kagan "as a modern-day Superman." Why not Wonder Woman?
In 1993, I wrote a column about comments made by Washington Post reporter Michael Weisskopf, who claimed that evangelicals were "largely poor, uneducated and easy to command." When some of them flooded the newspaper with their educational and professional bona fides, Weisskopf said he meant to say that "most" evangelicals were "poor, uneducated and easy to command." That triggered more protests. The Post ombudsman at the time, Joann Byrd, tried to defend Weisskopf, saying that readers needed to understand most journalists don't know any of "these people."
And the big media wonder why they are losing audience, money and credibility.
Direct all MAIL for Cal Thomas to: Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, N.Y. 14207. Readers may also e-mail Cal Thomas at tmseditors@tribune.com.
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Comments
Nazi Propaganda Radio
Submitted by GeneralAl on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 8:15am.
NPR might as well be called Nazi Propaganda Radio. It sure as heck doesn't present any of my views, why should it get my tax money. Kinda, sorta like the public employee unions!"Old Soldiers never die, they just fade away"!
"Grade your own papers, class."
Submitted by Galvanic on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 8:20am.
Like the Washington Post, NPR has examined itself and declared that it is free of bias. And since they are intellectually superior to us, it is not our place to question their self-evaluation.
When NPR executives unwittingly revealed their bias, the organization -- mainly its journalists and alumni -- insisted that the liberal bias of the management was not reflected in NPR's product.
So, being that we are not intelligent enough to detect media bias, we are encouraged to disregard the claims, and continue to feed them Federal tax dollars.
It's where you stand
Submitted by CO2Maker on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 9:35am.
Where I stand is normal; on one side are the lefties, on the other side are the righties. Some of my positions are called "conservative" by others, but to me, they are intelligent, thoughtful, and normal. There are many people who are far more conservative than I am, and most of them are okay, but not those extreme right-wing nuts. Some of my positions are considered "liberal" (actually, libertarian) by others, but there are many people far more left-wing than I am. And then there are those Molotov-cocktail-throwing mob-mentality lefties way out there with the Alinskys and Ayers-heads of the world, not to mention the Fidel-lovers. It's where you stand. And where Harry Reid stands, for example, in plainly in the middle of the budget fight over NPR funding, and he thinks that it's plainly normal to try to preserve Cowboy Poetry with public moneys.delicious
Submitted by dostrow on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 9:33am.
who knew these liberals were so ethical?It is the security blanket of Government funds
Submitted by c5then on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 9:40am.
That allows them to be elitists and blind to their own bias. Without the Federal funding there will be many NPR stations in the heartland that cease to be. They wiill no longer be getting the money from the national office to make up for the lack of member pledges. The staions in the big cities will not be in danger but don't expect to hear NPR in the middle of Idaho or Wyoming or Montana once they lose their government teat. National Progressive Radio will be replaced with programming that better represents the local population. That is what scares the SH*T out of the Washington D.C. elites.Madison and Jefferson and Franklin built a Republic - Roberts killed it!
Wait Wait Don't Tell Me
Submitted by filioscotia on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 12:04pm.
As someone who recently retired after 17 years at the NPR affiliate in Houston, I can testify as to the dependably liberal tilt to everything done at NPR. Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is fun to listen to, most of the time, except on those days when a well known Conservative is one of the featured "Guest Contestants."
Over the past few years, I noticed that just about every one of those supposedly conservative guests were conservatives in name only. They were invited to be on the show because they had recently made news by virtue of some major disagreement with the GOP or Conservative thinking in general. Without exception, those people had nothing good to say about the GOP and their fellow conservatives.
One notable example springs to mind. I ask you now, for what earthly reason would anybody invite Scott McClellan to be on a nationally broadcast radio game show? He had just left his job of White House Press Secretary, and those who even remember him can't recall anything about him that would make him more interesting than watching paint dry.
But wait ! There's more! McClellan had just made news on his own with a tell-all kiss-and-tell book ripping the Bush administration. That just guaranteed he would get an invite to be on NPR and WWDTM, and he didn't disappoint. He made sure he would continue to be invited to other Lib shows and parties. I hope he likes his new friends, because I don't think he's getting invited to very many conservative parties.
Bye-bye, Liley!
Submitted by johnsonl on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 4:32pm.
Ohhh, release another tape, so the rest of the corporate staff will quit in shame!