Glenn Greenwald posts about NPR’s refusal to use the word "torture." Here’s what NPR’s Ombudsman, Alicia C. Shepard, said on the subject:
Both Presidents Bush and Obama have insisted that the United States does not use torture. Officials during the Bush administration acknowledged the use of what they called "enhanced interrogation techniques."
Say what? We never tortured anybody because they say so?
Even if it were true (and it isn’t — as Glenn notes, both Obama and Holder have said that waterboarding is torture, and acknowledged its use) it’s the height of Pravda-esque stenography to adopt "because the President says so" as a journalistic standard.
NPR is considered one of the most trusted sources of news. It only gets 2% of its funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but the CPB became an easy target for the Bushies when they decided it was ground zero for "liberal media." Ken Thomlinson tried to dismantle it, and they nominated Warren Bell (NRO contributor and producer of "According to Jim" (Belushi) to the board of CPB. Basically did the same thing they did to the Justice Department and FEMA, stacked it with Brownies.
While I don’t think it’s the sole fault of the Bushies, the CPB has become overly cautious about pissing off those in power. I was an infrequent guest on a PBS show a couple of years ago, until a rather oily old conservative bird who didn’t much like me called and threatened to have their funding cut if they had me on again, and that was the end of that.
The CPB’s structure has resulted in a commitment to "he said-she said" journalism that is insufficiently firewalled from political pressure and reinforces many of the problems of traditional media.
With media structures all in serious overhaul mode these days, it’s probably time to revisit how the government devotes funds to public media.
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Officials of the Iranian government acknowledge that they have occasionally gotten a little rough in their attempts to quell the lawless attempt to overturn the results of a free, open and officially decided election.
NPR = don’t rock the boat.
NPR = don’t upset the apple cart.
NPR = playing it safe.
NPR = narrowing the boundaries of acceptable discourse.
So what % of NPR’s budget comes from outside funding?
What about PBS?
A very important commentary….I agree NPR is regarded as reliable, one would think “neutral.” Scott Simon was quite snarky, not in a good way, about Obama. It should be the “public” news source.
There has to be a purge of the higher management at NPR — the one’s the Bush admin put in. It is completely infiltrated.
.
I quit listening to them when they quit having Jane & her ilk on. I like her ilk. So, no more “driveway moments.” I parked NPR and left it to rust.
I still listen to Terry Gross & This American Life on the mp3 player sometimes, though. But not in the driveway.
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Glen’s article was on target and that station is in sufferable except for Click and Clack and Garrison Keeler. Cokie Roberts, Mara Liason MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEshell Noris are right wind shills.
What’s with all these creeps who never go away and lie and deceive for big bucks.
Wait wait… don’t tell.
Ditto. Human interest stories abound…soft news, uncontroversial subjects, no point of view, balanced to the point of meaninglessness. I remember looking forward to being educated on the topics of the day. While an occasional segment of the Reames program may be of interest, even there they always fail to get truly progressive ideas on issues. If it can’t be a real news programming site, it is time to dump it.
If they cannot represent all of the public then the name needs to be changed.
The only real progressives you hear are people like Thom Hartman, or Pacifica and Amy Goodman, NPR is not only boring, they don’t do real reporting and slant everything to the status quo.
Can it. Boycott it and don’t give them money. Laura Walker the head of the WNYC NPR affiliate is paid $450,000 / yr… and they have the balls to ask listeners to pay that salary?
Don’t Harry Shearer on Sunday mornings. He’s hysterical.
NPR is an old empire institution on the inevitable downhill slide. It has outlived its relevance and uefulness. Something very new needs to rise up in its place, without all the corporate sponsorhip and without fear of having the feds cut its testosterone off.
I meant don’t forget.
This is really fascinating to me and I’ll be the first to admit I don’t get it, I truly don’t. With all that is going on in this country, blasting Democrats and Barack Obama seems to be an acute obsession here there and everywhere in the liberal bogging world. And now NPR? Wow! NPR! It makes no sense to vilify and weaken a liberal democratic president and traditional liberal voices like NPR; just because they don’t subscribe to every single talking point you would like them to. Does NPR’s use of one phrase over another warrant “Revisiting Publicly Funded Media”?
You’re doing a great job helping jumpstart the GOP’s push for power in 2010 and 2012, let there be no mistake about that. Here’s Princeton University’s Julian E. Zelizer on this:
“PRINCETON, New Jersey (CNN) — June has been rough for President Obama. After experiencing enormous success during his first months in office, some of his political vulnerabilities have started to emerge. The first vulnerability is the tension between the left and center of the Democratic Party”.
“The revelation of weakness gives Republicans, as well as unhappy Democrats, more confidence to challenge the White House. This is not what the president wanted right as he is trying to win support for his health care proposal and the rest of his budget. If the problems are not contained, they can also become the foundation for the Republican campaign for Congress in 2010″.
By the way, I choose not to call your views “progressive” as I don’t countenance your high jacking of that term. I don’t believe that a progressive would blast the most liberal President this country has ever had after five months in office. I don’t believe progressives would not realize that :a divided house cannot stand”. I am a progressive, I have known progressives all my life . . . those that attack Barack Obama after five months and divide the democratic party are no progressives.
Posted this before.
The day I heard Cokie Roberts’ fawning appreciation of the WHite HOuse Christmas party and how gracious Cheney and Rumsfeldt were I realized that the network was in the bag.
NPR’s *BIG* fail was in their dittohead cheerleading the runup to the Iraq invasion. No dissenting viewpoints or factual content whatsoever.
It has been over for quite some time.
Firing Bob Edwards was another sign.
I still listen to some of the syndicated content, and even appreciate Peter Segal’s sarcastic comments about Obama (his humor is non-partisan and generally spot on).
But none of that has any place in straight new reporting.
Am *really* enjoying the total smackdown on their comments blog. Buh-bye, NPR.
http://www.npr.org/ombudsman/2…..;pageNum=1
This is exactly like NPR’s censorship of a review of the film Outrage in which Florida Governor Charlie Crist is outed, because Crist said he wasn’t gay.
Do not listen to NPR or contribute to it in any way, shape or form.
And don’t forget…visit the NPR Shop. Shop now! Shop shop shop!
Here’s a good website about NPR. I don’t like their daily Q-Tips (an open thread) because it tends to be a lot of sneering and name calling, but their overall take on NPR is spot-on:
NPR Check
Torture/Murder/Treason say it all at once, because that what it is.
I’m not feeling real confident when being questioned by local police and seeing a tracheotomy kit ready to use , if you get my drift.
Nuremburg 2.0, settle for nothing less than the best for our war criminals
But, I really enjoy listening to Harry and I like This American Life.
Once I agree to the premise that someone else should decide where my arts and entertainment dollars should go, then I have to understand their choices won’t always be mine. I really would never spend my share of the price of an overproduced cartoon like La Gran Tartuffe, but the local authorities think I should, so I do, through tax gifts to Metropolitan Opera. (This is the point where everybody brings up Lake Woebegone.)
I’d just blow it all on downloaded Jazz numbers from 1958 and before anyway …
OT
http://features.csmonitor.com/…..iking-day/
Seconding RevBev’s comments. Also, it was childs play for the bush admin. to infiltrate part of the public airwaves.
On my drive to work this morning, I heard NPR play a quote from Hannity complaining about the bias of other media — and NPR didn’t present it with even a hint of irony.
Then, in a story about Iran, they actually said the Islamic revolution against the Shah overthrew a system of government that had been in place for 2,500 years.
Excuse me? NPR is now not only biased but is completely oblivious to getting it’s facts straight? What about that whole “democratically-elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq” thing?
RE: “a rather oily old conservative bird”
MY COMMENT: That certainly narrows it down….NOT!
I agree. If the government is putting up only 2% of the money, then NPR should stop feeding at the government trough. The problem is to find an appropriate form of governance — say perhaps a board composed of representatives from their member stations, the majority of which are on university campuses.
RE: “the CPB has become overly cautious about pissing off those in power”
MY COMMENT: Yes, this is certainly not your dads’s NPR!
In response to #25:
The democratically elected guy our CIA replaced with “The Emperor of the Peacock Throne”? That guy? What about him?
“without all the corporate sponsorhip and without fear of having the feds cut its testosterone off.”
The problem with that, as I see it, is: those folks have almost all of the money.
I took most of my financial support from NPR and now give it to my local community based, volunteer driven non profit radio (www.kboo.fm) which focuses on issues of local politics, the arts, food, gardening, interviews with national authors on book tours from a leftist perspective all morning, and eclectic music programming for the other 20 hours of the day.
The small amount I still contribute to NPR is enough to justify my listening to Click and Clack, Prairie Home, and a few others. The News? Never. Scott Simon? Simpering Simon.
I actually think the quality of NPR’s work has gotten all diffuse and squishy since they got the big bequest from Joan Kroc’s will.
NPR is a pathetic mouthpiece for power, no longer anything even resembling “journalism.”
Sadly the same can be said of network and cable news shows and most radio news. Oh and many newspapers.
Oh, Jane you dun got banned!
*Even* Pravda in the sly ironic take on the absurdity of life that prevails in that part of the world would be calling it ”pseudo-torture” by now.
People will eventually stop listening/reading/watching all of this nonsense: because it’s BORING!!
And the whole idea that media is ”liberal” is crazy. Why would a truly liberal media slander themselves this way? More to the point why would a conservative media slander THEMselves this way?????
Sorry. I’ve sent NPR to its room without supper.
Permanently.
So you’ve suddenly awoken to the truth behind the myth of a “Free Press.”
Good.
I really enjoy watching Mara Liasson and Juan Williams on Fox & Friends.
http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/5886
Torture isn’t the half of it. NPR coverage is absolutely dreadful on almost all subjects. Any actual news reporting sounds like something that a People magazine team was forced to do on its day off.
The recent turmoil in Iran is a case in point. What they present appears to be derivative of CNN and the big papers, which itself appears to be shamelessly and uncritically–but selectively–scraped from unattributed blogs and twitter messages. This morning they appeared to be equating the Green Sea protestors with Pahlavist emigrees in the West–which might be Lieberman’s dream, but seems unlikely.
In short, NPR is way beyond reluctance to offend those in power in Washington. They are becoming Wingnut Radio. And I suspect that the reason is that most of their funding now comes from businesses and wealthy foundations, not from Washington. National Private Radio.
Never
Piss-off
Republicans
Looks like the Internet will be the last home of true journalism- and the Internet is far from perfect for that sort of thing, but I guess if it works…
Some people say NPR is the new farm system for FauxSnooze.
I made this comment about NPR in a Dean Baker oxdown diary from June 16:
http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/…..ment-50118
What’s with the talent they are using these days, especially on the morning show? Is there a prereq. you have to sound like a yuppie with a stick up your arse? The crew they have now literally make my nauseous at times.
Wow. This is how that group of trolls called the modern Republican Party does as well as it does- our side is always throwing babies with bathwater.
NPR doesn’t use the words I want. I’ll never support them again. Wah.
You prefer Fox? The Wall Street Journal? Hannity? Wall-to-wall right-wing talk radio?
Listen, like it or not, NPR is the last, best option on radio. This American Life. Prairie Home Companion. Speaking of Faith. In depth Supreme Court coverage. More than sound-bite coverage of important stories. Try finding anything like that on the AM or FM dial.
Don’t delude yourself. The right has been progressively taking over the broadcast news media for…well, as long as I’ve been alive, at least, so that they can set the public discourse to their liking, and NPR is one of the last few impediments. They would _loooove_ to let us do their work for them and give up on NPR.
You want your NPR back? Fight for it. Write letters. Call in. Object, like I did, the next time they have a hack from the AEI on.
But don’t don’t don’t just give it up. That’s just what Rupert Murdoch is waiting for.
I listen to NPR on the weekends for This American Life, Click and Clack, and Prairie Home Companion, but I have to turn it off for anything else, and I am an avid radio person having been raised in the wilderness where there was little else, no teevee. I lived close to the Canadian border so I was privy to all the old shows and soaps as well as some “independent” private radio (OK so it was PIRATE radio, lol) that came in on good, clear nights.
Thank GOD for the Net so now I can find progressive shows and even radio plays (btw Mike Malloy is producing one once a week) about anytime I want to listen to them.
Try Scott Simon one time and when he “interviews” FAUX tool Juan Williams and that other guy who “analyzes” the weekly news (can’t remember his name). When Bu$h was in office they both made me puke they were so fawning, everything had a “good reason” and everything Bu$h did was funny, smart, etc. Recently I decided to give them another try since I wondered if they would now be “tools” for Obama too. But nope, with Obama, they are “compelled” to be “neutral” and while neither was completely negative, they simply HAD to report “both sides” of things, when with Bu$h they all but kissed his feet.
I wished they had someone like Jane on there. It would be a breath of fresh air. But nooooo! Again, WHAT A BUNCH OF TOOLS! PPPPPPPPLLLLLLLLLLLLLPLPLPLPLPLPLPL on NPR!
Cat In Seattle
CPB stands for Corporate Propaganda Broadcasting. I wouldn’t piss on PBS if it were on fire. Pretty much my attitude about all corporate media.
NPR = Nice Polite Republicans.
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To me this is the key sentence. It’s all about the money. I think we should understand this tactic.
When I went to the advertisers of KSFO I didn’t threaten them with a boycott,I told them to look at their own guidelines and see if they permitted their employees or vendors to call for the violent death of others. Since they usually didn’t, they then had to decided if they wanted to keep supporting them.
This tactic cost KSFO 28 advertisers and millions in revenue, Melanie Morgan was let go because of the money they lost. All done using the “free market”.
Don’t forget Kerri Miller, MPR’s resident know-nothing.
I’m amazed at how fast these on-air people turned into idiots once the GOP took control, and it seems it’s a one-way process.
I hope you are not talking about the completely credible Dan Schorr. He is usually on the weekend. I always hope I hear him and welcome his perspective. He was one of the early lights on TV and completely ran into the ire of Nixon. He just turned 96, I think, and he has lived through and covered the major events of the 20th Century. Amazing he is still reporting and making sense, I think.