Wade Goodwyn

With his disarming Texas drawl, NPR’s Dallas-based correspondent Wade Goodwyn hardly sounds like a far-left activist in the mold of Saul Alinsky, but that’s exactly what he used to be. During the 1980s—at least until 1989—Goodwyn was a community organizer in New York City working with a community group affiliated with the Industrial Areas Foundation, an activist network established by the far-left activist Saul Alinsky to further his politics.

That backdrop helps explain reporter Goodwyn’s angry denunciation of the Texas Republican Party in his May 23 report on NPR’s All Things Considered. Instead of simply reporting on the controversy of the Texas GOP deciding not to take federal funds in exchange for implementing parts of Obamacare, Goodwyn hammered away the Texas GOP’s decision. Goodwyn devoted six times as much time for others to argue against the decision than for it. Apparently believing that such a ratio was insufficient to push his position over the finish line, Goodwyn himself argued against the decision at length.

On Tuesday's Morning Edition, NPR's Wade Goodwyn carried water for pro-abortion activists who are targeting Governor Rick Perry and the Texas legislature for cutting the state funding of "women's health clinics." Goodwyn didn't give an ideological label for the activists, referring to them merely as "family planning advocates," and highlighted their objection that some of the cut funds were now going to crisis pregnancy centers.

Hosts Steve Inskeep and David Greene pushed a liberal talking point against the Republican presidential contender in his introduction for the correspondent's report: "Texas has been attracting people who move there for jobs. At the same time, though, more than a quarter of the state's population has no health insurance, which is more than any other state. Hospital emergency rooms and dozens of women's health clinics have been filling the gap." Greene continued that "this year, Perry and the state legislature drastically cut funding for the clinics."

NPR's Wade Goodwyn noticeably minimized the presence of anti-illegal immigration conservatives from Texas on Tuesday's All Things Considered. Goodwyn tilted towards so-called "welcoming" and "tolerant" Republicans in the state by a three to one margin, and gushed over the "thousands of illegal immigrants building neighborhoods" during the "Hispanic-friendly" term of then-Governor George W. Bush.

Host Michelle Norris set the biased tone in her introduction for the correspondent's report: "In Texas, the Republican Party is changing tack on illegal immigration. The relatively welcoming, tolerant attitude embraced by George W. Bush when he was governor is waning. It's been overtaken by a flood of Arizona-style get-tough measures. Nearly 100 immigration bills have been written or filed in the current legislative session."

Goodwyn trumpeted how "Texas is now more than ever in the nation's conservative vanguard, and among its most conservative leaders is House Representative Leo Berman from northeast Texas, around Tyler." He continued by acting as if distance from the border mattered in the illegal immigration debate: "Though Berman's district is about as far from the Mexican border as you can get and still be in Texas, he's leading the charge on immigration."