NPR Ignores Reporter's Blatant Conflict of Interest as He Reports on His Former Employer's Liberal Activism
Journalists are said to love transparency, at least when it comes to other people. When it comes to others exposing reporters' own conflicts of interest and past histories, however, some take a decidedly different tone.
Ben Howe, contributing writer to both RedState.com and Breitbart.com, has posted video of a brief but instructive conversation with NPR reporter Peter Overby regarding NPR assigning Overby to cover stories about the liberal Common Cause challenging the tax-exempt status of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, even though Overby is a former Common Cause employee. In recent weeks, Overby has written five stories about Common Cause's attack on ALEC.
Overby was senior editor at Common Cause for several years in the 1990s. Common Cause was originally founded in the 1970s ostensibly to push for increased transparency in government.
Keep that in mind when you hear Overby's response to the question about the seeming conflict of interest of having a former high-level Common Cause employee cover a story in which Common Cause is a central actor.
After at first trying to dodge the questioner, Overby then simply dismisses the concern about the ethics issue, saying, "I don't think I want to talk to you about it."
Transparency, it seems, is something Overby would rather write about that practice. Pressed a bit, Overby responds, "The ombudsman wrote about it. Other people have written about it. I'm good with it."
Indeed, NPR's ombudsman did write about the situation - nearly 2,100 words, almost all of them devoted to dismissing the ethical questions and defending NPR's decision to assign Overby, a former "senior editor" for Common Cause - to cover a story which pits Common Cause against ALEC.
The NPR ombudsman largely dismisses the criticism, briefly summarizing the criticism rather than directly quoting the critics.
And, without a sense of irony, the taxpayer-funded NPR frets that Common Cause's challenge to ALEC raises legitimate questions because, "If ALEC is a lobbying group, then we as taxpayers have been helping fund it."
- Matthew Sheffield's blog
- Login to post comments
Comments
Mr. Sheffield you do not
Submitted by John21 on Tue, 06/05/2012 - 2:22pm.
Mr. Sheffield you do not understand liberal elitist propaganda media are not required to follow the basic rules of our society, they are above those rules.
NPR provides public relations services for the liberal DNC and administration fairness and honesty is not part of the liberal doctrine and they are not require to observe them. Nothing coming out of NPR is credible or even believable.
What? This is the normal MO for National Peoples' Radio.
Submitted by JLin on Tue, 06/05/2012 - 2:40pm.
This is why the public funding of these partisan leftist entities must be ended.
NPR is nothing but hypocrisy
Submitted by c5then on Tue, 06/05/2012 - 2:47pm.
NPR is nothing but liberal activists interviewing liberal academics about how good liberalism is and how evil conservatives are. And taxpayers have been funding that for 40+ years.
Madison and Jefferson and Franklin built a Republic - Roberts killed it!
Nothing new for NPR
Submitted by filioscotia on Wed, 06/06/2012 - 12:58am.
For many years NPR has frequently featured Common Cause founder and longtime President Fred Wertheimer as one of its "go to" guys for comments and reactions to political stories. This despite the fact that he is married to Linda Wertheimer, who was for years the co-anchor NPR's All Things Considered. She's now a Senior Correspondent.
From my position as local anchor on Morning Edition at the NPR affiliate in Houston, I contacted the ME Producer one day, and asked why they didn't see fit to at least include a "full disclosure" disclaimer whenever Fred Wertheimer was on the air pontificating about something. I said for me, it was an issue of honesty in reporting, and I thought listeners have the right to know about their relationship.
I was told I was the only person who had ever complained about that, and furthermore, nobody at NPR thought it was important enough to include a mention that the two Wertheimers are married. And that was that.
Hypocrisy thy name is NPR.