NPR Weekend Edition Sunday shills for tRump

[Cattledog]

They just did a 10 min segment on the Syria airstrike with Paul Wolfowitz. No real push back from the host (Lulu Garcia-Navarro ?) who let him get away with
calling the action "impressive", and how our enemies will now think twice. I was just floored by the interview and how complacent the host was. Wolfowitz said it was just like Bush 1 Kuwait/Iraq and Clinton/Bosnia.

[progree]

1. NPR? Is that National Pentagon Radio -- it sure was during the lead up to the Iraq War and the

early days / years of it. So am not surprised they'd be all happy and excited about Caligula's "muscular foreign policy"

(Yes, I know it's National Public Radio)

[anneboleyn]

4. Thank you -- I had forgotten about NPR's stance during the Iraq War -- of course our entire media

went into full-on Orwellian propaganda mode, even when it was very clear that Hussein was in no way involved in the 9/11 attacks. And of course Saddam Hussein was a miserable dictator but as every person with any knowledge stated at the time if we removed Saddam Iraq would become dangerously unstable...and we all know what happened (see refugee crisis and current disaster in Syria...sigh). I lost whatever "idealism virginity" I still had when our media (mostly) silently allowed Dick Cheney to threaten the country with the grotesque and very fraudulent "mushroom cloud" lie.

We had elderly relatives who were quaking in fear after Cheney's pronouncements and completely believed in the WMD deception. They were terrified by 9/11 (living of course in a state and place that would never be a target), and they weren't capable of really putting it into any context (Bin Laden became some sort of super-villain mastermind who had unlimited power in their minds -- it wasn't rational but then of course they watched Fox). So when Cheney started his "mushroom cloud" campaign they were terrified and believed it entirely. I loathed how our media fed the stories -- at least until it became apparent that Iraq was a quagmire and there were WMDs.

I remember my friends in Europe were telling me about the very different and far more measured and realistic reporting there. I participated in a large, very peaceful protest on the campus of my university at the time (there were many students and faculty present, and it was great to see them all there), and I was deeply against the war. But our media was so singleminded in its support for Bush and the terrible idea of the Iraq War. And now we have the media obediently reporting on Trump as some kind of war hero president. Ugh.

[Hortensis]

2. NPR does not push back. They ask questions to elicit more

of whatever the interviewee's point of view is, but it's up to the listener to make what he will of it and of the person. The interviewers don't guide thought.

Not to worry. Studies show that NPR's audience is far better educated on the news and issues than any other except PBS's, and this is part of why.

[hunter]

5. BBC reporters seem to do a much better job of giving their interviewees enough rope...

Last edited Sun Apr 9, 2017, 03:26 PM - Edit history (1)

... to hang themselves.

Even when they fail that, the occasional raised-eyebrow and very British tone-of-incredulity cracks me up, especially when the person they are interviewing doesn't pick up on it and keeps blathering on. In the U.S.A, only our comedians are allowed to do that, people like Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert. American journalists live in fear of unemployment and rat-fucks. Look what happened to Dan Rather. Most U.S. journalists turn to mush at the slightest challenge.

I don't think the BBC is unbiased, but their biases are predictable and consistent.

NPR and PBS frequently disappoint me. At times I curse them as "Fox News for people who think they are too intelligent for Fox News." They are too timid, too afraid of upsetting their mega-sponsors and their affluent white subscribers, too afraid of venturing out beyond comfort zone of people who listen to the market report because they are invested in the market and not living paycheck to paycheck, terrified the old cars they drive to work will quit working and they won't be able to pay the rent.

I used to subscribe to KQED when my kids were small, I loved watching Sesame Street and Bill Nye the Science Guy with them, and we couldn't afford cable television. I custom built a directional UHF antenna just so we could receive them.

My kids are adults now. My wife and I don't watch any broadcast, cable, or satellite television anymore. Our television is a movie player, that's all it does. No advertising, no "supported by some-foundation-established-by-fascists-I-despise." My radios are mostly useless, except that I recently discovered The Moth Radio Hour which I should send some money too because I love story-telling and it would be a nice "fuck you" to all that medical debt attached to my name and social security number, enough to buy a very nice house in most of the U.S.A.

[Hortensis]

6. I'm with you in your general disgust for cable and

and broadcast news in general. The "evening news" shows particularly have been so badly degraded that, instead of being an important adjunct to democracy, at best they fail their role and at worst they endanger it.

But not at all, I'm afraid, with public radio and television. Their mandate is very different, to provide information and exposure to the various viewpoints in play at any particular time. It is not their job, for instance, to tell people racism is evil or good but rather to build understanding of our world by providing information on race as issue from a wide range of viewpoints, from cool-eyed statisticians to implacable religious slavery advocates. Whether guests "hang" themselves depends on the perceptions of each listener.

What you see as "timidity" in part arises from the same challenge as that of college professors I've chatted with here in the south--how to tell truth without causing minds to slam shut and losing listeners, which of course has happened more and more as polarization grows. A real tightrope.

In any case, my own kitchen radio here in deep south Fox country is, courtesy of modern electronics, usually tuned to the same NPR station I listened to back in California. But I'd turn it on for a wide variety of good music never heard on local stations as well.

Thank you for mentioning the Moth Radio Hour. I'd never heard of it but will enjoy checking it out.