NPR

National Public Radio awarded almost 23 minutes to “Gay Pride Month” on the afternoon talk show Tell Me More, including 13 minutes to a segment promoting gay parenting that featured Marcus Mabry of The New York Times (formerly of Newsweek).

But first came almost ten minutes devoted to the leftist author Linda Hirshman and her new book Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution, How a Despised Minority Pushed Back, Beat Death, Found Love and Changed America for Everyone. Hirshman offered a glowing tribute to “Radical Faeries” founder Harry Hay and even said his background in the Communist Party gave him an “oppositional consciousness” that was crucial to the gay revolution:

NPR's Scott Horsley amped up a campaign rally for President Obama to biblical proportions on Tuesday's Morning Edition, as he singled out an Obama supporter who clearly was in awe of the incumbent Democrat, to the point of practically deifying him.
       
Horsley set the scene, pointing out how "the rain had stopped, and a little sunshine was peeking through the clouds," and how the supporter attributed this change in the weather to the President: "See what his voice does? It clears up the weather, too. It clears up the economy, creates jobs, helps education, and straightens out the weather." [audio clip available here]

When it's Sunday on National Public Radio, it must be time to announce the Catholic Church is out of step with  modern times. On Weekend Edition Sunday, NPR granted a soft-soap eight-minute interview to New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the front-runner to succeed Michael Bloomberg as Mayor. NPR touted: "Christine Quinn has a notable biography. She's from an Irish family, she's Catholic and gay."

She's so "Catholic" that her "wedding" to Kim Catullo last year featured her walking down the aisle with her father to Beyonce's "Ave Maria," which is just another love song, not the actual Hail Mary hymn in any way. Her partner marched down the aisle with her dad, too...to Bruce Springsteen. NPR anchor David Greene asked as one of the "most powerful gay women" in America, if she shouldn't just leave the church that won't accept her homosexuality:

All three journalists invited to the journalists' roundtable on the Diane Rehm Show on NPR Friday played down the Fast and Furious scandal as a loser for Republicans. Jeanne Cummings of Politico wanted Congress to drop it like a hot potato: "to create this big constitutional clash with the White House makes Congress, once again, look like it's just got its eye off the ball. This isn't what people want them to do... we're going nowhere here."

NPR reporter Ari Shapiro recalled how Bush attorney general Alberto Gonzales was dogged by a U.S. Attorney-firing scandal because Republicans were willing to harp on it. But the Democrats are united for Obama, so it somehow cannot be a scandal: "I think it's only when and if we see Democrats turning against Holder, which I don't expect we're going to see, that this will really enter a new phase." How convenient is that reasoning?

NPR's afternoon talk show Tell Me More promoted the left-wing Take Back the American Dream conference on Tuesday by granting an almost ten-minute interview to ultraliberal Congressman Keith Ellison of Minnesota, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Conference, who blurted out "Koch brothers" every two minutes.

"This week, progressive activists are meeting in Washington, D.C. with the goal of answering what they see as the corrupting influence of money with the power of numbers," Martin announced. "Organizers of the Take Back the American Dream conference are hoping to energize the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party ahead of the 2012 election." Martin asked Eliison why they are faced with the mystery that this is a close election, as if Obama should be far ahead at this point despite the very sluggish economy:

NPR rushed out of the gate on Friday afternoon to defend President Obama's announcement to "lift the shadow of deportation" from young illegal immigrants. Correspondent Frank James spun the policy change as Obama getting to "the stage in his presidency, like so many of his predecessors, where his frustration with congressional inaction has led him to act unilaterally."

James cited several apparent historical precedents, including "President Harry S. Truman's racial integration of the military by executive order," and Thomas Jefferson making the Louisiana Purchase. He also labeled Republican Congressman Steve King an "immigration hard-liner" for his criticism of the President's move.

The $82 billion auto bailout has been a Crony Socialist nightmare mess. We’re going to lose at least $30 billion on the deal.  And that’s only if the Barack Obama Administration’s math can be trusted - a dicey proposition at best.

The Administration eviscerated two hundred-plus years of bankruptcy law, throwing bond holders over the side to over-reward their United Auto Workers shock force buddies.

General Motors (GM) is cutting undisclosed deals with executives’ wives businesses.And on, and on, and on....Haven’t heard most or all of this?  Not surprising - the Jurassic Press ain’t reporting it.

National "Public" Radio has barely touched on the 43 Catholic organizations that filed lawsuits against the Obama administration, but it continues to be a noisy sounding board for leftist nuns and their supporters. On Friday, NPR offered more than 14 minutes of air time to the left-wing forces.

On the afternoon talk show Tell Me More, NPR devoted nine minutes and 47 seconds to a segment they titled "Born to Be Wild: Catholic Nuns Hit the Road." These "wild" nuns were celebrated for opposing the Paul Ryan budget with a bus tour. Once again, NPR's honored guest was Sister Simone Campbell of Network, the "social justice lobby." Martin asked Sister to get out a club (or a ruler?) and whack Ryan:

NPR's Tamara Keith forwarded the "war on women" talking point of Democratic senators on Tuesday's All Things Considered as she reported on their proposed Paycheck Fairness Act. Keith spotlighted how "the bill's author...Senator Barbara Mikulski from Maryland, points out women earn just 77 cents for every dollar made by a man in the same position. She says that's the real war on women."

However, the correspondent omitted that several cosponsors of the bill actually pay their female staffers less than male staffers. She also slanted towards the liberal politicians by playing three soundbites from them, versus only one from a Republican senator.

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.

This is hot on the liberal Twittersphere: “The Charts That Should Accompany All Discussions of Media Bias” by James Fallows, a former U.S. News & World Report editor (and Jimmy Carter speechwriter). Fallows is now a weekend contributor to National Public Radio.

Once again, they drag out charts based on a Pew ”study” of the media: “They are the ones presented this morning by John Sides, drawing on Pew analyses of positive, negative, and neutral press coverage of all Republican candidates and of President Obama through this past year.” Fallows insists he has proven “you can't sanely argue that the press is in the tank for Obama.”

NPR's Greg Allen has dutifully joined others in the liberal media in presenting the liberal Democratic spin on Florida's efforts to remove noncitizens from its voter rolls as a heavy-handed "purge." As I noted yesterday, the so-called "purge" has amounted to just 0.02 percent of the state's voters being called to address discrepancies in their voter registration that suggest they are noncitizens.

Predictably, Allen seized on the Democrats' poster veteran, Bill Internicola, a 91-year-old Bronze Star recipient who was born in the Bronx and is, of course, a natural-born citizen. But of course Allen failed to inform listeners of NPR's Morning Edition that Internicola's citizen status was questioned by state officials perhaps because of a date-of-birth discrepancy between his voter registration and his driver's license. Noted the Miami Herald:

Mickey Kaus at the Daily Caller flagged an example of NPR “laundering” an amnesty activist named “Lucy” as just a typical Latina who represents how Romney might have difficulty with the Latino vote. It’s the same “Lucy” that heckled Mitt Romney until supporters applauded over her yelling. It’s not even the first time “Lucy” has harassed Romney. 

On the May 23 All Things Considered, NPR’s David Welna interviewed an “undocumented” young woman named only “Lucy” on the sidewalk and she complained that he’s failing to support the “DREAM Act” providing amnesty for illegal immigrants who came to America as children:

NPR obviously thought the case of Monsignor William Lynn, "the highest ranking Catholic official in the U.S. to be criminally tried for covering up child sex abuse by priests," was newsworthy, as they devoted four and a half minutes to the story on Thursday's All Things Considered. Meanwhile, the public radio network has yet to cover the Monday filing of 12 major lawsuits against ObamaCare's contraception/abortifacient mandate by Catholic dioceses and organizations on the air.

Correspondent Barbara Bradley Hagerty's report aired mere minutes before the CBS Evening News led with the Lynn case. On Friday, Media Research Center president Brent Bozell took both CBS and NPR to task for playing up the story, while remaining completely silent on the pro-religious freedom litigation.

The broadcast networks stubbornly pushed ahead, logging another 24 hours -- now we're at four straight days --  ignoring the Catholic lawsuits against the Obama administration. And once again on Thursday night, instead of covering this historic lawsuit championing religious freedom,  the CBS Evening News offered another two and a half minutes to a “massive coverup” of Catholic sex abuse in Philadelphia. That’s five minutes on Catholic abuse charges to 19 seconds on Catholic religious freedom. ABC and NBC are still silent, completely silent.

Taxpayer-funded NPR, which has ignored Catholic religious freedom on its morning and evening newscasts all week, covered the Philadelphia trial for four and a half minutes on the show they call “All Things Considered.” The only Catholic news story worthy of consideration for these outlets seem to be dated stories on what CBS calls “predator priests.”

The Obama-loving media had quite a hissy fit this week when the President's America-hating Reverend Jeremiah Wright suddenly became a campaign issue despite all their efforts.

So opposed to the mere mention of Wright's name is NPR's Nina Totenberg that on PBS's Inside Washington Friday, she said he's irrelevant because the current White House resident - wait for it! - killed Osama bin Laden (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Sunday night’s All Things Considered, NPR weekend anchor Guy Raz brought on regular guest James Fallows (the former Jimmy Carter speechwriter and editor of U.S. News & World Report) for “a look behind the headlines” to put Obama’s gay-marriage proclamation in “context.”

“I know you've been thinking a lot about this in a historical context. So take us back to some comparable moments,” Raz suggested. Fallows predictably compared the gay-marriage interview to desegregation and black opera singer Marian Anderson being allowed to sing at Constitution Hall:

As usual, it was a panel of three liberal journalists on the domestic politics roundup on NPR's Diane Rehm show. Former New York Times reporter Steve Roberts praised Obama's gay-marriage announcement: "I think he's gone through the evolution a lot of us have, Diane, that when you know people you love and respect, who are in the solid relationships, it becomes increasingly odd and out of keeping with belief in human rights to continue to oppose same-sex marriage. "

In fact, Roberts announced, he recently attended a baby shower held by two gay guys who raised $100,000 for a surrogate mother, and he couldn't think of a better example of commitment to "basic family values" in America:

Something shocking happened on Friday night on NPR's All Things Considered. "Conservative" pundit David Brooks took the anti-Washington Post position on the Mitt Romney high-school "scoop." Obviously, Post columnist E.J. Dionne stuck with his paper and his liberal guns, insisting more and more stories just like this are going to come out, whether that's a threat or a promise.

Anchor Melissa Block would not use the word "alleged" to describe the Post story which "details incidents of bullying by Romney when he was a senior at the tony Cranbrook boys prep school in Michigan. Five former classmates spoke about an incident when Romney led a posse that targeted a student with long bleached-blond hair, tackled him, pinned him to the ground and hacked off his hair as he cried and screamed for help." Brooks cried it was illegitimate "gotcha" journalism:

On Tuesday's All Things Considered, NPR's Claudio Sanchez spotlighted the efforts of college students who, with the assistance of the "liberal Center for American Progress," are lobbying Congress for an extension of low interest rates on their Stafford loans. While Sanchez did find a critic of the politicization of the loan issue, he came from another left-leaning organization, the Brookings Insitution.

All of the correspondent's soundbites came from the CAP-backed students and from Mathew Chingo of Brookings, with none coming from conservatives/Republicans. Sanchez noted how the students visited Senator Rob Portman and identified him as "a Republican from Ohio," but omitted that he is considered a possible running mate on the 2012 Republican presidential ticket. He also played up how one student was "upset about something one of the senator's staff members said," but failed to get the other side of the story.

On Sunday, the Washington Post’s Outlook section was dominated by an article with a headline imposed over an elephant’s rear end: “Admit it. The Republicans are worse. Don’t blame both sides for gridlock. Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein say it’s the GOP’s fault.”

Within about 24 hours, there were Mann and Ornstein, being interviewed on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. Anchor Steve Inskeep asked Mann if he would read from their hatchet job on the Republicans:

So when is lackluster economic growth a good thing? When it happens in the first quarter of an election year in which an incumbent Democrat president is attempting to win re-election and when the organization reporting this bad, or "good," news as they laughably attempt to categorize it is National Public Radio.

Here is the NPR comedy act performance by Scott Neuman in which he attempts to spin the lousy economy as a good thing:

NPR aired yet another attack on the Christian right on Thursday's Tell Me More. Michel Martin interviewed Democrat activist and author Michael Sean Winters about his new book "God's Right Hand: How Jerry Falwell Made God a Republican and Baptized the Religious Right." The headline for this interview on NPR.org was "Party Of Reagan? No, Party Of Falwell, Writer Says ."

Martin drew out the harshest criticisms of Jerry Falwell, that he turned moderate Republicans into "Judas figures" and forced less conservative Christians to abandon Christianity altogether because they didn't want to be associated with Falwell's "fundamentalist cast of mind." At NPR, left-wing secular fundamentalists are never questioned as coarseners of American politics, but conservative Christians are accused:

PBS talk-show host Tavis Smiley is doing a media tour with his pal, the Marxist professor Cornel West, and no one at PBS seems to care that this underlines PBS as a hard-left media brand. Noel Sheppard noted Smiley bashing Romney on Hannity. Smiley also bashed Romney last week on the taxpayer-subsidized Pacifica Radio show Democracy Now.

Pacifica host Amy Goodman replayed the CNN interview in which Romney told Soledad O'Brien he was not interested in the very rich or the very poor. Smiley found that showed callousness and arrogance and even a demonization of the poor: