Juan Williams restores my Lack of Faith in NPR...

[BiggJawn]

Just interviewed Madeline Albright and brought up the "Clinton lobbed a few cruise missles at OBL and missed him, wasn't htat just to get our minds off of Monica Lewinsky?" chestnut.

Of course, Albright said "No.", but hey, the buzz words were out there. Clinton. Monica. OBL. "Wag the Dog".

And people wonder why I hate NPR...

[Tennessee Gal]

1. When will it end?

Never?

[Atlant]

5. It will end when the Republicans finally kill NPR dead.

NPR thinks their new friends (the Reich) will someday support
them. They're wrong in thinking that. Their new friends still
want them dead and will eventually succeed in killing NPR.

I say NPR had better friends in the past, but they decided we
weren't worth it. So now I also say "Fuck NPR!".

Atlant

[AP]

12. Republicans aren't going to touch NPR. It's too helpful for them.

Anyway, it gets almost no money anyway. NPR, gets something like 90% of its budget from licensing the national programming.

I think the local stations get about 50% of their money from donations.

I would be surprised if more than 5 or 10 percent of the balance of the remaining funds came from the Federal government.

[Atlant]

29. Of course Republicans fund it. Aren't the Corporations Republican? (NT)

[rooboy]

2. Juan knows...

that Roger Ailes is listening. Gotta keep the real boss happy.

[oceanpoetry]

3. can't stand listening to Juan Williams

he panders to the right, haven't listened to "Talk of the Nation" at all since he took the reins.

[DarkPhenyx]

6. And Michael Moore panders to the left...

...and the Republicans are just so mean.

C'mon people. Let's be thoughtful for a moment. We bitch and complain that the media dosen't provide balanced coverage, that they don't tell our side of things, and the one outlet I can think of which is doing just that gets bashed everytime they are balanced and present the "Right wing" side. Balanced coverage does require all sides getting touched on to the best of their ability. Yes, they have conservative commentators on there, but there are also liberal and moderate voices.

JHMFC

[IrateCitizen]

11. But Michael Moore is not a journalist for a major media outlet

The job of a GOOD journalist is to be challenging -- and to play devil's advocate even to points of view they generally agree with.

There are few people I have seen who do this better than Bill Moyers, and to be honest, I don't expect everyone to be able to do it as well. But if a reporter wants to just let certain points of view go unchallenged, they should be looking for a new line of work.

[tinanator]

20. Radio Enron Fair and Balanced?

Thats some perspective.

[Ernesto]

24. Thanks for speaking out DarkPhenyx

Before they shout you down, let me say that these NPR critics are starting to sound like freeping hate mongers. What do they want, a liberal version of FOX news? Parts of my un-wanted tax refunds always go to NPR. I require information, not just comments that I agree with.... I watched that "Hard Ball" crackpot for about 10 (all I could stand) minutes yesterday.... I'll take Dan Shore anytime, thank you very much!

[edward]

32. Dan Shore sounds like my high school civics teacher reading

out of the text book.

[Ernesto]

38. So tell us all.......

Is "sounding like your teacher" a good thing or a bad thing?

[indigo32]

27. I'm with ya DarkPhenyx

I didn't like that comment by Juan, but for crying out loud. NPR still covers tons of stories that you'd never hear on CNN, FOX, or MSNBC. They will definitely continue to recieve my pledge money. It's worth it, if for no other reason than that I don't have to hear about the tabloid story of the month.

[sendero]

37. my problem is this....

.... after hearing what a DISMAL job of covering the lead-up to the war - how can I trust anything they say?

Answer, I can't, and I don't. They do cover lots of diverse stories, but at this point I listen to all of them with a huge grain of salt.

[sendero]

34. They are NOT BALANCED....

... we've had this conversation before but I'll say it again.

NPR IS NOT BALANCED. THEY ARE FOX WITH AN INTELLECTUAL PATINA.

There. As soon as I hear REAL left-wing talking points, then we can talk about NPR being balanced. I'm not holding my breath, but I have cut off my financial support after 17 years.

[Brucey]

7. I agree. Haven't listened.

[pansypoo53219]

13. Better now that HE is

gone.

[AP]

16. He got dumped from TOTN a long time ago. (Did he get it back?)

Can't say that his replacement was much better.

A few times, he's had callers criticize bush and he gets positively flustered trying to shut them up.

[DarkPhenyx]

4. Yup! I do wonder why.

No one has made a supportable case yet why they hate NPR. No matter how often I ask.

[IrateCitizen]

8. Here's why I'm disappointed by them...

... and I'll readily admit that many of their problems are the result of outside influence.

ITEM: During the 1980's, when the Reagan Admin. and conservatives in Congress were going after PBS funding, PBS and NPR were compelled to look elsewhere to make up the funding gap. One of the major sources to which they turned was corporate underwriting.

From what I understand, a major underwriter of NPR is Exxon/Mobil. One of the conditions upon which they donated to NPR is that they cease any sort of reporting on Global Warming, and become much more "favorable to industry" in their environmental coverage.

ITEM: In the runup to the invasion of Iraq, many NPR correspondents readily repeated the dubious "intelligence" cited as a reason to attack. Now, from what I have heard, the intelligence community has a reputation of pretty much extorting reporters to give favorable coverage -- and if they don't, they're shut out of the loop. Now that the wheels have begun to come off, they are free to speak their minds.

Now I won't deny that both of these instances are pretty much out of NPR's control. And I won't deny either that I think that, at times, they allow very dubious conservative talking points to go unchallenged (I can think of one particular interview with Labor Sec. Elaine Chao), but all in all, they are usually fairly evenhanded, especially with regard to domestic matters.

[AP]

14. The only voices critical of the invasion on NPR were on Tavis Smiley

and guess what show my local station preempted so they could run HOURS of the lying pep rally, I mean military press conferences?

When Bush started talking about invading Iraq, NPR skipped right over the "why" question and went right to the "when" question.

Amanpour thought CNN was bad during the war. Well, NPR was every bit as bad, if not worse.

[IrateCitizen]

17. They got their "war face" on just as much as the other networks...

The only difference being that they tried to do it in a more "highbrow" way to cater to their typically more educated, upper-middle class audience.

I won't disagree with your assessment that they were atrocious in the lead-up to the invasion.

[BiggJawn]

23. Guess you don't read my rants about their "sponsorship"

You know, the ones where I wonder out loud about how much you can trust a story on GMO's in a segment "Brought to you by ADM-Archer Danniels Midland, 'Supermarket to The World'..." or stories about pollution or SUV's sponsored by Lexus or some other car company.

I don't "Hate" NPR, I just refuse to embrace them as "OUR Network" anymore. Hate is a word best reserved for the BFEE.

[DemSigns]

9. Fresh Air has been good lately with

Al Franken, Paul Krugman, and Madeline Albright all in the last two weeks. I hope they keed it up. Al and Pauld got a lot of anti-bushista out on the airwaves. Madeline reminded us what diplomacy really is.

I am still withholding my contributions until the tide turns further.

Also, WBEZ Chicago's Jerome McDonald's World View had a twenty minute call-in on something last week and it was bush-basher after bush-basher. Jerome was almost begging the later callers to say something good about the junta. Finally a wing-nut called in and blasted the messenger (NPR) for being a left wing mouthpiece, but had no arguments against what the callers were saying.

It seems like all the voices we have been reading here over the last 3 years are starting to get some airtime and it is hurting chimpy's numbers. Kudos to Howard Dean for making it fashionable again to question the government!

[sendero]

35. As I have also said repeatedly ....

:) Fresh Air and the Diane Rehm show are the only things left on my affiliate worth listening to.

Terry Gross does a tough interview, even when she's interviewing someone she clearly pretty much agrees with.

Diane Rehm moderates what is probably one of the few really fair, probing and balanced talk shows I've ever heard. Yes, she even let's the nutcakes get their word in, but she accepts ad hominem attacks and general nastiness from neither side. She is good at what she does and its too bad there aren't a hundred more of her.

But... as for NPR news and editorial, they are crap squared.

[pansypoo53219]

10. thank God that idiot is off Talk of the Nation

he is a bit too accomodating to the right.

[nannygoat]

15. Interesting commentary about local NPR station's coverage

Putting NPR on the spot
http://indyweek.com/durham/2003-09-10/porch.html

B Y P E T E M A C D O W E L L

Why is it that so many progressive and anti-war people are listening to NPR and yet are viscerally frustrated and pissed
off with the network? Robert Jensen, noted journalism professor, media critic and activist from the University of Texas at Austin posed this question to a crowd of 90 citizens--including some staff and board members from WUNC radio--Saturday morning at the Chapel Hill Library. His answer: "People still listen because there are just not a lot of options for public affairs programming out there, but they are not finding their own concerns and needs being met."

Jensen said commercial news and public affairs media have systematically failed, especially in times of war, to provide three things democracy needs from journalists: A source of factual information that is independent from the state and corporate power; social, historical, and political context; and the widest range of analysis and opinions. Public media's mission needs to be to provide what the market doesn't, and it is failing to do that.

NPR and PBS tend to counter with "you are asking us to be advocacy journalists and that is not what we do. We are objective journalists." But Jensen says he is not asking that they be advocacy journalists, though that is a fine and very defensible tradition practiced in most other democracies. What he wants is a public media that frees itself of the truth-distorting effects of the politically restricted set of journalism's institutionalized professional practices that dictates which events become news, how they are reported
on, how they are framed, who becomes a credible source, and who doesn't.

These practices now include a peculiar notion of "balance" that frames the debate on the war between currently serving
military officers vs. retired military officers, state department officials vs. retired state department officials, and so on. There are exceptions. Other voices occasionally get through. But it is the overall pattern that matters.

more...

[KCDem]

18. isn't Heritage Foundation one of their biggest sponsors?

That's why I barely listen anymore. Thankfully, we have a Radio Pacifica station here.

[sendero]

36. I don't know about sponsorship...

... but I hear their commentaries way too often, and no real counterpoint or rebuttal to the viscerally stupid horseapples they spew. And the American Enterprise Institute as well. A bunch of talking robots if there ever were any.

This is why I laugh off anyone claiming that NPR is 'balanced'. Which really liberal think tanks get their commentary heard on NPR on a regular basis? Very damn few, if any.

[robbedvoter]

19. You mean you lost it? (lack of faith). Williams at the Fux debate

showed his true colors in spades. As for NPR, they are slowly swallowed by the wingnuts. Only a few local shows - "This American Life" "Fresh Air" "Connections" remain - but it's just a matter of time. They got the money and the FCC.

[playahata1]

21. While I for one don't believe in group-think,

Juan Williams comes off as conservative/moderate because he is the child of black Panamanian immigrants who bought into the American system and taught their children to buy into that system -- despite its less-than congenial treatment of blacks and other people of color, immigrant or native-born. That is why he leans right in a lot of things.

Read Jill Nelson's far-from-flattering description of Williams in VOLUNTEER SLAVERY (1993), Nelson's memoir of what life was like for a black woman journalist at THE WASHINGTON POST. Excellent book.

[BiggJawn]

22. The nice thing about Radio is that it can be Colour-Blind.

I know nothing of William's Origins, and could care less.
The circumstances of his birth or the colour of his hide have nothing to do with how I feel about his shilling for the BFEE.

[candy331]

25. Listened to NPR

quite a bit in the past but don't listen to it much anymore. Juan Wms is a no brainer to me.

[Isome]

33. He's been a shill for the right...

and an idiot since the beginning of his career. He was so despised that one co-worker wrote scathingingly about him in her book.

Yeah, Jill Nelson, that's her name.

[ArkDem]

26. Nobody likes it when their own ox gets gored

..

[Atlant]

30. No. What I didn't like was that NPR used *MY MONEY* to advance...

No. What I didn't like was that NPR used MY MONEY to advance the agenda
of the Reich Wing. And they did it for about a decade while I waited for
improvements that never came.

Now, they can get their money from their new friends.

Atlant

[qb]

28. NPR may have a few good "shows", but their "news" sucks.

I regularly switch between NPR and top-of-the-hour ABC news, and there is NO DIFFERENCE. They parrot all of the same administration propaganda, and ignore all of the real facts that would add true balance to the equation.

Old, but still pertinent Salon article (National Private Radio): http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/07/02/npr1/print.html

[Isome]

31. I hope you didn't expect much from Juan Williams?

He's an idiot!