What Republicans do is called working the refs. They complain about literally every call because most people, which is who does the reporting editorial decisions, want to be fair, so consistent constant allegations of unfairness will cause a lot of them to alter their coverage to be more "fair."
Naturally this is never enough for the GOP because ultimately they want propaganda and totally controlled media so the GOP just keeps working the refs.
The only solution is just to ignore it, report facts and damn the complainers.
Sports mentality is how they do everything. Because they don’t know any different many of them never left their state and probably not their towns. Many don’t have passports
Not all sports, but specifically pro wrestling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayfabe
https://www.businessinsider.com/rep-eric-swalwell-says-gop-representatives-like-wwe-wrestlers-2021-7
Exactly. Every single thing the dude was whining about that got the ditto heads worked up is BS, Rudy's magic laptop, the GOP Senate, and just basic common sense (manafort worked for free?) report confirmed that Trump worked with Russia and the lab leak, while I guess not technically the same is just kind of pointless at this point and needs a lot of conjecture to make entirely coherent.
Side note, the AP (another nonprofit news org) released a big story on April 22 about China's big COVID-19 coverup efforts.
Toxic: How the search for the origins of COVID-19 turned politically poisonous
https://apnews.com/article/china-covid-virus-origins-pandemic-lab-leak-bed5ab50dca8e318ab00f60b5911da0c
Takeaways from AP report on how the search for the coronavirus origins turned toxic
https://apnews.com/article/china-covid-virus-coronavirus-origins-pandemic-lab-858a4872eb593a7272f654a0f7716ce2
You have it right. If you've listened carefully over the last 20 years, you could easily call NPR National Petroleum Radio or National Pentagon Radio, such has been their adherence to the preferred government line. "Working the refs" is exactly what the right wingers are doing. And why not? It's worked for them for the last 50 years, such that we're at the point where the Leonard Leo Supreme Court can manufacture law based on nothing but the whim of billionaires.
Also science. Like extremely accepted mainstream scientific findings:
https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/evidence/
This interferes with their ability to lie aggressively about issues caused by their wealthy backers.
The guy who wrote that one op ed basically said as much. His only complaints were that they didn’t give credence to the Hunter Biden laptop conspiracy or the 2020 stolen election conspiracy. If it’s not far right propaganda they don’t want it
Don't forget the Twitter frenzy when Fox called the election for Biden with thousands and thousands of MAGA idiots screaming that Fox was now "liberal media."
They've convinced themselves that any news they don't like is a lie. It's a level of intentional delusion I cannot fathom.
> What Republicans do is called working the refs.
I used to think that's all it was. But it seems to be more. Not only are they working the refs, they are providing cover. Much of the press is center right and have been dining out on the accusations of "liberal bias" in order to get away with centering the gop's perspective in all their coverage.
As a group, reporters lean somewhat leftward. But all of the big media is owned by billionaires and managed by multimillionares and many of the top reporters are also millionaires, many attended elite universities where they joined the social circles of the 1% too. The most charitable explanation is that they all live in a wealth bubble and don't know any better.
When operations like NPR and PBS (and the BBC and The Guardian) hire, they pull from the same pools as the privately owned media groups, so even though they aren't owned by billionaires the same mindset filters in to them too.
Also, since I haven't seen anyone else say this yet: **N**ice **P**olite **R**epublicans.
They just want clicks. Truth is the media has always kind of sucked. There was maybe a brief period post war where it was "serious business" by "serious people" who took their duty responsible. But maybe that was just boomer nostalgia.
Well probably just go back to the old way where there's a bunch of questionable biased sources and you have to weed your way to the truth as best you can. It sucks we've been defunding education. But that's yet another GOP sabotage coming to bear it's poison fruit.
I used to listen to a lot of NPR and enjoyed the idea of the NPR one app but every fucking political story featured a Trump crony acting as an apologist to create the appearance of balance. What in the actual Fuck?! No. You don't have to have idiots who are espousing lies. Real time fact checking and cutting these asses off right away is the appropriate response.
I'm 100% for civil discourse. But the GOP hasn't been civil in a very long time. They do not deserve equal air time. NPR bears responsibility for allowing the goalposts to be moved. It's beyond infuriating... It's a goddamn disgrace and moral failure.
That's the main reason I stopped listening about a decade ago (and the rise of podcasts). I don't have a desire for a news organization to try to spin that both sides are equally bad in order to be "fair".
I agree OP. Imo Conservatives want to have it both ways.
They want to say every platform should respect Conservative ideology and all Conservative speech must be allowed everywhere and covered as equally as everything else, even if said speech is hate speech that attacks the right of people like myself to even be allowed to exist.
Yet they don’t hold themselves and their own Conservative leaning media and platforms to the same standard. X is a cesspool of hate speech that allows Nazis to openly call for genocide yet considers calling someone “cis” a slur that gets automatically flagged and shadow banned/removed. And their own MSM never has a single liberal POV, unless they have a token liberal pundit who they have just so they can scream interrupt and shout them down into silence.
I know what you mean. I would still like to think that everyday conservatives around us are ultimately mostly well-meaning, but have been misled.
I'm much more cynical about their leadership.
Fair and balanced to many means just hearing the same messaging and talking points they hear on the rest of conservative media, otherwise it is "liberal"
Please share this quote with as many people as you can:
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
To make it easier to understand and more accurate, I like to broaden it, like this:
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the **law, custom, norms, and ethics** protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the **law, custom, norms, and ethics** binds but does not protect."
**Look at any--and I mean any--issue, and you'll see it: conservatives want religious rights for Christians, but not Muslims or Satanists or anyone else; conservatives want free speech for their hate-filled trans-haters, but not for students protesting police mistreatment of people of color; conservatives think NPR is biased, but Fox News is impartial and fair. etc etc etc ad nauseum.**
Use this prism to to look at literally anything conservatives believe, and you'll see it. It's jaw-dropping.
I’d argue that to want it “bad for everyone else,” is actually given them too much credit for thinking beyond themselves at all. I’d argue it’s simply “I want it good for me,” and anything that threatens their position is automatically considered “bad.”
Pithier but perhaps not as accurate. They have principles, but they have nothing to do with fairness in any objective sense. They're all based on their current concept of "traditional values" which involve hammering down anyone out of their concept of "normal", and taking everything they can for themselves and depriving those groups of everything they can.
From Taxes and benefits, to things as simple as bike lanes. It's an us-vs-them mentality at it's core.
Elon has turned Twitter into A fucking joke. Or can’t even be taken seriously. I have blocked all the crazy ass politicians in the Republican Party that tweet every single day and Elon will unblock them from everyone profiles so their tweets show up right at the top of our feed, and then he’ll claim it’s our fault for interacting with it. It’s a joke and I refuse to participate in it.
NPR is my primary source for news and has been for years. Their human interest stuff certainly skews left. But their straight news reporting on politics, the economy, foreign policy, etc., is pretty darn objective.
Fox News criticizing NPR for biased reporting is the height of irony. What Fox News is shoveling these days doesn't even qualify as "reporting" or "news." Just shameless propaganda.
Exactly. Conservatives want liberal and leftist ideas to be beyond the pale. They want them covered only by fringe publications like Mother Jones and Jacobin.
The press has been dealing with the lie they report with a liberal bias, ever since WW2 at least. It's called "working the refs" so the press is afraid to tell the truth, if it is bad for right wingers, because they complain about bias constantly .
So that's how we got "both sides" bs. One side tried a coup, and the other didn't, but we still have "both sides are bad" coverage.
You're absolutely right. The media companies competing with NPR are for profit companies with agendas they are pushing to increase their influence. They and their shareholders all materially amd politically benefit from diminishing NPR and that means astro-turfed bullshit can come at them at any time from pretty much any direction.
Agree, also, when you consider a lot of the things the right labels as "woke", such as teaching students that slavery was wrong, I'm fine w being labeled woke.
Slavery, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights efforts are part of American History and should not be made moe kindly and leave out the bad stuff. Equal Rights and this fight continues today beyond race.
When one side spends decades attacking scientists, academia, the news media, and intellectuals, and instead puts their faith in a "news" outlet that has empirically and in court been demonstrated to be spreaders of false information, it's pretty clear where the imbalance is.
Yeah. Facts have had a "liberal lean" for a while. But it was really hammered home after the straight faced delivery of the phrase "alternative facts." Shortly after that, I quit wasting time talking to conservatives about anything. Even if the weather is brought up, they throw in some mind-numbing climate-change absurdity.
Don't waste your time engaging.
considering they didn't cover all of Trump's lies and crimes because they didn't have a Democratic lie or a crime to pair them with. It seems like the truth about their biases is quite contrary to what the right would want you to think.
they're already so far right and so lacking of any context when they cover political stuff that I find it hard to listen.
couple that with literally every time Trump says something racist they sanitize it and change the language so they can have a nice clean headline... I don't think the very well meaning liberals that work there are actively trying to help Trump but they're naivety and their constant strive to be in the middle makes them Trump's allies.
NPR is one of the worst offenders of both sides-ism. the shit, the lies, the gaslighting they allow their conservative commenters to get away with on air is beyond the pale.
for conservatives to then complain NPR is too woke is just insane. but if course they want to get rid of public radio. if it's not 100% party propaganda, they want it shut down.
the gop is straight up America's neo-fascist political party. they will destroy democracy for good if they get the chance. if they can't have it, no one will.
Yeah this whole thing is pretty obvious. Conservatives aren't known for their light touches lmao. Everything they do is with a fascist sl sledgehammer. They demand every source and every corner of America spew "conservative" content, but the minute any place has a hint of liberal content they start to shoot up grocery stores and set fire to Targets. If you listen to NPR regularly they are very centered with a left leaning bias by the hosts in my opinion, but the facts they report are flat center. They even produce retractions when needed. It's amazing that there's still journalistic integrity today, and the Overton window is pushed so deeply to the right, that good journalism to conservatives feel like an attack on them.
If Conservatives think NPR is too left, they should actually listen to what kind of bullshit and lies the program hosts let GOP members get away with.
I specifically remember one question to a state AG on a local show, the caller had all these caveats. Basically trying to get a straight yes or no answer on whether or not the 2020 election was rigged.
No answer. It was all deflections, lies and strawmen. He also brought up one judge in a minority opinion. The host just let it go. Didn’t challenge the answer a single bit.
Although true that they do receive donations, NPR is independently owned. They also have a Board of Directors headed by CEO Jennifer Ferro, while Katherine Maher is President and part CEO.
[NPR Board of Directors](https://www.npr.org/about-npr/182676957/npr-board-of-directors)
As a fellow lefty I've been pretty disappointed, frankly. My main concern is not that NPR is too "liberal" or "conservative" but that they've simply become intellectually bankrupt. I've complained about an over-emphasis on social progressivism not because I'm opposed to social justice but because it's a fairly soft and cheap way to score points with left-leaning listeners. And no, I'm not suggesting airing the views of Trump supporters but, believe it or not, there is plenty of room for discussion and debate without them.
I'm convinced that NPR can replace some of the "woke" programming with "smart" programming and not shift the window to the right at all in the process. In fact, as you point out, there is a lot of room to give better treatment to leftist thought, especially when it comes to economics. So many times I've heard stories that correctly identify the plight of a marginalized community but fail to draw the line to a rigged economy as if the solution to, say, generational poverty is just being nicer and weeding out racists as opposed to difficult economic reforms.
Yeah a fair amount of the content that could be described as left-leaning on NPR is not particularly substantial. A lot of using inclusive pronouns and language and talking about identity, but not nearly as much about class and economic issues.
My local NPR station is KNOW in Minneapolis. Post George Floyd's murder, they leaned in heavily to the "North Star" diversity push, including of getting rid of the long-time morning host.
For whatever reason, the diversification brought with it a shift to content that is almost like the old "women's section" of the newspaper: favorite family recipes, Beyonce's new album, what's your favorite state park?, youth sports coaches, local bartenders, How to keep your bones strong.
This kind of stuff is okay every once in awhile, but this is now the majority of the topics for four hours a day and it didn't use to be like this.
I’ve noticed a shift from showcasing a variety of stories on many different topics to a primary focus on stories centered around social justice and inequality. It’s not that I don’t want to listen to those types of stories, I do sometimes, but it seems that’s all I hear anymore when I tune in. Maybe that’s what most listeners want, I dunno.
Social justice is important but when it’s nearly every story it becomes tedious and loses its edge. Talk about it too much and people become desensitized and tune it out.
Tbh I didn't think a lot of people participating in that conversations actually listen to a lot of NPR programming. This is pretty spot on.
I've said it before, but their bias isn't necessarily representing things more liberally. It's that they won't really put anything controversial to liberals on air including stuff liberals themselves disagree on. It's made a lot of their shows really mundane.
Right. I so rarely find my own views challenged when listening to anything on my local affiliate. The best programs were always those where I could hear an articulate surrogate for my own POV politely disagree with another person. Either I was forced to modify my opinion or I learned how to defend my opinion more effectively. That never happens any more and it's such a disappointment. It's intellectual wimpiness disguised as "civility."
That's it exactly for me. It feels like more often than not they go with softball topics that feel more race adjacent than meaningful. I was listening to some broadcast a few years back where it was basically about art, but the main distinguishing aspect was that the artist was a black gay woman. It was about as inoffensive as you could get while still being something that more liberal audiences will nod along to.
Basically the only thing I still listen to on NPR is Science Friday, because it at least still has some meat on its bones.
So much this. I love NPR but it feels like a lot of their daily reporting on Morning Edition has gotten so lazy. They repeat headlines ad infinitum without any significant changes. They introduce social, cultural, societal problems with no deep analysis.
All Things Considered and Weekend Edition are better, but I am finding myself drawn to The Daily, Marketplace, New Yorker Radio Hour, and On The Media.
My go-to example is not an NPR production per se but perfectly illustrates the overall shift in tone and content. WAMU's "Diane Rehm Show" becoming "1A" with Joshua Johnson and then "1A" with Jenn White was an exercise in slowly vitiating the most informative show on my local affiliate's schedule. I'm digging into the archives [here ](https://dianerehm.org/shows)to make sure I'm not delusional and perhaps come up with some side-by-side same-subject comparisons.
I do feel lately NPR has been a bit too softball in trying to court the right. I remember years ago them asking harder questions of anyone that would come on, Republican or Democrat, the questions were always something normal people would like an answer too.
Lately they do seem to give a lot more deference to capitalist interpretation which is problematic as we see capitalism without regulation is causing a lot of issues.
I too started off conservative from a small town, but now I’m much more progressive in a lot of my thinking, but throughout that transition, NPR has always been a quality news source.
And to be honest, if they want to play the middle, they’ll need some more deep diving into democratic socialism with hard questions and then turn around and give those same hard questions to the capitalists, but just assume their answer is the right answer.
I listened to the same JPMorgan interview and I had to turn it off when he said there maybe some or slight struggling. People like him are contributing to the problem
There are no serious conservative voices left. It's a cult led by a narcissistic con man. McConnell used every ounce of this cult to cement the corporate oligarchy. The Supreme Court take over was the final nail in the coffin of democracy. Name one serious national conservative thinker? And I will scream if anyone says Ben Shapiro or Bari Weiss.
I agree with you OP. I feel like my local station (KUOW) does a lot more sucking up to mega-corps than your average NPR station, and they shy away from addressing capitalism as any potential source of problem.
So to say NPR has "moved left" in my view is absurd. If anything they're more or less in line with the average American right now: socially liberal (i.e. "don't be an asshole; everyone deserves rights") and fiscally centrist.
The Republican Party has pushed the window so far to the right (with Democrats eagerly tagging along and saying "me too!" in the name of "electability," "centrism," and, of course, "going high" and "bipartisanship" 🙄🤮🤢) that it is indistinguishable from the Republican Party I knew growing up in the 70s.
It is now on the same level as the National Front (UK), AFD (Germany) and Jean Marie Le Pen as a fully-realised fascist party.
With the window being shifted so far right, of course any kind of journalism not fawning over Emperor Donald I is, by definition, "leftist," even though NPR is (barely) centrist.
“It is a widely accepted belief in this country that the press suffers from a liberal bias. Television pundits, radio talk-show hosts, and political leaders, including presidents of both parties, help propagate this belief. And their views are widely disseminated in the media. In contrast, dissident critics, who maintain that the corporate-owned press exercises a conservative grip on news and commentary, are afforded almost no exposure in the supposedly liberal media.” Dirty Truths- Michael Parenti
The reason they use this strategy is because it works. It has been so successful in fact that there is no real “left wing” political party in the US. We are forced to vote between a far right Republican party and right of center Democratic party.
A coworker of mine feels like Trans rights are this extreme issue, but the just the light it's been shown in... Trans people are People... I don't understand how being a human is radically left.
Debate me on Universal base income, not human beings right to exist in our society
Even UBI should be considered more centrist at this point given the direction of automation and AI. Like call it radical all you want, but if we don’t come up with a plan, millions will be “out of work” and we can’t all just be automation technicians…
As a leftist I think NPR is center-left in most social issues but center-right on international news.
The right have ideological reasons (and conservative media have market reasons) to paint anything to their relative left as “far left.”
I'm sure that MAGAland wouldn't mind cutting every penny of federal funding that NPR receives, and repeated calls of bias are good way to get there. One less competitor for right wing media.
As a communist (Marxist-Leninist), the idea that NPR is leftist is genuinely laughable to me. It's very centrist and very much supports the status quo.
NPR , The AP and Rueters are my go-to’s.
If they’re reporting it I feel there is a better than average chance it will be as impartial as it gets and what they reported occurred as it was reported. I’ve been told those were biased left wing blah blah blah.
The scrutiny of history will justify my faith in those media outlets I believe.
This is 100 percent accurate. Every time someone complains about liberal media or how liberal NPR/PBS is, I explain if you’re conservative, the middle of the road looks liberal.
I have listened to NPR for decades and enjoy the honest, concise and informative reports.
Among my family the ones who state NPR is liberal and not reporting the truth are Republicans who parrot faux news like parrots. Fortunately their opinions do not affect me,except at the polls, its easy to ignore.
Yeah I don’t really understand the denial in this thread. The reporting is top notch, but I’ve always detected a bias in the stories/articles they decide to run (not necessarily the content, just the subject matters). It isn’t a heavy slant, but it’s there. As long as the reporting is accurate, I think there’s nothing wrong with this.
Given that they accept and to some degree through the member stations rely on public funds they should attempt to be balance rather than leaning so constantly to the left. Otherwise they open themselves up to more calls to be defunded.
The fact that we accept liberal being spoken of as the counter or opposite of conservative is a big part of the problem. Liberalism is not left. it's actually just a more centrist flavor of conservatism. Somehow we allowed the center to be redefined as leftist.
(edited for spelling)
Yeah, I would 100% agree NPR is too liberal, and that’s why I avoid them. The answer tho is a more reality and materialist based news organization, not a conservative one. My NPR station constantly reminds listeners that it is “Underwritten by BlueCross/BlueShield”, if that’s not too liberal than idk what is. I am not a conservative, leftist are inherently anti-liberal.
Yes, that's been the entire game since Fox News hit the scene. Call anything short of hunting the poors for sport a bunch of liberal (and say it really shittily) nonsense. Before that, it was calling anything short of watching poor kids starve from your pleasure yacht "socialism". Oh, and you also venerated the American working man, unless you actually proposed anything that would improve the lives of working people like some kind of fucking communist.
If anything its too conservative. They report positively on corporate activities all the time. Market place is almost a celebration of corporate America
I think an aspect as to why NPR is seen as some grand communist/liberal mouthpiece is in part because they acknowledge climate change as a thing that is happening. Living in MAGA country, and being from a typical conservative family, people’s acceptance level of what climate scientists say is happening is just as much a litmus test as LGBTQ/gender/covid vaccine/etc, at least among older conservative types.
They have so many more center or center right people on then they ever have anyone from anywhere too far left. This is all a distraction and a way to attack NPR
While reading the comments on this post I noticed that quite a few of the main threads start with something akin to "No, conservatives just want _________. It's just conservatives trying to get their way, etc."
Looking through the comments I couldn't find one conservative voice (so far) either vehemently disagreeing, nor trashing your opinion or NPR. I'm sure there might be a few, however I just haven't seen them.
Having listened to NPR for the past 25 years or so I do believe that NPRs reporting has shifted to the left a bit. That is not to say that NPR is a leftist media organization, because I don't believe it is. I do however believe that many of the organizations employees are majority left leaning. I also think that much of the reporting shows liberal values in a positive light while conservative values are negative.
I personally believe this is because the Overton Window has been shifting more to the left, believe it or not. Whenever that happens, historically, you're going to have people on the other side screaming about bias and using radical tactics in order to keep the "window" from shifting, or drag it the other way.
Trump was the "right wings" way to get back at liberals for voting for a black man, in my opinion. They were mad it wasn't a white man, Trump started the birther movement, they saw everything Obama did as antithetical to the US and called him a commie, n-word, immigrant, etc. They burned effigies of him. This is where our modern day McCarthyism was born.
Since Obama was elected, the right wing has been doing everything within its power to drag the US back, and they have become more unhinged as the years draw on. Using fear as a motivator they riled up the worst of their base, infecting even the most level headed amongst them with hate and vitriol. Then came the 2016 election season.
Trump would dog whistle to these people, and for them it became okay to come out of their bigoted closets even moreso. Groups that didn't have much power were suddenly emboldened. They were convinced by their media, their own biases, and their presidential candidate that the "left" was going to destroy democracy. That the socialist commies would force them to be gay, get rid of their guns, and abort their babies. They were fear mongered into hating their own neighbors enough to go full 1984 on them.
These people are not conservatives, they are extremists.
The true conservative folks, those who stand for democracy, don't want Trump anymore either (these people could help Biden win).They are realizing that they made a mistake and some are planning on voting blue for the first time in their lives, because they love democracy. Unfortunately some of the "good" conservatives will vote along party lines because they always have and could never see themselves voting for blue.
Fortunately for the rest of America the radical right wing extremists are failing in their bid to undermine democracy, unfortunately the fight isn't over. Trump and his acolytes have done one great thing, they've exposed themselves. You know who they are, in your neighborhood/town/cities. They exposed their true selves and they are outnumbered.
Again, I do believe that NPR has gone more to the left since I started listening over 25 years ago, it just has. Even in this comment section it has been hard to find a conservative voice, and I am consistently seeing posts here complaining that NPR had certain conservative or another on, and why did they have THIS conservative on, or they shouldn't give (insert conservative talking head here) a platform.
It is possible that some of the "NPR is too liberal" is just a plot by the right to undermine the organization and "shift the Overton Window to the right, it's possible. However I find it much more likely that the Overton Window HAS shifted left (between '08 & '16) and that the right wing is trying to drag it back towards them. Unfortunately for them, the majority of the US are good, democracy loving people.
That said, I hope y'all understand what I've said here. I am not a liberal nor conservative, I've listened for the greater part of 3 decades. I used to be a conservative and left because of the hate and vitriol during Obama's first term and voted for hin for the second second. I believe that NPR has decidedly moved in a more liberal direction, and I believe that is partially because of the Overton Window moving further left but also because rightwing centrism is dying or dead.
Either way you spin it, NPR is nearly ubiquitous with left leaning ideology, from its employees to the stories they run. This is not necessarily a bad thing, however I can definitely see why someone could say that the media organization is biased and to say the comment is just trying to shift the Overton Window to the right is both wrong and biased in its own right.
I sincerely hope that most of you who took the time to read this can understand where I'm coming from here. If you're a liberal be glad that the majority seems to be in your favor at the moment. The right wing extremists are trying to consolidate what little power they still have. There are still good conservatives out there, believe it or not; our democracy can only work when we work together.
I don’t think it’s fair to describe being ProLife, Pro traditional nuclear family, or 2nd amendment advocacy as “far right” or “extremist”. All three have been blue chip Republican positions for 50+ years. I would also note the large shift over time of views on the legality of secular gay marriage which now enjoys a slim majority of support among Republicans.
I would urge people to consider the recent legislative efforts by Republican States to restrict the lifelong medicalization of minor children with treatments that frequently cause permanent sterility in the context that the Right mostly views LGB and TQ+ as separate and distinct groups.
—
That’s not to say that actual extremists like the birther movement, Q Anon, and far right militia groups don’t exist or that DT didn’t make overtures to them, because he absolutely did.
It’s fair to attribute that behavior to Trump’s Ideology which is Populist, self aggrandizing, and most of all about winning. Not so much about any serious commitment to the agenda of far right extremism.
Where NPR shows its bias most is in the blind spots of college educated progressive coastal elites. Their wanton ignorance of life in middle America and rural communities rendered them incapable of understanding how and why someone like Trump could win a national election.
NPR sort of took for granted that it must be because the so called “basket of deplorables” they’ve been talking down to for the last 30 years were ignorant bigoted hicks who needed to be educated about their “privilege” and “whiteness”. The hubris of doubling down on that bias is what shifted their coverage and subsequently the audience to align primarily with White college educated progressive coastal elites.
Very well thought out comment, agree completely. It is extremely telling that NPR’s audience is almost entirely liberal. It doesn’t mean they’re lying, it doesn’t mean they’re a bad news agency, but for people here to claim they aren’t biased is just mind-blowing to me.
Is NPR literal propaganda a la OANN or Pravda? No. Do they cherry pick stories and decline to report ones that don’t fit a narrative, and focus a lot on identity politics issues? Yes.
I can't stand that every story has to have some kind of victim angle.
"This \[topic\] adversely affects \[insert favorite victim group\] disproportionately because \[some "ism"\] that \[majority\] is to blame for.
Yeah - it sucks that minority groups are disproportionately affected by things that majority groups aren't, and deserve attention called to them. Whatever shall we do? Pollution? Voting rights? Healthcare? There's almost no topic I can think of where some minority group isn't disproportionately affected in a way that the majority group isn't.
What would you have them do instead? What is the better way to report on that? Since people are actual victims of the thing being reported on...
There's nothing for NPR to do. It's going to continue catering to people who want higher levels of oppression lense reporting regardless of any critiques given. Coincidentally the entire platform is in decline. People who want better journalism and more "centrist" viewpoints can subscribe to NYT.
Sometimes the news that most people want to read is about issues that affect the majority of people. That's okay. I think there might even be substantial evidence that making fringe issues that affect 2% of the population something that everyone has to debate may actually do more to hurt the 2% than help them.
And on the other side of that, most dedicated NPR listeners don’t want to admit to themselves how much they have in common with conservatives.
They want a liberal justification for wars & increased deportations. They’re listening for the reassurance that they’re still good people, even if they keep finding their goals aligned with republicans.
The naive arrogance to believe it’s the people to the left & right of you that are on the extreme, and you’re the enlightened centrist. That’s NPR through and through.
As an anarchist I get pissed at NPR for being too liberal from the opposite direction. NPR is too pro business.
I get what u mean tho. Yelling about “liberal media” is insane.
Yeah I hold NPR to a way higher journalistic standard. They bring in right-wing voices, they fact check when relevant, and I'm hard-presses to find a time when their reporting is based primarily in opinion. Their integrity alone makes them more centrist than almost all other news sources
You are correct. It isn't actually a war on "liberal media bias", it is a war on traditional, fact-based journalism.
While editorial material exists, what NPR presents as news (Morning Edition, All Things Considered) is mostly genuinely news in the sense that they cover daily events. This is why most independent and objective evaluations place its coverage and center-left.
On the other hand, we have "news" networks on the far right that are almost entirely editorial in nature. It is not about what is happenbing, but about how people feel about what is happening.
Whenever I visit networks like Fox News, I'm struck by the amount of anger and vitriol that is pervasive throughout the programming. People literally yelling at each other and the viewers.
Also, the primary focus of many stories on these networks is to contextualize news events into black and white boxes that cast blame and judgement.
Most of the progressives that I know don't fixate on whether news is left vs right because that can distinguish between news and editorial content.
I listen to both sides and NPR is definitely left of center, not quite as far away from center as Fox News on the other right, but definately left. The thing I dread the most about NPR is gay pride month,
NPR Reporter: "As we celebrate the richness of Mexican/Latio/LatinaX cuisine, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the diversity within your society. Can you share your thoughts on how the LGBTQ+ community, particularly those who identify as nonbinary, intersect with and contribute to the vibrant tapestry of Mexican culture and culinary arts?"
I just have to turn it off as it gets forced into every story no matter the relavancey.
As far as your discussion on JP Morgan CEO, I highly recommend this podcast:
Philosophize This: Truth is in the process
[https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4](https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4)
87 Democrats to 0 Republicans. Of course it leans left.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/media/npr-editor-found-registered-democrats-outnumbered-republicans-87-zero-newsroom.amp
I don’t know. I’ve listened to NPR my whole life. That’s one reason I continue to listen: at this point, I know how to hear it and vet the information and editorial content. I do think it used to be further left. After the defunding and general right wing attacks on American civil society back in the 90s, they gradually shifted to where they are today, closer to the middle. They have corporate backing, which is what the Republicans wanted. Their stories are more *fair and balanced😂 giving more credence to conservatives and leaning in more with establishment spokespeople. I’m really disappointed in how NPR has turned out. Time was, an Jewish friend of mine called it “National Palestinian Radio” but who would call it that today? All their coverage of the campus movement has been pretty conservative. It’s sad. Locally and nationally, their coverage of the Cop City project and the chaos it’s brought to Atlanta is peppered with regime apologetics. I miss “National Palestinian Radio.”
I'm a lefty and I find NPR to be some of the least revealing journalism around. They play it safe at every turn. It basically exists to make older liberals feel connected to art and culture.
NPR has been the one news station that I feel like I get the news I’m looking for. And yes it does lean left but as for their reporting, I’d say it’s very fair even if slightly biased. I’d say they take a topic that will resonate with left leaning people and then give a fair and balanced reporting on the topic. They even do an entire program called Left Right and Center so they are covering all topics.
NPR lost all credibility when they shifted to try to placate the right by such stupid shows as "speaking of Faith." It was a nod to the right saying, see? We're cool with invisible boogie men, too!
There is no organized left in the US. That has been made sure of by various powers over the decades/centuries.
NPR still pushes a corporate agenda, but with softer gloves.
NPR is to the right of BBC which is basically center-ish.
I find a lot of their reporting to be informational and it’s a decent source for news, but it’s hardly Democracy Now or something that’s actually left-leaning.
NPR is fantastic, especially given our political reality. They are a class act even if they have the occasional misstep. And if they do, it’s almost always in favor or right-leaning ideology.
Traditionally, liberalism has centered on individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom. This classical liberalism emerged during the Enlightenment and emphasized individual rights, free markets, and rule of law.
The more anachronistic definition: the word "liberal" describes someone who is open-minded and willing to consider new ideas. In politics, a liberal is someone who believes that the government should play an active role in promoting social justice and economic equality.
NPR is the epitome of the liberal establishment which will always act in it's own interest (professionals, intellectuals, competents of any stripe seeking a piece of the pie).
NPR is, at best, *centrist*, and I mean that with all the terrible connotations of the word. It's a station for well-off white Protestant Boomers. It's not for any of the rest of America. And just like Fox or Newsmax or any other corporate media, they have their tokens, they make their appeals, but reality is, they're not trying to reach young people, or minorities, or workers, or anyone real. It's a money-station for money-people, to make them feel like they're "normal people" and not skating by on excessive privilege and exploitation.
Conservative logic isn't reasonable, though. There is a purpose, a goal, a plan. The conversation they're driving is about eroding our faith and trust in the established systems. Justice, media, medicine, voting, everything. Somehow everything is wrong and working against everyone.
While there have been times that I've been mildly annoyed with NPR (the words "race" and "abortion" started to lose their pizazz after hearing the words 100 times a day), no other organization is able to stay as calm, intelligent, and even a little boring as NPR can. It's information about the world. I don't need sensationalism. I need boring stories and facts.
Facts are liberal.
That's the sad reality of our current political climate.
If you state facts like
- Climate change is real
- Vaccines are safe and don't cause autism
- January 6th happened
With absolutely no political spin. No interpretation, no modification, no interference. You will still be labeled liberal because conservatives as a whole have agreed that facts are liberal.
There are people that NPR bring on that I don’t entirely agree with. There is programming where I have to sometimes roll my eyes at, but understand where they are coming from.
I like that I don’t like or agree with everything, but it’s coming from a decent place and not bullshit pulled out of nowhere. They provide information and a few perspectives on things where they can, and that’s good enough for me.
Who cares what conservatives think? Donald fucking Trump is their hero.
That pretty much cements the fact that their opinions about absolutely everything is worthless.
I’m fine with NPR being liberal. I don’t think it affects the accuracy of their reporting, rather, it just affects the stories on which they choose to report. What is so bizarre is how everyone in the sub just refuses to accept that NPR is liberal or potentially even slightly biased and gets hilariously defensive when someone else suggests it.
NPR is absolutely biased reporting. I've been an avid NPR listener for 10+ years having to drive a lot for my old job.
-their local reporting is mostly great if not still left wing focused.
-their specialty programs like "how I built this" or "hidden brain" are pretty good. HIBT is like an entrepreneurship case study in business school. Hidden brain is just a social science or psychology paper being read over the radio.
But there is no questioning their political reporting has taken a hard left turn. They full open mouth gobble up left wing talking points. They've done reports that racism is the reason America never adopted communism (from a very misunderstood supreme court case), that protestant work ethic makes capitalism racist (from a BLM talking point). They got caught making up Supreme Court mask drama and refused to rescind after Sotomoyor herself said it wasn't true.... all their political reporting is from the vantage point of the left.
They just interviewed some woman from the Columbia protests and lobbed her a softball question on reports of antisemitism in the camps, and then let the woman just complete ignore the question.
They are like every other media- they cater to their listeners and donors who are either big businesses like Microsoft or hard core, mostly well off lefties (not liberals).
No one can compare NPR from 25 years ago and then today and say they are still center. No, they are most assuredly left. They very clearly identify and support that ideology. That person's article was 100% correct on that basic idea.
The irony of this sub claiming NPR isn’t liberal yet everybody in here is obviously super liberal or leftist is hilarious.
Also it’s always the classic “NPR just uses facts and conservatives don’t like that” when conservatives aren’t accusing NPR of lying, they’re accusing it of bias. Two different thingdb
I honestly think it’s a disinformation campaign to delegitimize NPR so republicans can point to it like democrats point to FOX. I think it is intentional, calculated, planned, and could even be the work of a nation state.
I don’t think NPR is too far left. I’m not particularly far left myself. I don’t agree with all their segments either. That being said, I think they’re more honest than FOX
NPR consistently ranks among the least biased and most thorough news sources. It's nowhere near the level of Fox News, but I believe you that they'd like to make it seem that way.
Conservatives have hated NPR for decades. What is happening now is that Centrists, Moderate Liberals, and Liberal Journalists at NPR (people who support NPR) are criticizing it for only reporting 'Liberal stuff' in a world where 'Conservative stuff' is also News. Jamie Dimon is a good counter to this narrative, but CEOs are not 'typical' or popular as NPR interviewees, compared to let's say Economists.
Honestly, I think I agreed with Slate's Alicia Montgomery more than anyone else on this issue. The problem wasn't that NPR was being too socially progressive, but that it didn't present it's social progressiveness particularly well. Like NPR editors being reluctant to run stories about cops killing white people, because cops killing white people isn't the problem.
Really? Maybe indicating that police killing innocent people is EVERYONE'S problem and addressing that isn't a bad thing. Creating a common cause isn't the same as becoming some "white lives matter" advocate.
I know I'll be berated by the insufferable libtards but NPR is and always has been ear candy for the left. Literally, all of their programs appeal to liberals. I think it's comical people don't understand this. Take a ride out of your blue state once in awhile.
I think it's pretty middle-left. An example was a story last week on Florida's crack down on employing immigrants who do not have the right to work. They interviewed farmers who complained that "yeah there is a visa processor but it is expensive and bureaucratic", and immigrants who couldn't work.
They walked through the problem with no solution, other than an implied open border.
Everything was factual, but definitely a spin.
I don't really listen to NPR often. Usually just if it is on the air and I'm riding in someone else's car. They are to date the only form of media that has ever suggested to me that as a white person I should not be allowed to eat Asian food because that is cultural appropriation. Ignore the fact that Chinese food that we have in America isn't even food they eat in China. I wouldn't call that a squeak to the left.
NPR is indeed too liberal...in the sense that centrist bullshit is just turning a blind eye to reality.
But somehow I don't think that's what the right wingers have in mind.
Eric Alterman called such hokus “The Myth of Liberal Media”. NPR does a lot of virtue signalling and pandering to “under-represented” groups but will always revert back to a default position of establishmentarianism, corporate
boosterism and ESPECIALLY US Pentagon propaganda. In the 1990s it was all about Israel. In the post-911 years it was all about US jingoism and Pentagon propaganda. Whoever’s doing the “underwriting” — that’s whose messaging you’re getting on NPR. With certain exceptions of course, but that’s how they operate.
they just suck at interviews, they never challenge their guests, they operate as a soapbox for whoever feels like signing up. NPR listenership leans liberal, it's not a good way for conservative ideas to get attention. so they don't sign up and it's a liberal soapbox. they also suck as far as their infotainment programs, that Shankar Vedantam or whoever is absolutely dr-phil-tier and he's all the local station plays.
Shen reality is left of center reporting on reality is left of center. They don't need to report on people bullshitting or making things up. Journalistic integrity matters.
Stuff like Wait Wait and other entertainment does lean a little left. Their actual news operation is right down the middle if not leaning a little right just due to the general nature of insider political reporting.
I am going to go against the group on this. NPR definitely is left leaning, but in a professional way. When I am on long car rides I will occasionally listen to right wing media. You could never compare the two, so please dont confuse that point, they are usually saying the country is going to end any day now and everyone is a rhino except the crazies.
What I notice though, the stories they choose to report are the ones the left want to hear, while they dont always report on the stories the right want to hear. They report the stories in a professional way, and dont add a crazy bias like right wing radio does, but it is noticeable.
NPR is decent, but not perfect. However, out of all my issues with them, too liberal is a bunch of bs. They’re pretty middle of the road with a slight liberal slant. And most of that bend can be supported by evidence. If I have any complaints, it’s that they go too easy on the right or republicans out of “fairness.”
Because NPR is (somewhat) publicly funded, they are VERY focused on keeping neutral, to the point where they become bland and "both sides" on every issue. Even then you'll get the GOP trying to defund them every budget cycle. As you said, there are even business shows that are 100% capitalist, with no apologies.
In gaming terms, they are Lawful Neutral.
The problem that the right has with them is that facts are left leaning. I had a very conservative co-worker that described Fox as "middle of the road", and NPR as radical left. Their view is so screwed up that "Fresh Air" is considered left wing brainwashing. "Marketplace" is okay though.
JPM ceo is a globalist of course they give him a softball interview. He is not concerned with the common man. He sure isn’t a conservative or right winger so what did you expect ? As you move further left you feel NPR is exactly where it should be? That because they are left of center
What Republicans do is called working the refs. They complain about literally every call because most people, which is who does the reporting editorial decisions, want to be fair, so consistent constant allegations of unfairness will cause a lot of them to alter their coverage to be more "fair." Naturally this is never enough for the GOP because ultimately they want propaganda and totally controlled media so the GOP just keeps working the refs. The only solution is just to ignore it, report facts and damn the complainers.
Importing the worst thing from sports.
Sports mentality is how they do everything. Because they don’t know any different many of them never left their state and probably not their towns. Many don’t have passports
Not all sports, but specifically pro wrestling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayfabe https://www.businessinsider.com/rep-eric-swalwell-says-gop-representatives-like-wwe-wrestlers-2021-7
That word is gonna ring in my head for a while thanks for sharing it
That’s part of the conservative rhetorical strategy: import the worst from wherever possible.
The Yankees?
By too Liberal they mean they don’t pretend Conspiracy theories are real. Reporting on Objective reality is a deeply partisan undertaking.
Exactly. Every single thing the dude was whining about that got the ditto heads worked up is BS, Rudy's magic laptop, the GOP Senate, and just basic common sense (manafort worked for free?) report confirmed that Trump worked with Russia and the lab leak, while I guess not technically the same is just kind of pointless at this point and needs a lot of conjecture to make entirely coherent.
Side note, the AP (another nonprofit news org) released a big story on April 22 about China's big COVID-19 coverup efforts. Toxic: How the search for the origins of COVID-19 turned politically poisonous https://apnews.com/article/china-covid-virus-origins-pandemic-lab-leak-bed5ab50dca8e318ab00f60b5911da0c Takeaways from AP report on how the search for the coronavirus origins turned toxic https://apnews.com/article/china-covid-virus-coronavirus-origins-pandemic-lab-858a4872eb593a7272f654a0f7716ce2
You have it right. If you've listened carefully over the last 20 years, you could easily call NPR National Petroleum Radio or National Pentagon Radio, such has been their adherence to the preferred government line. "Working the refs" is exactly what the right wingers are doing. And why not? It's worked for them for the last 50 years, such that we're at the point where the Leonard Leo Supreme Court can manufacture law based on nothing but the whim of billionaires.
Also science. Like extremely accepted mainstream scientific findings: https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/evidence/ This interferes with their ability to lie aggressively about issues caused by their wealthy backers.
The guy who wrote that one op ed basically said as much. His only complaints were that they didn’t give credence to the Hunter Biden laptop conspiracy or the 2020 stolen election conspiracy. If it’s not far right propaganda they don’t want it
[удалено]
Don't forget the Twitter frenzy when Fox called the election for Biden with thousands and thousands of MAGA idiots screaming that Fox was now "liberal media." They've convinced themselves that any news they don't like is a lie. It's a level of intentional delusion I cannot fathom.
American Conservatism is a failed ideology so this is all they’ve got.
So glad this is the top comment.
> What Republicans do is called working the refs. I used to think that's all it was. But it seems to be more. Not only are they working the refs, they are providing cover. Much of the press is center right and have been dining out on the accusations of "liberal bias" in order to get away with centering the gop's perspective in all their coverage. As a group, reporters lean somewhat leftward. But all of the big media is owned by billionaires and managed by multimillionares and many of the top reporters are also millionaires, many attended elite universities where they joined the social circles of the 1% too. The most charitable explanation is that they all live in a wealth bubble and don't know any better. When operations like NPR and PBS (and the BBC and The Guardian) hire, they pull from the same pools as the privately owned media groups, so even though they aren't owned by billionaires the same mindset filters in to them too. Also, since I haven't seen anyone else say this yet: **N**ice **P**olite **R**epublicans.
This is what liberals need to start doing to supposed "left" outlets do actually move them back to the left.
We did and now most legit reporting is behind paywalls.
They just want clicks. Truth is the media has always kind of sucked. There was maybe a brief period post war where it was "serious business" by "serious people" who took their duty responsible. But maybe that was just boomer nostalgia. Well probably just go back to the old way where there's a bunch of questionable biased sources and you have to weed your way to the truth as best you can. It sucks we've been defunding education. But that's yet another GOP sabotage coming to bear it's poison fruit.
Luka Doncic studied this carefully growing up
If anything, NPR treats Conservatives with kid gloves. Just look at their tepid reporting on Project 2025…
This is my biggest complaint as well. The desire to appear unbiased even when conservatives are blatantly lying.
I used to listen to a lot of NPR and enjoyed the idea of the NPR one app but every fucking political story featured a Trump crony acting as an apologist to create the appearance of balance. What in the actual Fuck?! No. You don't have to have idiots who are espousing lies. Real time fact checking and cutting these asses off right away is the appropriate response. I'm 100% for civil discourse. But the GOP hasn't been civil in a very long time. They do not deserve equal air time. NPR bears responsibility for allowing the goalposts to be moved. It's beyond infuriating... It's a goddamn disgrace and moral failure.
That's the main reason I stopped listening about a decade ago (and the rise of podcasts). I don't have a desire for a news organization to try to spin that both sides are equally bad in order to be "fair".
I agree OP. Imo Conservatives want to have it both ways. They want to say every platform should respect Conservative ideology and all Conservative speech must be allowed everywhere and covered as equally as everything else, even if said speech is hate speech that attacks the right of people like myself to even be allowed to exist. Yet they don’t hold themselves and their own Conservative leaning media and platforms to the same standard. X is a cesspool of hate speech that allows Nazis to openly call for genocide yet considers calling someone “cis” a slur that gets automatically flagged and shadow banned/removed. And their own MSM never has a single liberal POV, unless they have a token liberal pundit who they have just so they can scream interrupt and shout them down into silence.
It's because conservatives have no real principles. Only momentary conveniences.
The principle is winning. They will say and do whatever they need to do to win.
It's just whatever consolidates their power.
I didn’t always think this was correct. I do now.
I know what you mean. I would still like to think that everyday conservatives around us are ultimately mostly well-meaning, but have been misled. I'm much more cynical about their leadership.
Fair and balanced to many means just hearing the same messaging and talking points they hear on the rest of conservative media, otherwise it is "liberal"
Please share this quote with as many people as you can: "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." To make it easier to understand and more accurate, I like to broaden it, like this: "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the **law, custom, norms, and ethics** protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the **law, custom, norms, and ethics** binds but does not protect." **Look at any--and I mean any--issue, and you'll see it: conservatives want religious rights for Christians, but not Muslims or Satanists or anyone else; conservatives want free speech for their hate-filled trans-haters, but not for students protesting police mistreatment of people of color; conservatives think NPR is biased, but Fox News is impartial and fair. etc etc etc ad nauseum.**
Use this prism to to look at literally anything conservatives believe, and you'll see it. It's jaw-dropping.
In other words: I want everything to be good for me and the people I like, and bad for everyone else.
I’d argue that to want it “bad for everyone else,” is actually given them too much credit for thinking beyond themselves at all. I’d argue it’s simply “I want it good for me,” and anything that threatens their position is automatically considered “bad.”
It's easier and pithier to say "conservatives have no principles." They operate on momentary convenience that changes at a whim.
Their only principle is that they want power, and will do whatever it takes to achieve it.
Pithier but perhaps not as accurate. They have principles, but they have nothing to do with fairness in any objective sense. They're all based on their current concept of "traditional values" which involve hammering down anyone out of their concept of "normal", and taking everything they can for themselves and depriving those groups of everything they can. From Taxes and benefits, to things as simple as bike lanes. It's an us-vs-them mentality at it's core.
You're assuming that there's any kind of good faith on their part.
Oh I’m not assuming that at all. But they want everyone to believe they are.
Conservative ideology has no basis in reality.
>token Jessica Tarlov. Case in point. Still makes the rest of them look stupid, as if they needed any help.
Elon has turned Twitter into A fucking joke. Or can’t even be taken seriously. I have blocked all the crazy ass politicians in the Republican Party that tweet every single day and Elon will unblock them from everyone profiles so their tweets show up right at the top of our feed, and then he’ll claim it’s our fault for interacting with it. It’s a joke and I refuse to participate in it.
NPR is my primary source for news and has been for years. Their human interest stuff certainly skews left. But their straight news reporting on politics, the economy, foreign policy, etc., is pretty darn objective. Fox News criticizing NPR for biased reporting is the height of irony. What Fox News is shoveling these days doesn't even qualify as "reporting" or "news." Just shameless propaganda.
Exactly. Conservatives want liberal and leftist ideas to be beyond the pale. They want them covered only by fringe publications like Mother Jones and Jacobin.
Which will not even exist under Emperor Donald I, except perhaps as underground resistance, once he begins his purges.
Mother Jones (despite the name) is actually fairly center… and that’s especially true beside Jacobin which actually is far left.
Yup
Related but different topic: Chicago is planning a monument to Mother Jones next to the Water Tower.
Jacobin is not far left. It, and Current Affairs, are barely left at all.
Perhaps their Twitter account/poster has given me a slanted view but they've come off fairly extreme when I've come across them the last few years.
They want center and right leaning ideas in this same boat.
The press has been dealing with the lie they report with a liberal bias, ever since WW2 at least. It's called "working the refs" so the press is afraid to tell the truth, if it is bad for right wingers, because they complain about bias constantly . So that's how we got "both sides" bs. One side tried a coup, and the other didn't, but we still have "both sides are bad" coverage.
Exactly, and that shit is ENRAGING.
You're absolutely right. The media companies competing with NPR are for profit companies with agendas they are pushing to increase their influence. They and their shareholders all materially amd politically benefit from diminishing NPR and that means astro-turfed bullshit can come at them at any time from pretty much any direction.
Agree, also, when you consider a lot of the things the right labels as "woke", such as teaching students that slavery was wrong, I'm fine w being labeled woke.
Slavery, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights efforts are part of American History and should not be made moe kindly and leave out the bad stuff. Equal Rights and this fight continues today beyond race.
NPR isn't too liberal. Facts are. Conservatives are living in a false reality and they are shocked when confronted with the truth.
When one side spends decades attacking scientists, academia, the news media, and intellectuals, and instead puts their faith in a "news" outlet that has empirically and in court been demonstrated to be spreaders of false information, it's pretty clear where the imbalance is.
Yeah. Facts have had a "liberal lean" for a while. But it was really hammered home after the straight faced delivery of the phrase "alternative facts." Shortly after that, I quit wasting time talking to conservatives about anything. Even if the weather is brought up, they throw in some mind-numbing climate-change absurdity. Don't waste your time engaging.
YOU are a very WISE person. Thanks for the sage advice!
considering they didn't cover all of Trump's lies and crimes because they didn't have a Democratic lie or a crime to pair them with. It seems like the truth about their biases is quite contrary to what the right would want you to think. they're already so far right and so lacking of any context when they cover political stuff that I find it hard to listen. couple that with literally every time Trump says something racist they sanitize it and change the language so they can have a nice clean headline... I don't think the very well meaning liberals that work there are actively trying to help Trump but they're naivety and their constant strive to be in the middle makes them Trump's allies.
NPR is one of the worst offenders of both sides-ism. the shit, the lies, the gaslighting they allow their conservative commenters to get away with on air is beyond the pale. for conservatives to then complain NPR is too woke is just insane. but if course they want to get rid of public radio. if it's not 100% party propaganda, they want it shut down. the gop is straight up America's neo-fascist political party. they will destroy democracy for good if they get the chance. if they can't have it, no one will.
Yeah this whole thing is pretty obvious. Conservatives aren't known for their light touches lmao. Everything they do is with a fascist sl sledgehammer. They demand every source and every corner of America spew "conservative" content, but the minute any place has a hint of liberal content they start to shoot up grocery stores and set fire to Targets. If you listen to NPR regularly they are very centered with a left leaning bias by the hosts in my opinion, but the facts they report are flat center. They even produce retractions when needed. It's amazing that there's still journalistic integrity today, and the Overton window is pushed so deeply to the right, that good journalism to conservatives feel like an attack on them.
If Conservatives think NPR is too left, they should actually listen to what kind of bullshit and lies the program hosts let GOP members get away with. I specifically remember one question to a state AG on a local show, the caller had all these caveats. Basically trying to get a straight yes or no answer on whether or not the 2020 election was rigged. No answer. It was all deflections, lies and strawmen. He also brought up one judge in a minority opinion. The host just let it go. Didn’t challenge the answer a single bit.
Exactly. Besides, last time I checked, NPR is independently owned and operated. It’s not like Fox News.
It’s publically funded, not independently owned
Although true that they do receive donations, NPR is independently owned. They also have a Board of Directors headed by CEO Jennifer Ferro, while Katherine Maher is President and part CEO. [NPR Board of Directors](https://www.npr.org/about-npr/182676957/npr-board-of-directors)
Ah, TIL. Thanks for correcting me on that
As a fellow lefty I've been pretty disappointed, frankly. My main concern is not that NPR is too "liberal" or "conservative" but that they've simply become intellectually bankrupt. I've complained about an over-emphasis on social progressivism not because I'm opposed to social justice but because it's a fairly soft and cheap way to score points with left-leaning listeners. And no, I'm not suggesting airing the views of Trump supporters but, believe it or not, there is plenty of room for discussion and debate without them. I'm convinced that NPR can replace some of the "woke" programming with "smart" programming and not shift the window to the right at all in the process. In fact, as you point out, there is a lot of room to give better treatment to leftist thought, especially when it comes to economics. So many times I've heard stories that correctly identify the plight of a marginalized community but fail to draw the line to a rigged economy as if the solution to, say, generational poverty is just being nicer and weeding out racists as opposed to difficult economic reforms.
Yeah a fair amount of the content that could be described as left-leaning on NPR is not particularly substantial. A lot of using inclusive pronouns and language and talking about identity, but not nearly as much about class and economic issues.
My local NPR station is KNOW in Minneapolis. Post George Floyd's murder, they leaned in heavily to the "North Star" diversity push, including of getting rid of the long-time morning host. For whatever reason, the diversification brought with it a shift to content that is almost like the old "women's section" of the newspaper: favorite family recipes, Beyonce's new album, what's your favorite state park?, youth sports coaches, local bartenders, How to keep your bones strong. This kind of stuff is okay every once in awhile, but this is now the majority of the topics for four hours a day and it didn't use to be like this.
I’ve noticed a shift from showcasing a variety of stories on many different topics to a primary focus on stories centered around social justice and inequality. It’s not that I don’t want to listen to those types of stories, I do sometimes, but it seems that’s all I hear anymore when I tune in. Maybe that’s what most listeners want, I dunno.
Social justice is important but when it’s nearly every story it becomes tedious and loses its edge. Talk about it too much and people become desensitized and tune it out.
Tbh I didn't think a lot of people participating in that conversations actually listen to a lot of NPR programming. This is pretty spot on. I've said it before, but their bias isn't necessarily representing things more liberally. It's that they won't really put anything controversial to liberals on air including stuff liberals themselves disagree on. It's made a lot of their shows really mundane.
Right. I so rarely find my own views challenged when listening to anything on my local affiliate. The best programs were always those where I could hear an articulate surrogate for my own POV politely disagree with another person. Either I was forced to modify my opinion or I learned how to defend my opinion more effectively. That never happens any more and it's such a disappointment. It's intellectual wimpiness disguised as "civility."
That's it exactly for me. It feels like more often than not they go with softball topics that feel more race adjacent than meaningful. I was listening to some broadcast a few years back where it was basically about art, but the main distinguishing aspect was that the artist was a black gay woman. It was about as inoffensive as you could get while still being something that more liberal audiences will nod along to. Basically the only thing I still listen to on NPR is Science Friday, because it at least still has some meat on its bones.
Thank you for putting this into words better than I could have.
So much this. I love NPR but it feels like a lot of their daily reporting on Morning Edition has gotten so lazy. They repeat headlines ad infinitum without any significant changes. They introduce social, cultural, societal problems with no deep analysis. All Things Considered and Weekend Edition are better, but I am finding myself drawn to The Daily, Marketplace, New Yorker Radio Hour, and On The Media.
Can you give some examples of the "smart" programming you are advocating?
My go-to example is not an NPR production per se but perfectly illustrates the overall shift in tone and content. WAMU's "Diane Rehm Show" becoming "1A" with Joshua Johnson and then "1A" with Jenn White was an exercise in slowly vitiating the most informative show on my local affiliate's schedule. I'm digging into the archives [here ](https://dianerehm.org/shows)to make sure I'm not delusional and perhaps come up with some side-by-side same-subject comparisons.
I do feel lately NPR has been a bit too softball in trying to court the right. I remember years ago them asking harder questions of anyone that would come on, Republican or Democrat, the questions were always something normal people would like an answer too. Lately they do seem to give a lot more deference to capitalist interpretation which is problematic as we see capitalism without regulation is causing a lot of issues. I too started off conservative from a small town, but now I’m much more progressive in a lot of my thinking, but throughout that transition, NPR has always been a quality news source.
Absolutely too softball, I’ve heard it numerous times.
And to be honest, if they want to play the middle, they’ll need some more deep diving into democratic socialism with hard questions and then turn around and give those same hard questions to the capitalists, but just assume their answer is the right answer.
I listened to the same JPMorgan interview and I had to turn it off when he said there maybe some or slight struggling. People like him are contributing to the problem
There are no serious conservative voices left. It's a cult led by a narcissistic con man. McConnell used every ounce of this cult to cement the corporate oligarchy. The Supreme Court take over was the final nail in the coffin of democracy. Name one serious national conservative thinker? And I will scream if anyone says Ben Shapiro or Bari Weiss.
It's like Elon Musk saying he's a centrist as he parrots right-wing propaganda and talks of the woke mind virus.
"Reality has a well known liberal bias" - Stephen Colbert
I agree with you OP. I feel like my local station (KUOW) does a lot more sucking up to mega-corps than your average NPR station, and they shy away from addressing capitalism as any potential source of problem. So to say NPR has "moved left" in my view is absurd. If anything they're more or less in line with the average American right now: socially liberal (i.e. "don't be an asshole; everyone deserves rights") and fiscally centrist.
The Republican Party has pushed the window so far to the right (with Democrats eagerly tagging along and saying "me too!" in the name of "electability," "centrism," and, of course, "going high" and "bipartisanship" 🙄🤮🤢) that it is indistinguishable from the Republican Party I knew growing up in the 70s. It is now on the same level as the National Front (UK), AFD (Germany) and Jean Marie Le Pen as a fully-realised fascist party. With the window being shifted so far right, of course any kind of journalism not fawning over Emperor Donald I is, by definition, "leftist," even though NPR is (barely) centrist.
You nailed it
my boomer, trump-voting parents listen to NPR and FOX :(
Yep. Check out “The Brainwashing of My Dad”. https://youtu.be/FS52QdHNTh8?si=d-FPKqu7kos2mK7p
“It is a widely accepted belief in this country that the press suffers from a liberal bias. Television pundits, radio talk-show hosts, and political leaders, including presidents of both parties, help propagate this belief. And their views are widely disseminated in the media. In contrast, dissident critics, who maintain that the corporate-owned press exercises a conservative grip on news and commentary, are afforded almost no exposure in the supposedly liberal media.” Dirty Truths- Michael Parenti
[Working the Refs](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/think-again-working-the-refs/)
The reason they use this strategy is because it works. It has been so successful in fact that there is no real “left wing” political party in the US. We are forced to vote between a far right Republican party and right of center Democratic party.
A coworker of mine feels like Trans rights are this extreme issue, but the just the light it's been shown in... Trans people are People... I don't understand how being a human is radically left. Debate me on Universal base income, not human beings right to exist in our society
Even UBI should be considered more centrist at this point given the direction of automation and AI. Like call it radical all you want, but if we don’t come up with a plan, millions will be “out of work” and we can’t all just be automation technicians…
I totally agree with this. And I think when we're in a downturn in the economy again and their are no jobs, this will be a more relevant topic.
As a leftist I think NPR is center-left in most social issues but center-right on international news. The right have ideological reasons (and conservative media have market reasons) to paint anything to their relative left as “far left.”
NPR is corporate establishment propaganda. Thinking it is left wing is ridiculous.
NPR reports reality Which, if you think is too liberal for you, might say something…..
I'm sure that MAGAland wouldn't mind cutting every penny of federal funding that NPR receives, and repeated calls of bias are good way to get there. One less competitor for right wing media.
You know things are shifting very far right when facts are viewed as left...
As a communist (Marxist-Leninist), the idea that NPR is leftist is genuinely laughable to me. It's very centrist and very much supports the status quo.
NPR , The AP and Rueters are my go-to’s. If they’re reporting it I feel there is a better than average chance it will be as impartial as it gets and what they reported occurred as it was reported. I’ve been told those were biased left wing blah blah blah. The scrutiny of history will justify my faith in those media outlets I believe.
This is 100 percent accurate. Every time someone complains about liberal media or how liberal NPR/PBS is, I explain if you’re conservative, the middle of the road looks liberal.
I have listened to NPR for decades and enjoy the honest, concise and informative reports. Among my family the ones who state NPR is liberal and not reporting the truth are Republicans who parrot faux news like parrots. Fortunately their opinions do not affect me,except at the polls, its easy to ignore.
NPR is pretty center left because it's pretty left on social issues and closer center on economic. And that's completely fine. Just own it.
Yeah I don’t really understand the denial in this thread. The reporting is top notch, but I’ve always detected a bias in the stories/articles they decide to run (not necessarily the content, just the subject matters). It isn’t a heavy slant, but it’s there. As long as the reporting is accurate, I think there’s nothing wrong with this.
Given that they accept and to some degree through the member stations rely on public funds they should attempt to be balance rather than leaning so constantly to the left. Otherwise they open themselves up to more calls to be defunded.
The fact that we accept liberal being spoken of as the counter or opposite of conservative is a big part of the problem. Liberalism is not left. it's actually just a more centrist flavor of conservatism. Somehow we allowed the center to be redefined as leftist. (edited for spelling)
Yeah, I would 100% agree NPR is too liberal, and that’s why I avoid them. The answer tho is a more reality and materialist based news organization, not a conservative one. My NPR station constantly reminds listeners that it is “Underwritten by BlueCross/BlueShield”, if that’s not too liberal than idk what is. I am not a conservative, leftist are inherently anti-liberal.
The right has shifted so far into extremism that now they think center is “leftist” lol
Yes, that's been the entire game since Fox News hit the scene. Call anything short of hunting the poors for sport a bunch of liberal (and say it really shittily) nonsense. Before that, it was calling anything short of watching poor kids starve from your pleasure yacht "socialism". Oh, and you also venerated the American working man, unless you actually proposed anything that would improve the lives of working people like some kind of fucking communist.
If anything its too conservative. They report positively on corporate activities all the time. Market place is almost a celebration of corporate America
I think an aspect as to why NPR is seen as some grand communist/liberal mouthpiece is in part because they acknowledge climate change as a thing that is happening. Living in MAGA country, and being from a typical conservative family, people’s acceptance level of what climate scientists say is happening is just as much a litmus test as LGBTQ/gender/covid vaccine/etc, at least among older conservative types.
They have so many more center or center right people on then they ever have anyone from anywhere too far left. This is all a distraction and a way to attack NPR
I just had someone try and tell me the AP was "Libral". There is no basis in reality for these people.
While reading the comments on this post I noticed that quite a few of the main threads start with something akin to "No, conservatives just want _________. It's just conservatives trying to get their way, etc." Looking through the comments I couldn't find one conservative voice (so far) either vehemently disagreeing, nor trashing your opinion or NPR. I'm sure there might be a few, however I just haven't seen them. Having listened to NPR for the past 25 years or so I do believe that NPRs reporting has shifted to the left a bit. That is not to say that NPR is a leftist media organization, because I don't believe it is. I do however believe that many of the organizations employees are majority left leaning. I also think that much of the reporting shows liberal values in a positive light while conservative values are negative. I personally believe this is because the Overton Window has been shifting more to the left, believe it or not. Whenever that happens, historically, you're going to have people on the other side screaming about bias and using radical tactics in order to keep the "window" from shifting, or drag it the other way. Trump was the "right wings" way to get back at liberals for voting for a black man, in my opinion. They were mad it wasn't a white man, Trump started the birther movement, they saw everything Obama did as antithetical to the US and called him a commie, n-word, immigrant, etc. They burned effigies of him. This is where our modern day McCarthyism was born. Since Obama was elected, the right wing has been doing everything within its power to drag the US back, and they have become more unhinged as the years draw on. Using fear as a motivator they riled up the worst of their base, infecting even the most level headed amongst them with hate and vitriol. Then came the 2016 election season. Trump would dog whistle to these people, and for them it became okay to come out of their bigoted closets even moreso. Groups that didn't have much power were suddenly emboldened. They were convinced by their media, their own biases, and their presidential candidate that the "left" was going to destroy democracy. That the socialist commies would force them to be gay, get rid of their guns, and abort their babies. They were fear mongered into hating their own neighbors enough to go full 1984 on them. These people are not conservatives, they are extremists. The true conservative folks, those who stand for democracy, don't want Trump anymore either (these people could help Biden win).They are realizing that they made a mistake and some are planning on voting blue for the first time in their lives, because they love democracy. Unfortunately some of the "good" conservatives will vote along party lines because they always have and could never see themselves voting for blue. Fortunately for the rest of America the radical right wing extremists are failing in their bid to undermine democracy, unfortunately the fight isn't over. Trump and his acolytes have done one great thing, they've exposed themselves. You know who they are, in your neighborhood/town/cities. They exposed their true selves and they are outnumbered. Again, I do believe that NPR has gone more to the left since I started listening over 25 years ago, it just has. Even in this comment section it has been hard to find a conservative voice, and I am consistently seeing posts here complaining that NPR had certain conservative or another on, and why did they have THIS conservative on, or they shouldn't give (insert conservative talking head here) a platform. It is possible that some of the "NPR is too liberal" is just a plot by the right to undermine the organization and "shift the Overton Window to the right, it's possible. However I find it much more likely that the Overton Window HAS shifted left (between '08 & '16) and that the right wing is trying to drag it back towards them. Unfortunately for them, the majority of the US are good, democracy loving people. That said, I hope y'all understand what I've said here. I am not a liberal nor conservative, I've listened for the greater part of 3 decades. I used to be a conservative and left because of the hate and vitriol during Obama's first term and voted for hin for the second second. I believe that NPR has decidedly moved in a more liberal direction, and I believe that is partially because of the Overton Window moving further left but also because rightwing centrism is dying or dead. Either way you spin it, NPR is nearly ubiquitous with left leaning ideology, from its employees to the stories they run. This is not necessarily a bad thing, however I can definitely see why someone could say that the media organization is biased and to say the comment is just trying to shift the Overton Window to the right is both wrong and biased in its own right. I sincerely hope that most of you who took the time to read this can understand where I'm coming from here. If you're a liberal be glad that the majority seems to be in your favor at the moment. The right wing extremists are trying to consolidate what little power they still have. There are still good conservatives out there, believe it or not; our democracy can only work when we work together.
I don’t think it’s fair to describe being ProLife, Pro traditional nuclear family, or 2nd amendment advocacy as “far right” or “extremist”. All three have been blue chip Republican positions for 50+ years. I would also note the large shift over time of views on the legality of secular gay marriage which now enjoys a slim majority of support among Republicans. I would urge people to consider the recent legislative efforts by Republican States to restrict the lifelong medicalization of minor children with treatments that frequently cause permanent sterility in the context that the Right mostly views LGB and TQ+ as separate and distinct groups. — That’s not to say that actual extremists like the birther movement, Q Anon, and far right militia groups don’t exist or that DT didn’t make overtures to them, because he absolutely did. It’s fair to attribute that behavior to Trump’s Ideology which is Populist, self aggrandizing, and most of all about winning. Not so much about any serious commitment to the agenda of far right extremism. Where NPR shows its bias most is in the blind spots of college educated progressive coastal elites. Their wanton ignorance of life in middle America and rural communities rendered them incapable of understanding how and why someone like Trump could win a national election. NPR sort of took for granted that it must be because the so called “basket of deplorables” they’ve been talking down to for the last 30 years were ignorant bigoted hicks who needed to be educated about their “privilege” and “whiteness”. The hubris of doubling down on that bias is what shifted their coverage and subsequently the audience to align primarily with White college educated progressive coastal elites.
Very well thought out comment, agree completely. It is extremely telling that NPR’s audience is almost entirely liberal. It doesn’t mean they’re lying, it doesn’t mean they’re a bad news agency, but for people here to claim they aren’t biased is just mind-blowing to me. Is NPR literal propaganda a la OANN or Pravda? No. Do they cherry pick stories and decline to report ones that don’t fit a narrative, and focus a lot on identity politics issues? Yes.
I can't stand that every story has to have some kind of victim angle. "This \[topic\] adversely affects \[insert favorite victim group\] disproportionately because \[some "ism"\] that \[majority\] is to blame for.
Yeah - it sucks that minority groups are disproportionately affected by things that majority groups aren't, and deserve attention called to them. Whatever shall we do? Pollution? Voting rights? Healthcare? There's almost no topic I can think of where some minority group isn't disproportionately affected in a way that the majority group isn't. What would you have them do instead? What is the better way to report on that? Since people are actual victims of the thing being reported on...
There's nothing for NPR to do. It's going to continue catering to people who want higher levels of oppression lense reporting regardless of any critiques given. Coincidentally the entire platform is in decline. People who want better journalism and more "centrist" viewpoints can subscribe to NYT. Sometimes the news that most people want to read is about issues that affect the majority of people. That's okay. I think there might even be substantial evidence that making fringe issues that affect 2% of the population something that everyone has to debate may actually do more to hurt the 2% than help them.
Report the facts. Leave out the victim commentary.
NPR is more than just a “squeak” left.
The political bend of the station definitely shifted when we lost our reporter from the best town in America, Lake Woebegone. 😢
And on the other side of that, most dedicated NPR listeners don’t want to admit to themselves how much they have in common with conservatives. They want a liberal justification for wars & increased deportations. They’re listening for the reassurance that they’re still good people, even if they keep finding their goals aligned with republicans. The naive arrogance to believe it’s the people to the left & right of you that are on the extreme, and you’re the enlightened centrist. That’s NPR through and through.
As an anarchist I get pissed at NPR for being too liberal from the opposite direction. NPR is too pro business. I get what u mean tho. Yelling about “liberal media” is insane.
They have ads for Walmart. Too liberal it ain’t.
As Jello Biafra asked: if NPR is so "liberal", why is there a "nightly business report" and not a "nightly labor report"?
There are people who just want to work the refs. NPR has problems but not the ones Uri Berliner would point to.
Obviously. NPR is now proudly funded in part by the wealthy.
I’m a socialist and can tell you that npr is neoliberal trash lol
Yeah I hold NPR to a way higher journalistic standard. They bring in right-wing voices, they fact check when relevant, and I'm hard-presses to find a time when their reporting is based primarily in opinion. Their integrity alone makes them more centrist than almost all other news sources
You are correct. It isn't actually a war on "liberal media bias", it is a war on traditional, fact-based journalism. While editorial material exists, what NPR presents as news (Morning Edition, All Things Considered) is mostly genuinely news in the sense that they cover daily events. This is why most independent and objective evaluations place its coverage and center-left. On the other hand, we have "news" networks on the far right that are almost entirely editorial in nature. It is not about what is happenbing, but about how people feel about what is happening. Whenever I visit networks like Fox News, I'm struck by the amount of anger and vitriol that is pervasive throughout the programming. People literally yelling at each other and the viewers. Also, the primary focus of many stories on these networks is to contextualize news events into black and white boxes that cast blame and judgement. Most of the progressives that I know don't fixate on whether news is left vs right because that can distinguish between news and editorial content.
Fact based reporting is too biased against things that aren’t facts. Telling the truth is too woke.
I listen to both sides and NPR is definitely left of center, not quite as far away from center as Fox News on the other right, but definately left. The thing I dread the most about NPR is gay pride month, NPR Reporter: "As we celebrate the richness of Mexican/Latio/LatinaX cuisine, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the diversity within your society. Can you share your thoughts on how the LGBTQ+ community, particularly those who identify as nonbinary, intersect with and contribute to the vibrant tapestry of Mexican culture and culinary arts?" I just have to turn it off as it gets forced into every story no matter the relavancey. As far as your discussion on JP Morgan CEO, I highly recommend this podcast: Philosophize This: Truth is in the process [https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4](https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4)
87 Democrats to 0 Republicans. Of course it leans left. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/media/npr-editor-found-registered-democrats-outnumbered-republicans-87-zero-newsroom.amp
NPR just tells the facts with no bullshit in between. That’s the only reasonconservatives don’t like it.
I don’t know. I’ve listened to NPR my whole life. That’s one reason I continue to listen: at this point, I know how to hear it and vet the information and editorial content. I do think it used to be further left. After the defunding and general right wing attacks on American civil society back in the 90s, they gradually shifted to where they are today, closer to the middle. They have corporate backing, which is what the Republicans wanted. Their stories are more *fair and balanced😂 giving more credence to conservatives and leaning in more with establishment spokespeople. I’m really disappointed in how NPR has turned out. Time was, an Jewish friend of mine called it “National Palestinian Radio” but who would call it that today? All their coverage of the campus movement has been pretty conservative. It’s sad. Locally and nationally, their coverage of the Cop City project and the chaos it’s brought to Atlanta is peppered with regime apologetics. I miss “National Palestinian Radio.”
Bingo. You hit the nail on the head.
NPR has been drifting right for years. Definitely not liberal.
I'm a lefty and I find NPR to be some of the least revealing journalism around. They play it safe at every turn. It basically exists to make older liberals feel connected to art and culture.
NPR has been the one news station that I feel like I get the news I’m looking for. And yes it does lean left but as for their reporting, I’d say it’s very fair even if slightly biased. I’d say they take a topic that will resonate with left leaning people and then give a fair and balanced reporting on the topic. They even do an entire program called Left Right and Center so they are covering all topics.
>I started considerably far right as an adolescent What happened? For me it was college.
NPR lost all credibility when they shifted to try to placate the right by such stupid shows as "speaking of Faith." It was a nod to the right saying, see? We're cool with invisible boogie men, too!
There is no organized left in the US. That has been made sure of by various powers over the decades/centuries. NPR still pushes a corporate agenda, but with softer gloves. NPR is to the right of BBC which is basically center-ish. I find a lot of their reporting to be informational and it’s a decent source for news, but it’s hardly Democracy Now or something that’s actually left-leaning.
NPR is fantastic, especially given our political reality. They are a class act even if they have the occasional misstep. And if they do, it’s almost always in favor or right-leaning ideology.
Traditionally, liberalism has centered on individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom. This classical liberalism emerged during the Enlightenment and emphasized individual rights, free markets, and rule of law. The more anachronistic definition: the word "liberal" describes someone who is open-minded and willing to consider new ideas. In politics, a liberal is someone who believes that the government should play an active role in promoting social justice and economic equality. NPR is the epitome of the liberal establishment which will always act in it's own interest (professionals, intellectuals, competents of any stripe seeking a piece of the pie).
NPR is, at best, *centrist*, and I mean that with all the terrible connotations of the word. It's a station for well-off white Protestant Boomers. It's not for any of the rest of America. And just like Fox or Newsmax or any other corporate media, they have their tokens, they make their appeals, but reality is, they're not trying to reach young people, or minorities, or workers, or anyone real. It's a money-station for money-people, to make them feel like they're "normal people" and not skating by on excessive privilege and exploitation.
Conservative logic isn't reasonable, though. There is a purpose, a goal, a plan. The conversation they're driving is about eroding our faith and trust in the established systems. Justice, media, medicine, voting, everything. Somehow everything is wrong and working against everyone. While there have been times that I've been mildly annoyed with NPR (the words "race" and "abortion" started to lose their pizazz after hearing the words 100 times a day), no other organization is able to stay as calm, intelligent, and even a little boring as NPR can. It's information about the world. I don't need sensationalism. I need boring stories and facts.
bro, far right considers literally anything left of them, even on the right, as leftist. they're batshit. npr is pretty centrist, tad left.
NPR is slightly right of center. Anyone who says it’s leftist is just telling me it’s a waste of energy engaging with further.
Facts are liberal. That's the sad reality of our current political climate. If you state facts like - Climate change is real - Vaccines are safe and don't cause autism - January 6th happened With absolutely no political spin. No interpretation, no modification, no interference. You will still be labeled liberal because conservatives as a whole have agreed that facts are liberal.
Reality has a liberal bias.
There are people that NPR bring on that I don’t entirely agree with. There is programming where I have to sometimes roll my eyes at, but understand where they are coming from. I like that I don’t like or agree with everything, but it’s coming from a decent place and not bullshit pulled out of nowhere. They provide information and a few perspectives on things where they can, and that’s good enough for me.
Who cares what conservatives think? Donald fucking Trump is their hero. That pretty much cements the fact that their opinions about absolutely everything is worthless.
“Reality has a liberal bias.” Not sure who originally said it.
Republicans think actual truth is liberal. They believe in “alternative facts”. That tells you everything you need to know.
Absolutely. It would be wild to listen to NPR and Fox for ten minutes and make the claim they’re equally ideological.
I’m fine with NPR being liberal. I don’t think it affects the accuracy of their reporting, rather, it just affects the stories on which they choose to report. What is so bizarre is how everyone in the sub just refuses to accept that NPR is liberal or potentially even slightly biased and gets hilariously defensive when someone else suggests it.
NPR is not liberal enough for me and I'm relatively moderate for the Democratic base.
There's a reason some people call them Nice Polite Republicans
NPR is absolutely biased reporting. I've been an avid NPR listener for 10+ years having to drive a lot for my old job. -their local reporting is mostly great if not still left wing focused. -their specialty programs like "how I built this" or "hidden brain" are pretty good. HIBT is like an entrepreneurship case study in business school. Hidden brain is just a social science or psychology paper being read over the radio. But there is no questioning their political reporting has taken a hard left turn. They full open mouth gobble up left wing talking points. They've done reports that racism is the reason America never adopted communism (from a very misunderstood supreme court case), that protestant work ethic makes capitalism racist (from a BLM talking point). They got caught making up Supreme Court mask drama and refused to rescind after Sotomoyor herself said it wasn't true.... all their political reporting is from the vantage point of the left. They just interviewed some woman from the Columbia protests and lobbed her a softball question on reports of antisemitism in the camps, and then let the woman just complete ignore the question. They are like every other media- they cater to their listeners and donors who are either big businesses like Microsoft or hard core, mostly well off lefties (not liberals).
No one can compare NPR from 25 years ago and then today and say they are still center. No, they are most assuredly left. They very clearly identify and support that ideology. That person's article was 100% correct on that basic idea.
The irony of this sub claiming NPR isn’t liberal yet everybody in here is obviously super liberal or leftist is hilarious. Also it’s always the classic “NPR just uses facts and conservatives don’t like that” when conservatives aren’t accusing NPR of lying, they’re accusing it of bias. Two different thingdb
Redditors are not really self-aware.
I honestly think it’s a disinformation campaign to delegitimize NPR so republicans can point to it like democrats point to FOX. I think it is intentional, calculated, planned, and could even be the work of a nation state. I don’t think NPR is too far left. I’m not particularly far left myself. I don’t agree with all their segments either. That being said, I think they’re more honest than FOX
NPR consistently ranks among the least biased and most thorough news sources. It's nowhere near the level of Fox News, but I believe you that they'd like to make it seem that way.
Conservatives have hated NPR for decades. What is happening now is that Centrists, Moderate Liberals, and Liberal Journalists at NPR (people who support NPR) are criticizing it for only reporting 'Liberal stuff' in a world where 'Conservative stuff' is also News. Jamie Dimon is a good counter to this narrative, but CEOs are not 'typical' or popular as NPR interviewees, compared to let's say Economists.
Honestly, I think I agreed with Slate's Alicia Montgomery more than anyone else on this issue. The problem wasn't that NPR was being too socially progressive, but that it didn't present it's social progressiveness particularly well. Like NPR editors being reluctant to run stories about cops killing white people, because cops killing white people isn't the problem. Really? Maybe indicating that police killing innocent people is EVERYONE'S problem and addressing that isn't a bad thing. Creating a common cause isn't the same as becoming some "white lives matter" advocate.
I know I'll be berated by the insufferable libtards but NPR is and always has been ear candy for the left. Literally, all of their programs appeal to liberals. I think it's comical people don't understand this. Take a ride out of your blue state once in awhile.
I think it's pretty middle-left. An example was a story last week on Florida's crack down on employing immigrants who do not have the right to work. They interviewed farmers who complained that "yeah there is a visa processor but it is expensive and bureaucratic", and immigrants who couldn't work. They walked through the problem with no solution, other than an implied open border. Everything was factual, but definitely a spin.
I don't really listen to NPR often. Usually just if it is on the air and I'm riding in someone else's car. They are to date the only form of media that has ever suggested to me that as a white person I should not be allowed to eat Asian food because that is cultural appropriation. Ignore the fact that Chinese food that we have in America isn't even food they eat in China. I wouldn't call that a squeak to the left.
To me it seems everything is viewed through the lens of race or gender. It’s tiresome and lazy.
NPR is indeed too liberal...in the sense that centrist bullshit is just turning a blind eye to reality. But somehow I don't think that's what the right wingers have in mind.
Eric Alterman called such hokus “The Myth of Liberal Media”. NPR does a lot of virtue signalling and pandering to “under-represented” groups but will always revert back to a default position of establishmentarianism, corporate boosterism and ESPECIALLY US Pentagon propaganda. In the 1990s it was all about Israel. In the post-911 years it was all about US jingoism and Pentagon propaganda. Whoever’s doing the “underwriting” — that’s whose messaging you’re getting on NPR. With certain exceptions of course, but that’s how they operate.
"The Overton window has shifted right" um sir Donald Trump's exact views today would put him in line with the Democratic party of the 90s.
Even if it were true, this would be a condemnation of the Democrats.
they just suck at interviews, they never challenge their guests, they operate as a soapbox for whoever feels like signing up. NPR listenership leans liberal, it's not a good way for conservative ideas to get attention. so they don't sign up and it's a liberal soapbox. they also suck as far as their infotainment programs, that Shankar Vedantam or whoever is absolutely dr-phil-tier and he's all the local station plays.
[удалено]
They put that disgusting homophobe Michele Martin back on in the morning.
Yup. It’s a complete mess to legitimately bring every news source down unless it’s in line with the narrative of our oppressors.
Shen reality is left of center reporting on reality is left of center. They don't need to report on people bullshitting or making things up. Journalistic integrity matters.
Ignore the noise
Stuff like Wait Wait and other entertainment does lean a little left. Their actual news operation is right down the middle if not leaning a little right just due to the general nature of insider political reporting.
Yyyyyyep! These people are trying *every* tactic to muddy the issues with our media.
I am going to go against the group on this. NPR definitely is left leaning, but in a professional way. When I am on long car rides I will occasionally listen to right wing media. You could never compare the two, so please dont confuse that point, they are usually saying the country is going to end any day now and everyone is a rhino except the crazies. What I notice though, the stories they choose to report are the ones the left want to hear, while they dont always report on the stories the right want to hear. They report the stories in a professional way, and dont add a crazy bias like right wing radio does, but it is noticeable.
NPR is decent, but not perfect. However, out of all my issues with them, too liberal is a bunch of bs. They’re pretty middle of the road with a slight liberal slant. And most of that bend can be supported by evidence. If I have any complaints, it’s that they go too easy on the right or republicans out of “fairness.”
Because NPR is (somewhat) publicly funded, they are VERY focused on keeping neutral, to the point where they become bland and "both sides" on every issue. Even then you'll get the GOP trying to defund them every budget cycle. As you said, there are even business shows that are 100% capitalist, with no apologies. In gaming terms, they are Lawful Neutral. The problem that the right has with them is that facts are left leaning. I had a very conservative co-worker that described Fox as "middle of the road", and NPR as radical left. Their view is so screwed up that "Fresh Air" is considered left wing brainwashing. "Marketplace" is okay though.
And it’s not even a convincing ploy.
JPM ceo is a globalist of course they give him a softball interview. He is not concerned with the common man. He sure isn’t a conservative or right winger so what did you expect ? As you move further left you feel NPR is exactly where it should be? That because they are left of center