NPR was roundly bashed on Twitter on Election Night for its florid spin against Arizona's Republican gubernatorial nominee, Kari Lake. The Republicans are election deniers, the Democrats defend election integrity. That spin is tidy.
In Arizona, an election denying Republican faces off against a Democrat defending election integrity in the state’s gubernatorial race. https://t.co/4Mbm2pMYgq pic.twitter.com/eAjMBuvJWw
— NPR (@NPR) November 8, 2022
"An election-denying Republican is on the ballot to become Arizona’s next governor. She’s challenged by a Democrat who has spent the past two years defending the state’s election integrity," NPR wrote in its election live updates page on Tuesday.
This matches exactly what NPR news reader Lakshmi Singh announced in the 2 pm newscast on NPR stations. (I caught it as I was grabbing some Election Day fast food from McDonald’s.) NPR.org posts the hourly newscast each hour, so I was to transcribe it.
Singh began: "An election-denying Republican is on the ballot to become on Arizona's next governor. She's challenged by a Democrat who spent the past two years defending the state's election integrity."
Then she turned to Arizona-based reporter Ben Giles at KJZZ: "Republican Kari Lake, running in her first-ever campaign, rode the endorsement of former president Donald Trump to victory in Arizona's GOP primary. The former local news anchor ran a brash and loud Trump-like campaign, boasting she drove a stake through the heart of the conservative establishment."
Giles added: "Democrat Katie Hobbs, Arizona's current Secretary of State, ran a far more subdued campaign. She refused to debate Lake, while pitching herself as a safer choice to Arizona's important independent swing voters. Hobbs has described the race as a choice between sanity and chaos."
Republicans are “brash and loud,” while Democrats are “subdued.” That’s an interesting word for “avoids all debates and escapes reporters whenever possible.” NPR thinks it’s very professional to enable Hobbs to imply the Republicans represent “chaos” and insanity. That description is "subdued."
While the race has yet to be called, please remember that Arizona PBS demonstrated its tilt by providing Hobbs with an interview after she skipped out on the PBS debate. Public broadcasting in this race has clearly taken sides against the Republicans.
