I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.
Uri Berliner, a veteran at the public radio institution, says the network lost its way when it started telling listeners how to think.
So let me get this straight, NPR lost America's trust?
America was radicalized by a Australian billionaire and his oil-industry buddies feeding straight up lies to a captive audience, and this is NPR's fault?
Dude, one media company had to pay almost a billion dollars in damages for their election fraud narrative, and that company wasn't NPR.
And yet somehow, this is NPR's fault?
This is some grade-A fascist apologist bullshit, up there with the New York Times whitewashing fascism in Ohio diners and commenting on how nicely Neo Nazis are dressing these days.
That’s bullshit, though.
NPR is very factual with a left-center bias.
They get dinged for supporting Israel and because member stations curate their own content. Texas public radio is very different from Houston public radio which is different from Minnesota public radio and LAist serving southern cali.
Secondly, most conservatives left NPR in general because of their largely factual reporting. Further, at least MPR, they don’t shy away from reporting on republicans or admitting the rare good things they’ve done.
Conservatives responded in one of a few ways:
It’s really not NPRs fault this happened- they told the truth as fairly and accurately as they could. And as to her accusation of favoring democrats for political interviews… do you really thing Trump or whoever is going to give an interview to somebody who says things like “but that’s not true.” To your face, when you just spouted some election-fraud lies? Or “do you have any proof?” When you double and triple down on the lie?
Nope. Because that guy looked like an idiot. (I forget who the interview was. Maybe it was one of trumps lawyers or some random pubie.)
Being very factual is what makes it liberal news. It's so slanted, in fact I don't think a single liberal would deny that this is exactly why they tune in! The savages are literally just listening to what they want to hear!
The universe has a well known liberal bias - it shouldn't be allowed to influence our fair and balanced media coverage.
Persistent rumors that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia over the election became the catnip that drove reporting. [...]
But when the Mueller report found no credible evidence of collusion [...]
Aaaaand I stopped reading.
The Mueller Report absolutely found credible evidence of collusion, despite heavy-handled interference by Trump, Barr, and the rest of the GOP. It unfortunately failed to result in any prosecution (in no small part due to Barr), and failed to pressure Republicans to vote to remove Trump when he was impeached.
That is exactly where I bowed out. I have my own criticisms of NPR (as a contributor for decades), but this guys opinion is trash.
Literally every source says there was insufficient evidence to prove collusion, from the Mueller report specifically.
Insufficient evidence to prove a crime? Maybe. I disagree, but I'm neither a lawyer nor a judge.
But "collusion" itself isn't a crime, and the evidence clearly showed evidence of collusion between the GOP and Russia.
The number of connections between the GOP and Russia, financially and ideologically, and Russia's proven interference in 2016 and since (not to mention the GOP visit to Moscow on July 4th) are evidence enough to show there is "collusion".
The problem is our laws on campaign finance and foreign political influence are Swiss cheese.
And then they turn around and act like, "Well, he didn't get convicted of a crime, so clearly it was all a hoax."
No. It wasn't a hoax. There was evidence. Just not enough to do anythong about it, apparently. (And I still argue only because of the amount of interference run on the investigation.)
EDIT: And just in case you want to come back and obtusely repeat your argument, here's the report in full. After 181 pages of evidence, here's the conclusion.
IV. CONCLUSION Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President’s conduct. The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.
Its in black and white: they had already determined that they would not make a "prosecutorial judgment" (recommendation to charge Trump with a crime), since Barr said that should be left to the Impeachment process. But despite that, the report makes clear, in no unclear terms...
I find NPR a little annoying for its nonchalant and cutesy way of presenting horrifying news stories. It’s like “Donald Trump tries to commit a coup” and Tamara Keith is like “on today’s show Domenico and I talk about what Trump’s strategy is here for his 2024 run and how this will impact house republicans.”
Or, the US economy is in shambles and Planet Money is like “today we’ll talk about that time the Dutch economy was in shambles in 1770 and what a tulip salesman did to save it. Maybe there will be something we can learn about today’s problems, ahyuck.”
What’s your home station, if I may ask?
I just listen to the podcasts
Notable is NPR's rebuttal to this essay: NPR responds after editor says it has 'lost America's trust'
In particular, this portion stands out:
"As a person of color who has often worked in newsrooms with little to no people who look like me, the efforts NPR has made to diversify its workforce and its sources are unique and appropriate given the news industry's long-standing lack of diversity," Alfonso says. "These efforts should be celebrated and not denigrated as Uri has done."
After this story was first published, Berliner contested Alfonso's characterization, saying his criticism of NPR is about the lack of diversity of viewpoints, not its diversity itself.
"I never criticized NPR's priority of achieving a more diverse workforce in terms of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. I have not 'denigrated' NPR's newsroom diversity goals," Berliner said. "That's wrong."
Nah, he just talked about how "Race and identity became paramount in nearly every aspect of the workplace" and how a bunch of employee groups based on identity started up, and then directly linked that to the "absence of viewpoint diversity." Totally different. 🙄
I'm really tired of this weasel wordplay that constantly happens, where someone talks about X and then uses that to lead into a point about how this bad thing happened, and when called out, backs off and says "I never blamed X on this bad thing happening." Fuck off with that shit, we all know what you said and we can fucking read, you just don't want to admit it because you know that saying it makes you look racist as all hell.
Yea, I bet it really was hard to be a conservative at NPR. Unfortunately, between DEI, Hunter's Laptop, Lab-gate, etc, it's pretty easy to see that this fellow has simply taken modern conservative talking points all at face-value. That is not necessarily a good idea.
edit: Side question: Has anyone else ever noticed a correlation between font size and journalistic integrity, or is it just me?
I can't get past the 6th or 7th paragraph. It resets the page.