Some of those critics this week highlighted social media posts of Katherine Maher, NPR’s CEO, praising Democrats, calling President Trump a racist and promoting progressive ideas.
Why are they criticizing her for calling a loud-and-proud racist a racist? Because it hurts their feelings?
Sounds like they’re telling on themselves.
Reality has a liberal bias.
True. I feel like there should be an xkcd for this statement.
He literally pleaded ‘non-contest’ to being a racist, when investigating for bias in his slum rentals. https://www.newsweek.com/fair-housing-acts-50th-anniversary-look-back-investigation-trump-familys-879437
The link you provided doesn’t say that, “Trump and his father, who were both named as defendants, responded by accusing the Department of Justice of defamation, and filing a $100 million countersuit. The messy legal battle ended with the Trumps signing a consent decree, an agreement that allows both parties to end a dispute without admitting fault.”
Translation: While being sued for discrimination the Trumps sued the DOJ for accusing them of defamation for a large sum of money and dragged it out in court until the DOJ decided the case was costing them too much with no end in sight and was forced to mutually drop the cases against each other, thus allowing the Trump’s to not be tried for discrimination. They used their wealth to avoid consequences, so much the same as we’re seeing now.
Okay but the material facts of the case included that their employees were instructed to identify applicants who were black and refuse to rent to them because they were black.
That’s not a judgement, it’s just central evidence uncovered by the DoJ.
Which, if you’ll pardon the expression, is a kind of no contest that he’s racist.
There’s no doubt he’s racist, but don’t you think at the very least we should strive to be better than fox news at reporting the details?
I think the issue here is that you no longer can have “balanced” political discussion when one side cannot help but regurgitate conspiracy theories, disinformation, and just 100% proven false statements in bad faith. The minute you platform these people any meaningful “debate” evaporates and you’re left with discussion not based on anything in reality. And trying to only works to drag the Overton Window to the right.
This is one of the reasons I stopped listening to NPR in the first place. During the Trump administration they kept letting Trump’s mouthpieces say whatever they wanted for like 15 min, and then give like 3 min to the opposition to explain how everything they said was a bold face lie. There just wasn’t any push back from the actual journalist.
That and they canceled Ask Me Another, which is pretty much the only thing I would ever give them money for.
The standard NPR segment is 4 minutes. A feature is 8 minutes and maybe once a day they go over.
It may have felt like that, but I assure you that it wasn’t that bad.
IDK, I feel a lot of their programming, especially recently, has been pretty stern that there’s conspiracy theories with no basis in reality. I recall them having pushed back on lies by conservative interviewees as well.
They finally changed (or learned) after January 6th. I distinctly remember yelling at my radio that they were allowing Trump’s lackeys to repeatedly spew lies, and for the sake of “balance” those lies went essentially unchecked, and they’d hand the interview off to a Democrat who was baited with a leading question about “what you think about the claim that Democrats are running a child prostitution ring in the basement of a pizza restaurant”, or something else equally ludicrous. The first time they stopped presenting those lies with “you decide” ambivalence was the Big Lie, which is the first time they started fact-checking in real time.
So yeah, recently they’ve started figuring out how to push back against obvious bullshit, but during the Trump presidency their coverage was absolutely horrendous, and they were played like a fiddle by Republicans who knew damn well NPR journalists had to take every salacious claim they made at face value, which essentially rewarded them for being as insane as possible and consistently working the Overton window in their favor.
A side note here is that there’s a VERY strong difference between American and British journalism, in that Americans put a premium on decorum, and Brits put a premium on counterpoints. Sometimes they can be so direct and probing that it comes off as quite rude, and we can be so polite and courteous that we lay out the red carpet for liars. NPR has traditionally specialized in the “politely ask more questions and eventually you will get to truth” style of journalism, and they’re only now starting to lean into a slightly more confrontational style of “no, that’s wrong” argumentation. They’re not particularly good at it, mind you, but they’re kinda getting there.
Oh hell yes I can’t name names at the moment. But I remember seeing a number of different clips of American right wingers going on BBC proper to be interviewed by some right-wing lunatic in the uk. Thinking that it’s going to be some sort of Cakewalk and they’re just there to look good. And then just get totally shredded. It makes me a little sick inside to cheer for the British lunatic. But you got to take small wins where you can get them. I wish all media had a fraction of the spine they do over there. It’s still far from perfect. But it’s so much better.
Yes that was at least one of them. Shut right down in a hurry. LOL
I didn’t realize Shapiro was so vocally “against” Trump.
I wonder what he says about him now. I don’t really want to go down that YouTube rabbit hole and f up my feeds, but did he get more against Trump after Jan 6th?
Agreed, when an American first encounters it, it’s kind of shocking.
The challenge is that in this current Trumpworld political climate is that news organizations that push back or argue in the slightest would never get additional interviews. Similar to how game publishers stop sending review copies to publications who haven’t reviewed their previous works in a positive light.
We appear to be in an era of “no news except positive news or else” rather than “all press is good press”
But what is the value of having those interviews? Platforming somebody who is just going to tell flat out lies, and not calling them out, doesn’t inform the viewer of anything other than that watching that news outlet is a waste of time.
I agree. It’s the current state of our society. Nobody likes to be challenged or have their feels hurt, which leads to avoidance of the challenge. It’s a catch-22. There’s little value in a non challenging interview. There’s no value in an interview that doesn’t occur at all.
. . . those lies went essentially unchecked, and they’d hand the interview off to a Democrat who was baited with a leading question about “what you think about the claim that Democrats are running a child prostitution ring in the basement of a pizza restaurant”, or something else equally ludicrous.
I wish that was a recent tendency, but they were doing that in the late eighties. Not . . with the pizzagate-level stuff, the right hadn’t melted to that level of grotesque obscenity yet. But they’d use a GOP talking point to frame the story. Still do, actually, but for a long time they were essentially the only slightly liberal media around.
That could be true nowadays, I haven’t listened to them since the Trump administration. I don’t really think it makes up for it though. If the journalist only has the spine to stand up to the GOP with a Dem in the Whitehouse, then I don’t think they should be on air.
are you seriously implying that NPR is scared of which party is in the white house? I feel that a rather extreme accusation that warrants a lot of proof. I would more easily believe that things you saw were more of a result in a change in American politics, that the media was slow to react to. This is the first president and party that is believing and spouting conspiracy theories and outright lies, with a huge percent of their voters believing them. Our government has been struggling dealing with this unexpected twist, so it only makes sense for journalists, or anybody involved in politics, to now know how to deal with this new setting and take time to adjust their plan of action.
are you seriously implying that NPR is scared of which party is in the white house?
I think media personalities have to follow the guidance of editors and producers, and I think those editors and producers can be influenced by things like donors and funding. I’m not sure if I would characterize that as being scared.
I feel that a rather extreme accusation that warrants a lot of proof.
Lol, I’m not making a court case. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, mine is that npr is mainly patronized by center right WASP.
I would more easily believe that things you saw were more of a result in a change in American politics, that the media was slow to react to. This is the first president and party that is believing and spouting conspiracy theories and outright lies, with a huge percent of their voters believing them.
Not old enough to remember the Bush years?
Our government has been struggling dealing with this unexpected twist, so it only makes sense for journalists, or anybody involved in politics, to now know how to deal with this new setting and take time to adjust their plan of action
It may feel that way, but I’ve been through this rigamarole more than once. Similar excuses were made for the media complicity to the invasion of iraq…we just haven’t ever had the wool pulled over our eyes like this before! Selectively forgetting the bay of pigs and the Gulf of tonkin.
They’ve been doing that at least since the GWB years, which is why I stopped listening to them then.
Yeah… tbf pretty much every news outlet post 9/11 went completely insane.
Good. Fuck that guy and his bullshit. NPR and PBS are the only ones following the Fairness Doctrine (you have one viewpoint, and then the opposite presented to the listener)
The problem with that stance is, not all ideas are equally credible and deserve airtime. As the adage goes, “If one person says it’s raining outside, and another says it’s sunny, a reporter’s job isn’t to present both as fact. It’s to open the fucking window.”
What the right are really angry about is that their lies aren’t being given the same weight as the truth for the most part at NPR.
I’ve found NPR to be pretty good at that. It’s particularly apparent when it comes to Trump’s lies about the 2020 election; they are consistent about pointing out when claims have been conclusively disproven, and often use the word “lie”.
That said, I agree with Berliner’s fundamental point; I’ve noticed an increasing slant in the stories NPR emphasizes. It’s not that their reporting is unfair, but their choice of what to cover aligns pretty closely with the positions of the progressive left.
Is the slant created by NPR or by the political climate, though?
Let’s use an extreme:
If a person says that all strawberries are red, then another person says “hey, this guy said that strawberries give cancer!” and NPR says “What the first person said was that all strawberries were red,” then all good. Then 1,000 people claim that no, what was said was that strawberries cause cancer. And NPR insists on indicating that no, it’s just a statement about strawberries being red - will you say that the “red strawberry” slant was caused by NPR?
Have you read Berliner’s article yet? He gives three examples:
- NPR talked a lot about investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign while investigations were ongoing, but was “sparse” in its coverage of the Mueller report’s finding that there was no credible evidence of such collusion.
- Hunter Biden’s laptop, containing evidence of influence peddling was deemed non-newsworthy; Berliner believes it was newsworthy.
- NPR dismissed the SARS-CoV-2 lab leak hypothesis as a conspiracy theory and failed to report on it seriously. While it is not the leading hypothesis, there’s credible evidence for it, and at some points in the past the evidence looked fairly compelling.
These examples are very different from ignoring someone who claims without evidence that strawberries cause cancer, that the 2020 election was rigged, or that wildfires in California were started by Israeli space lasers.
Lol. As soon as you mention the “laptop”, you lose all credibility.
What about Al Capone’s vault!? Why aren’t we focusing on that?!?
I’ve read it and all of the examples are misleading at best. These are all thoroughly flawed and it’s been covered by many others.
Mueller didn’t say there was no collusion, it said that they found some coordination, collusion itself isn’t a legal term and the DOJ can’t prosecute a sitting president.
The Hunter Biden laptop is a different beast than the contents there of. Even if you prove the device is his and some of the data is his, because of the poor forensic practices in handling it you have to prove that any incriminating data is also his and that’s not been done yet.
You don’t have to give time to every theory, especially ones that are still waiting on actual validation. Just because his political pet theory wasn’t covered with the same vigor when it’s considered less likely by general consensus of experts, doesn’t mean it was suppressed.
Odd, I listen to NPR regularly and they definitely mentioned all three of those. But, not extensively because each ended up being a bit of a nothing burger.
I specifically recall talking about the lab leak when that got mentioned, since I thought the prospect was interesting. It eventually got dismissed and NPRs stance, iirc, was that there wasn’t enough evidence to really say any particular explanation was definitely true. They mostly moved on since everyone else moved on in that story.
Yes, I’ve read it, and I was scratching my head because I’ve definitely heard NPR cover those in a reasonable manner.
Did you… Read the article? I agree with you, but you may be thinking the headline means something it doesnt since it also agrees with you.
You REALLY aren’t giving him enough credit. Have you read his essay? I’ll bet its not at all what you think it is.
https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust
Okay, I started reading it, and I had to stop because he lost his credibility to me. Here are the notes I made for the beginning of the article.
First, he cites statistics to show how the demographics of listeners moved left between 2011 and 2023. He mentions Trump as related, but doesn’t consider how Trump’s lies about “fake news” caused a massive shift in what news people consume. And he doesn’t mention how during that time all news outlets were being affected by the rise of social media.
But when the Mueller report found no credible evidence of collusion, NPR’s coverage was notably sparse. Russiagate quietly faded from our programming.
This is what Burr’s summary of the Mueller report said. It’s right wing propaganda. The report actually found all sorts of evidence, but concluded it couldn’t call them crimes because of a policy of the DOJ.
There was really no point in continuing reading once I got to actual lies. It’s not journalism and the author doesn’t come off as credible to me.
Same, bro. I wanted to know what they had to say, so I read a couple paragraphs of “I’m a liberal elite democrat, just like you” followed by “Trump did nothing wrong” and knew I had to stop. It is dishonest to look at the Mueller report and come to the conclusion that there was nothing worth investigating when Mueller explicitly said that he recommends charges against the then president – specifically several counts of obstruction by him and his administration that effectively stonewalled the investigation about collusion with Russia.
If that’s how they felt was the strongest opening argument, it reveals how weak that whole angle was. It certainly did reveal a bias, but not on the part of NPR, and it is certainly clear that this author deserves no more time or attention.
If that’s how they felt was the strongest opening argument, it reveals how weak that whole angle was.
Well said. I can’t believe how long that article was for the quality.
I have this strong suspicion that nobody read the whole thing, even the guy who challenged us by saying “Have you read his essay?” and linked it.
Yeah it’s interesting because I actually agree with his overall point that coverage there could try to be a bit more balanced but his essay does a very poor job of supporting this idea and does more to reveal his own biases than NPR’s.
and does more to reveal his own biases than NPR’s
And what biases are those? He’s a legit award winning Journalist, a registered Democrat and he voted against Trump twice.
I don’t know this guy at all but from the outside looking in it really appears as if he’s being tossed under the bus and silenced simply because he’s saying something that his boss, and and quite a few people online, don’t want to hear.
Oh friend. Please tell me you’ve heard of people switching stances.
I mean, one of his main complaints is that NPR tried to improve racial equality internally and in their coverage. To me that is common sense and opposition indicates bias. That’s just one example, but I think the way he describes other stories and issues here also reveals a biased viewpoint on the world.
That’s not to say his point is completely incorrect. As I said, I somewhat agree with him, mainly from my own experience of npr coverage. But he does a poor job of supporting his thesis.
I agree that he’s getting punished for speaking out, but unfortunately that’s the way corporate power structures operate (including at non-profits like NPR). And I think he should probably have been more thoughtful in his criticism if he wanted people to defend him.
Well, you are entitled to your opinion. Strange world we live in though when someone with a Peabody Award is being silenced and ignored because they’re not toeing an imaginary line.
The Mueller report isn’t imaginary. Pretending it says there is no evidence of wrongdoing is.
It’s exactly what you think it is. Just because the man keeps trying to say he’s liberal, doesn’t mean he actually is. He keeps throwing out old and tired and debunked maga talking points such as the ‘covid’s a bioweapon’ lie, or the Hunter Biden laptop lie, and then attacks DEI as some boogie man without actually showing any real harm being done by the initiative except to act like older white men’s views (read: his views) aren’t getting more respect. He also makes the same old tired accusation that NPR and of course “liberal media” is hiding information when in reality, it’s only reporting information that it can confirm as factual. It isn’t “Steve Inskeep said that covid isn’t a bioweapon” it’s “XYZ Scientists say covid is not a bioweapon”.
In other words, he wants NPR to report on MAGA conspiracy theories like conservative media does. His complaints boil down to claiming that NPR’s integrity in journalism isn’t fair to conservatives who want to hear unsubstantiated claims that make them feel good, and that’s why they lost conservative listeners. He keeps referring to ‘viewpoint diversity’ as a coded phrase to really mean conservative viewpoints. He keeps trying to act like diversity means having to let nazi’s take over the conversation, and to not let them do so makes the organization a hypocrite. Again, that’s a tired and old conservative talking point. And of course like every white guy surrounded by diversity initiatives, he thinks he’s the only rational person in the room and must call out the insanity of diversity initiatives as some secret evil that only his eyes can see.
Dude should go work at Fox. He’d do great there.
We weren’t just losing conservatives; we were also losing moderates and traditional liberals.
And this is NPR’s fault how?
Some of those critics this week highlighted social media posts of Katherine Maher, NPR’s CEO, praising Democrats, calling President Trump a racist and promoting progressive ideas.
I thought this could be pretty bad coming from a CEO of a news source, until I looked into it more. She had said those things before being the CEO of NPR, as a public citizen vs as the CEO of a neutral news source. Good job hill on not providing sufficient context.
How dare you question the journalistic bastion thehill.com!
A little more context. This was in the aftermath of the “shitholes countries” comment by Trump. NYT, which pushed the attack on Maher, called Trump racist as did GOP majority leader Paul Ryan because it’s an undisputed fact Trump says really racist shit.
This world is so stupid, also Chris Rufo should not be taken seriously.
Wish NPR had the guts to have a left wing bias. Between fund drives, hand wringing, pearl clutching, and some biographic segment on the death of an obscure vaudeville act reviewer, they’re pressed for time to come up with anything else
Lmfao at the “vaudeville act reviewer” piece
Who comes up with their stories/segments??
Look, I left NPR when they refused to call “enhanced interrogation” torture, and dog-paddled along with every other corporate news outlet in the run-up to Iraq II: He Tried To Kill Mah Daddy.
Juan Williams, the Fox News host, was a main contributor then. Unsurprisingly, he also participated in the propaganda snowjob.
NPR is the best some people who have to commute and only have the radio can do, but it’s several planets away from “progressive” - and this guy saying “no collusion” is fucking outrageous. Fuck that guy.
It’s certainly a lot more center than folks like Berliner think. I’m one of those commuter folks and I think my local NPR station talks more about pie than politics lately. That said, their news hour is about straight to the point as it gets here; this happened, that guy said this, and these people died and/or were arrested.
And the commentary…? I think I hear more Trump voter sound clips than Biden voter ones, too. And neither are criticized or lauded, even if I behind the wheel am shouting to myself “how are these people this stupid.” It’s all just in the context of “these voters in this purple state have said…” which is fine.
I wasn’t as tuned in during Iraq though, as I was a teen at the time. I can certainly see them trying to be fairly moderate though. It’s only “left leaning” now because the right has become too detached from reality. They frequently talk about scientific studies (e.g. climate change has killed X) and in today’s climate, that’s “liberal”. Lol
That’s exactly what I was trying to tell to some other commenter saying that NPR has a more left slant. Eh no, not really. It’s the same position. But the far right made those positions sound lefty.
I conflate it a bit with my local affiliate, KCRW, but my ride just now was 80% about propagating plants. Not everything is political, lol
Totally with you. I lost a lot of faith I had in NPR in their reporting during the run up to and early years of the Iraq war. Their coverage of the Sanders Democratic Primary runs of 2016 and 2020 was also pathetic. I managed to get a lot of my former Republican friends to listen to it instead of talk radio now but I personally have such a hard time with it.
I don’t understand your comment.
It’s making a lot of references to the war on terror. Here’s my bad translation:
Op thought npr wasn’t progressive enough for OP when NPR didn’t call the waterboarding, that happened at Gitmo, torture. OP does concede that NPR is a better news source than others, especially when they are commuting and want to hear news on the radio.
But then it says “it’s several planets far from progressieve” which is, well, not true.
Edit: and by progressive, I don’t mean to label them as lefty loons. Just balanced.
I mean, agree to disagree. I could pull any number of text examples but as to radio broadcasts I gave up even on Marketplace when it was just me yelling at Kai Ryssdal to shut up shut up shut up!
It’s not even center, but center-right. Sometimes just plain right. This is in part due to GOP infiltration of Public Broadcasting in the Gee Dubz era. See Republican Chairman Exerts Pressure on PBS, Alleging Biases from 2005 for some flava.
There, they just straight-up said “make the head of CFPB the chair of the RNC”. That was almost 20 years ago.
NPR: Nice Polite Republicans.
This discussion has devolved into: which side are you on? This whole thread is just like Republicans whining about who is and who is not a RINO. I have no doubt were Democrats or any other liberal party ever manage to get a grip on power again, they would just tear each other to pieces. This thread is Lemmy at its most radioactive.
I suggest actually reading what he wrote, it’s a long winded article written by an obviously disgruntled employee but worth a read. The guy made some solid points but I feel his conclusion came up short. He’s upset that he’s being told how to think. I feel the real takeaway is that news organizations have stopped reporting news they think their viewers will dislike. This is a much bigger threat than what this journalist is making it out to be. News is supposed to be just that, news. What happened, dates, times and facts. What we have now is some terrible form of entertainment/news that’s designed to feed your narrative and if they can’t they just won’t report it or will report a skewed version of the events. This is what cable news channels have been doing for years and NPR is supposed to be above that. I think that’s the main gripe he has but he seems to take his aggression out on progressive policies in his work place. I don’t disagree with Uri but I also feel that some of this resentment is just an older guy in a field that is rapidly changing.
I read his piece when it first came out. He talks about the Hunter Biden laptop like it was an actual smoking gun. Dude has zero credibility.
