Tuesday, April 09, 2024

NPR

I've Been at NPR for 25 Years.  Here's How We Lost America's Trust. (via Grim) The author grants them more objectivity than I would have - up until a decade ago or even later - but I might concede the point given his position and his obvious good will. I have thought that their fondness for the liberal POV was deeply tied to their style of reporting by anecdote rather than examining both sides. NPR Economic Reporting. Also, when some listeners identify as conservative, I wonder how many of those are only classical music fans or fans of the intellectual game shows, or of "Car Talk." It can't be zero. Those don't count against the political bias of the news shows in quite the same way.

Persistent rumors that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia over the election became the catnip that drove reporting. At NPR, we hitched our wagon to Trump’s most visible antagonist, Representative Adam Schiff. 

Schiff, who was the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, became NPR’s guiding hand, its ever-present muse. By my count, NPR hosts interviewed Schiff 25 times about Trump and Russia. During many of those conversations, Schiff alluded to purported evidence of collusion. The Schiff talking points became the drumbeat of NPR news reports.

But when the Mueller report found no credible evidence of collusion, NPR’s coverage was notably sparse. Russiagate quietly faded from our programming.

Not the first time.



3 comments:

james said...

typo in your first link

Assistant Village Idiot said...

Fixed. Thanks.

Thomas said...

Yes, NPR lost my trust and attention when they did a week long hissy fit of "teen sex" oriented articles in reaction to some proposed legislation. If I recall that was about fifteen years ago.

I realized then that they were acting as players rather than reporters.