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portlander23

(2,078 posts)
Fri Dec 30, 2016, 08:37 AM Dec 2016

NPR Just Offered a Shocking and Disgusting Example of 'Balanced Reporting'

NPR Just Offered a Shocking and Disgusting Example of 'Balanced Reporting'
Janet Allon
AlterNet

Trump campaign official Carl Paladino recently made headlines for being a disgustingly racist pig of a human being. The former GOP gubernatorial candidate, who managed to get himself elected to the Buffalo, New York, school board, responded to a survey about his New Year's wishes by attacking the Obamas in the most baldly ugly and racist way imaginable, including wishing for Michelle Obama to be “let loose” in Africa so she could live with apes. He also repeated the racist alt-right meme of her being a man, and said he hoped President Obama “catches mad cow disease” and then “dies before his trial and is buried in a cow pasture next to Valerie Jarret, who died weeks prior, after being convicted of sedition and treason, when a Jihady cell mate mistook her for being a nice person and decapitated her.”

In the Thursday evening radiocast of WNYC, local affiliate of NPR, a segment on protest demanding Paladino's was introduced using this phrase: "... protesters demanding Paladino step down for what they say are racist comments."

For what they say .... are racist comments. Lots of emphasis added to the "they say."

Really? Only "they say" that? Who are the people who say these comments are not racist, exactly?

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NPR Just Offered a Shocking and Disgusting Example of 'Balanced Reporting' (Original Post) portlander23 Dec 2016 OP
Nothing is allowed to be called racist The Polack MSgt Dec 2016 #1
+1 uponit7771 Dec 2016 #22
I am finally pulling the plug on NPR in our house rurallib Dec 2016 #2
I gave up on NPR about 10 years ago. world wide wally Dec 2016 #17
my local station is great. but yeah... mopinko Dec 2016 #18
NPR is a prime example of the republican long game Cosmocat Dec 2016 #20
I haven't listened to npr or Moira Liasson in a couple of decades. Ilsa Dec 2016 #3
NPR has sucked for ages. Dave Starsky Dec 2016 #4
Speaking of the Koch Bros. Proud Liberal Dem Dec 2016 #10
PBS did that rurallib Dec 2016 #21
Agreed. I eased up on it too. Just can't take too much of it anymore. AgadorSparticus Dec 2016 #16
They have a job at Fox for that reporter. doc03 Dec 2016 #5
I turned them off in the run-up to the Iraq War as DURHAM D Dec 2016 #6
One of the DC Iraq War protests involved half a million - they reported "hundreds" hatrack Dec 2016 #11
good catch bigtree Dec 2016 #7
They are now mostly a tax-writeoff for the rich and clueless. annabanana Dec 2016 #8
That's not an example of "fair and balanced", but of journalistic neutrality. aikoaiko Dec 2016 #9
Sometimes there is no neutral, no "controversial statements.". hunter Dec 2016 #14
Still, NPR has done much to make the lives and issues of the oppressed known to white people. aikoaiko Dec 2016 #15
Sure we should seek the votes of affluent straight white males, but without compromise. hunter Dec 2016 #19
I don't see anything wrong with "they say." marybourg Dec 2016 #12
We should support all the publication's that show this talent. Stellar Dec 2016 #13
Do you have a link to NPR's "shocking and disgusting example of 'Balanced Reporting'"? sl8 Dec 2016 #23

The Polack MSgt

(13,186 posts)
1. Nothing is allowed to be called racist
Fri Dec 30, 2016, 08:48 AM
Dec 2016

Unless POC say anything at all. Then you can call them the "real racists"

rurallib

(62,406 posts)
2. I am finally pulling the plug on NPR in our house
Fri Dec 30, 2016, 09:09 AM
Dec 2016

had more than enough of their equivocating and legitimizing Trump and Republican policies that ruin lives and families.
When they have Jonah Goldberg and Tucker Carlson as camentators, it is time to say goodbye.

We just got an internet radio and I am trying to find good solid news. We started our search in Canada.

world wide wally

(21,740 posts)
17. I gave up on NPR about 10 years ago.
Fri Dec 30, 2016, 12:00 PM
Dec 2016

Just a fake Fox News.
Their biggest donors are the Koch Bros... And it shows.

mopinko

(70,071 posts)
18. my local station is great. but yeah...
Fri Dec 30, 2016, 12:06 PM
Dec 2016

cut the cable recently and find myself listening more. ugh. i can stand the flip any more. listening to that stuff once is bad enough. listening twice is unbearable.

fortunately there are a couple good college radio stations around here, including one that runs amy goodman.

Cosmocat

(14,561 posts)
20. NPR is a prime example of the republican long game
Fri Dec 30, 2016, 01:23 PM
Dec 2016

LONG a bastion of rock solid, fact based news, which drove the assholes NUTS.

SO, they got their hooks into it, defanged it and now have turned it into just another false flag "news" source.

THIS is why we (the United States) is losing.

Ilsa

(61,692 posts)
3. I haven't listened to npr or Moira Liasson in a couple of decades.
Fri Dec 30, 2016, 09:14 AM
Dec 2016

Stopped donating to them before that. They are duplicitous in pretending to be fair and balanced when their content comes from fox news.

Dave Starsky

(5,914 posts)
4. NPR has sucked for ages.
Fri Dec 30, 2016, 09:30 AM
Dec 2016

There was a time when they stopped being public radio and began began relying on funding by the likes of the Koch brothers. The President of NPR for a long time was the former head of Voice of America, the American shortwave propaganda broadcast to the Communist countries.

I finally got fed up with them shortly after the Iraq war started, when the soporific hosts of All Things Considered spent a half hour talking about George Bush's masterful strategy in the Middle East, suggesting that he could very well be the first President to bring peace to the region. Really, NPR?

Proud Liberal Dem

(24,402 posts)
10. Speaking of the Koch Bros.
Fri Dec 30, 2016, 10:35 AM
Dec 2016

Didn't NPR- under pressure- censor a potentially unflattering expose of the Koch Bros? I got heavy into NPR during the early 00's and still enjoy some of their programming but the equivocation in their reporting has largely turned me off to them.

DURHAM D

(32,609 posts)
6. I turned them off in the run-up to the Iraq War as
Fri Dec 30, 2016, 10:04 AM
Dec 2016

they beat the drums of war for Bush. Never tried them again.

hatrack

(59,583 posts)
11. One of the DC Iraq War protests involved half a million - they reported "hundreds"
Fri Dec 30, 2016, 10:49 AM
Dec 2016

They actually apologized on-air after that, so I guess they caught a ration of shit.

Tired of NPR and their fabric-softened news.

annabanana

(52,791 posts)
8. They are now mostly a tax-writeoff for the rich and clueless.
Fri Dec 30, 2016, 10:09 AM
Dec 2016

Yes, much of their programming is wonderful and edifying. But their overriding world view is insular.

aikoaiko

(34,165 posts)
9. That's not an example of "fair and balanced", but of journalistic neutrality.
Fri Dec 30, 2016, 10:32 AM
Dec 2016

Which is different and not an inappropriate stance when reporting on others.

hunter

(38,309 posts)
14. Sometimes there is no neutral, no "controversial statements.".
Fri Dec 30, 2016, 11:20 AM
Dec 2016

When some pedophile is caught abducting children, do journalists state that arguments in favor of pedophiles kidnapping children are "controversial?"

Vile racist statements should never be dismissed as merely "controversial"

Fuck NPR. They've been pandering to giant corporations and affluent nervous white guys for too long, guys who think they can't possibly be racist, sexist, or homophobic because they like some black Lesbian artist, guys who never call out the racist, sexist, homophobic scum in their own workplaces and communities.

I actually think that's one of the big weaknesses of the Democratic Party. Nervous, affluent, passively racist, sexist, and homophobic white guys are a minority. They are not oppressed. The Democratic Party ought to be seeking the vote of EVERYONE ELSE. Pandering to these nervous white guys gets in the way of real progress.

aikoaiko

(34,165 posts)
15. Still, NPR has done much to make the lives and issues of the oppressed known to white people.
Fri Dec 30, 2016, 11:43 AM
Dec 2016

Last edited Fri Dec 30, 2016, 03:15 PM - Edit history (1)

In terms of sheer numbers of people who listen and years on the air (over the last 30 years), maybe more than any other single media company, albeit imperfectly at times.

I find your idea that the Democratic party should not seek the votes of white straight males "controversial".








hunter

(38,309 posts)
19. Sure we should seek the votes of affluent straight white males, but without compromise.
Fri Dec 30, 2016, 01:14 PM
Dec 2016

This is the 21st century. So many of them are living in the past.

I'm reminded of my grandparents who were literally Hollywood liberals. My grandfather was "tolerant" of everyone, he worked in the aerospace industry and accepted anyone who could set up the machines and do the math.

My grandma had gay friends, Jewish friends, black friends, and Mexican friends she called "Spanish." She grew up in San Francisco, in a fairly affluent household. Her father was fascinated by airplanes and cinema, interests he passed on to my grandma and her sister, which is how they ended up in Hollywood. My grandma spoke fondly of immigrant housekeepers and cooks her family employed, of Chinese laundrymen, of black laborers and handsome young military men, etc..

But it was merely tolerance. She could say the damnedest racist things, and she was oblivious to many less overt forms of discrimination.

My grandma passed away before I met my wife, but my grandpa called my wife a "Mexican Girl." It was okay to date a Mexican girl from his White California perspective, but when we announced or engagement he was upset. He did not attend our big Catholic wedding. To his credit, he got over it. But he reverted a bit when he had to move to an assisted living /nursing home. The only staff he was tolerant of were the Filipino men. My grandfather was a military officer during World War II and it was clear in the nursing home that he was comfortable with the Filipino men because he considered himself the white officer and them the enlisted men, men who could be trusted. Everyone else was suspect; white men doing "menial" labor, immigrant women, Mexicans... etc.

That's the kind of stuff that should be left in the 20th century, along with the more overt forms of racism, sexism, and homophobia.

marybourg

(12,609 posts)
12. I don't see anything wrong with "they say."
Fri Dec 30, 2016, 11:12 AM
Dec 2016

They were reporting on the protest, not on the underlying verbiage.

sl8

(13,720 posts)
23. Do you have a link to NPR's "shocking and disgusting example of 'Balanced Reporting'"?
Sat Dec 31, 2016, 12:23 AM
Dec 2016

I read the linked Alternet article and googled for WNYC pieces on December 19 for 15 or 20 minutes, but didn't find the piece in question.

Did you hear the original WNYC piece? What is your opinion?

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