NPR Airs MASSIVE Story On the 'Cost' of Parents Pushing Librarians on 'Book Bans'

Tim Graham
August 14th, 2023 1:17 PM

Text to Speech

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National "Public" Radio is staunchly taking sides in the debate over "book bans" of explicit sexual material in public libraries. On Saturday night's horribly named show All Things Considered, Boston-based NPR reporter Tovia Smith filed a 12-and-a-half minute story warning "The battle over books comes at a cost." Librarians have been smeared as evil people and their lives have been put in danger by nasty right-wingers.

In this whole story, NPR successfully avoided mentioning the content of any sexually explicit material at the center of these matters. This isn't the first time NPR has campaigned on this issue.

This is how they pushed the "fearing for their safety" narrative on their Facebook page: 

You could listen to this story for nine minutes without a conservative argument, and then it came with the note that polls show a majority "oppose book restrictions and want to protect intellectual freedom, as opposed to the smaller but strident faction of conservatives who say that want to protect kids from inappropriate content." 

The heart of the story was based in Livingston Parish, Louisiana, where Smith could present "the cost" of a debate over what goes in the library. Librarians are terrified! As pictured by NPR, their heroine was librarian Amanda Jones, but Smith left a couple of things out here: Jones isn't just a simple librarian, but the head of the Louisiana Association of School Librarians, who was given an "Intellectual Freedom" award from the American Association of School Librarians.

Their lingo is arrogant: when a book is "challenged," it's opposed to intellectual freedom, as they boast "To unite and protect the rights of all learners is inspirational.” In other words, "freedom" works when no one objects in a public forum. No one gets to question what librarians choose -- and maybe what refuse to choose. 

Smith even included "retired librarian/activist" Carolyn Foote smearing the conservatives: "You know, Russia bans books. That's not what America stands for."

That same article from The Advocate newspaper in Baton Rouge mentions Jones is quite the progressive activist: she created a "Censorship Toolkit" with "resources for librarians to inform themselves regarding censorship debates and founded Louisiana Citizens Against Censorship, a statewide coalition of groups against censoring books."

This NPR story looks very much like a vehicle for a campaign, as you could tell from the "book ban" fighting leftist groups on Twitter: 

When Smith turned to conservative voices, they were labeled conservative: "Conservative activist Michael Lunsford has spent years raising the heat in nearby Lafayette Parish and leading a stealthy, but steady campaign that replaced board members he considered not quite on board."

But NPR is playing the stealthy game here, not informing the NPR audience that Jones "filed a defamation lawsuit last year" against Lunsford and another conservative (it was dismissed). So who is working to suppress speech? 

But wait, that defamation lawsuit drew a differently, deeply-biased story on...NBCNews.com! 

NBC reported after all the conservative insults on social media, "More than 600 people donated a combined $20,000 for Jones on GoFundMe so she could respond with legal action."

It's a little sad how media outlets like NPR want to pretend this debate is Conservative Censors vs. Freedom Librarians, and not underline that these anti-"book ban" lobbies are conducting a culture war, offering sexually graphic messaging to children. At least the NBC story included a link to a Facebook post with an example.

You can hear the extremely tilted NPR story below: 

 

The transcript from the "danger" section is here if you click "Expand." 

TOVIA SMITH: It's not just books under fire but also library administrators, teachers and long-beloved librarians. Around the nation, they're shouted down by parents, vilified on billboards, reported to the police and fearing for their safety.

AMANDA JONES: I had an actual death threat that they were coming to get me, and click, click, [expletive].

SMITH: School librarian Amanda Jones says she was targeted after she spoke out at a Livingston Parish Library board meeting against what she called book policing, and her words were twisted online.

JONES: This was - she advocates for the teaching of anal sex to 11-year-olds. She's pushing pornography and erotica to 6-year-olds. And in the comments, we going to put your fat, evil, Commie, pedo [expletive] in the dirt very soon [expletive].

SMITH: Jones says she was terrified.

JONES: I was hyperventilating. Like, (crying) I didn't leave my room for days.

SMITH: She ended up on medical leave, lost 50 pounds and chunks of hair and was so scared she started carrying a gun. Her case may be more extreme than most, but she's hardly the only one feeling the heat.

UNIDENTIFIED LIBRARIAN #1: It's scary. This is the first time I have not felt entirely safe in my job.

SMITH: This Livingston Parish librarian asked not to be identified.

UNIDENTIFIED LIBRARIAN #1: Because they will fire me in a heartbeat.

SMITH: In decades of library work, she says, she's never seen this kind of exodus, including even the library system's director and assistant director.

UNIDENTIFIED LIBRARIAN #1: It was like rats escaping from a sinking ship. We have lost some excellent people.

SMITH: The new director of the Livingston Parish Library System, Michelle Parrish, says staffing is down nearly 30%.

MICHELLE PARRISH: When you're in this environment and you have the choice to go to a place where it hasn't reached there, then why wouldn't you do that? I would if I - you know, if it were me.

SMITH: Librarians quitting here and around the nation are often doing so at great personal cost, like one in Texas who asked not to be named for fear of provoking the same backlash she was trying to escape. She says she left retirement money on the table because she just couldn't take it anymore.

UNIDENTIFIED LIBRARIAN #2: It was like a dark cloud over me all the time to feel like an enemy, a groomer, all these things. And it just made me feel kind of sick all the time.

SMITH: Giving up what she considered her calling, however, brought its own pain.

UNIDENTIFIED LIBRARIAN #2: It's making me tear up because I just felt terrible grief, tremendous grief.

SMITH: Another librarian, Latasha McKinney, also had a hard time quitting her school in Oklahoma that she found hostile to LGBTQ- and race-related books.

LATASHA MCKINNEY: I always thought that I would be the type of person who would just stay and fight. I wouldn't be the type to run.

SMITH: But McKinney says staying felt too big a compromise. Her grandfather was kicked out of a public library in the '50s because he was Black, she says, and that's largely why she became a librarian.

MCKINNEY: You know, for representation, for access, for - you know? - and now we're going to remove some of the access to books. And I was just, like, no, I'm not - I'm definitely not going to be the one to participate in this....

TOVIA SMITH: The ongoing battle over books is also costing libraries in real dollars as they spend countless hours responding to book challenges, sometimes by the hundreds. Lisa Varga, executive director of the Virginia Library Association, puts the price at millions of dollars.

LISA VARGA: You're talking about the admin who receives the request. You're talking about the FOIA officer who has to answer anything, the school board attorney, the superintendent, the principals and all the library media specialists who then have to be flagged. This has a real cost.

TOVIA SMITH: Those challenging the books see that as the price of protecting children. But others see greater risk in removing books which could make marginalized kids feel more isolated or depressed.

THOMASINA BROWN: It really felt kind of personal, and it's - it really saddens me.

TOVIA SMITH: Thomasina Brown is a high school senior in Nixa, Miss., where an outspoken librarian was transferred away. Brown, who identifies as queer, says it was crushing to lose such a staunch advocate for LGBTQ-themed books, including one of her favorites about a girl discovering her sexual identity.

THOMASINA BROWN: She very well could have been me. And so when they called it inappropriate for children, it kind of felt like I was inappropriate as well.

TOVIA SMITH: It's one of the reasons Amanda Jones says she decided to return to her school librarian job this year in Livingston Parish. Jones says a dozen or so LGBTQ students she's taught have died by suicide.

AMANDA JONES: I just think I have a responsibility. You have to speak out. Your silence is compliance. So when they want me to be quiet, I always say I'm going to roar.

TOVIA SMITH: At the same time, Jones worries that the rising vitriol swirling around books will lead to violence.

JONES: You know, what is this hate rhetoric inciting? 'Cause I was scared that someone mentally unstable was going to come up to the school to get me and, in the process, harm a child.

TOVIA SMITH: On another level, some say what's ultimately at stake in all the brawling over books is nothing less than democracy itself.

CAROLYN FOOTE: You know, Russia bans books. That's not what America stands for.

TOVIA SMITH: Carolyn Foote, a retired-librarian-turned-activist, worries about the slippery slope.

CAROLYN FOOTE: You know, first, maybe it's books that have mature content, and then it's a book about race. And then it's a book about Billie Jean King because a parent didn't like that she was gay. And then it's, well, I don't like the way that book talks about the police. You know, it just completely ignores the fact that we're a democracy with a First Amendment.

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