NPR's continued and tireless efforts to normalize the Trump agenda
Last edited Tue Mar 14, 2017, 11:18 AM - Edit history (1)
I don't have exact quotes, but here's the gist:
During separate consecutive segments in yesterday's All Things Considered, NPR either repeated or let stand unchallenged three statements of clear Republican propaganda. Here's the paraphrase:
1. In a piece on Steve King's obvious and ongoing racism, NPR's dutiful journalists sought the opinion of two Republican colleagues, giving them unchallenged airtime to defend and minimize King's horrifying (and repeatedly re-elected) racism. Had a Democrat made some equivalent statement, NPR would likewise have sought a response from Republicans, as they've done in the past.
2. In a story on Trumpcare and Trump's most recent interaction with journalism, NPR gave a fawning overview of Trump's handling of the press, completely ignoring his ongoing and toxic (and terrifyingly successful) effort to marginalize actual journalists. At the close of the story, they ran a soundbyte in which Trump downplayed his basement-level approval ratings, noting that people hated Obama when he was in office, too, but they like Obama now. NPR could have easily pointed out that Obama left office with sky-high approval numbers, or that his popularity was on a strong upswing. Instead, NPR dutifully allowed Trump to manufacture a false equivalence between himself and Obama. I don't have a direct link because I can't recall exactly which story this was, but it ran between 16:00 and 16:45 ET on 3/13/2017.
3. NPR closed a lengthy segment on the ACLU with a series of unchallenged by Jay Sekulow, a vile lawyer at the head of the deliberately deceptively named ACLJ and servicing a radical "Christian" campaign. In particular, this sect pushes hard in support of school prayer and institutionalized LGBTQ discrimination, not to mention a general underlying anti-Muslim agenda. Sekulow is slimy but knows how to play it charming, and he applauded the ACLU for exercising its right to oppose Trump's immigration policies. Then Sekulow elaborated: "Just like I opposed Obama's immigration policy." NPR ended the story there, without clarifying that Sekulow cynically opposed Obama's policy because it treats immigrants like human beings, while the ACLU opposes Trump's immigration policy because it's openly racist.
I don't expect NPR to be perfect, but if an average schlub listening in the car can spot this bullshit in real time, you'd think that professional journalists in the dreaded Liberal Media would be able to pick up on it at least every so often.
Keep that in mind the next time NPR interrupts a week's worth of programming to put the hard sell on you and begs for your money.
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