It wasn’t aimed at you in particular, just libertarians in general. As I said in an earlier post, it’s completely in keeping with libertarian principles to be opposed to government funding of all but what they regard as the most essential programs, and while I don’t agree with libertarian ideals, I don’t find such the position that funding NPR isn’t essential to be remarkable in any way. I just find the thought of the kind of society you advocate … depressingly dull.
Oh, I am not miscasting your argument, I am asking for clarification of what you desire to happen.
Other here are doing a very good show of proving you wrong on this issue. Frankly, all I would like to say, so far has been stated by others.
She said “not enough.”
That says that more are needed.
Why?
To meet what goal?
So in the United States, there is ONLY a far-right on one side of the political spectrum, and perhaps a “liberal” or “progressive” – but no “far-left.”
And I am biased?
Listen to yourself! This is precisely the point. To your mind, the reasonable, moderate, centrist positions are drawn somewhere such that Dennis Kucinich is NOT far-left.
That’s not what I see.
Is there some objective method of verifying which of us is correct?
I can always trot out my standard NPR anecdote.
A few years back, my state was considering a bill to put some restrictions on abortion, and there were two days of public hearings about the bill at the state capitol. The first day, supporters of the bill spoke. The local affiliate covered this during their normal news reporting.
The next day, opponents of the bill spoke. The local affiliate pre-empted all their other programming and covered the opponents’s speeches live.
For heaven’s sake, even NPR’s official ombudsman has 'fessed up about instances of liberal bias. Y’all are too far in denial.
Regards,
Shodan
Probably not, but defining your scale would be a good start.
On a scale of Kucinich-to-DeLay, Dennis is indeed far left.
On a scale of Hoffman-to-Goldwater, not so far.
On a scale of Che Guevara-to-Robert Welch, he’s pretty damned close to the center.
On a scale of pure Communism-to-pure Authoritarianism, he and DeLay are both almost indistinguishable from the midpoint.
He did nothing of the sort. Did you even read the actual Dvorkin quote which was laughablyt misrepresented in the screed you offer as a cite? Here it is, in case you missed it:
Nowthen, I may just be a simple country hyper-chicken, but I sure don’t see how that’s “fessing up” to a liberal bias.
Agreed.
But NPR uses “far-right” and not “far-left.” How is this possible?
I think HarborWolf effectivly shot down your cites for 7 & 8. How about the others. Got cites?
I spent some time looking for quotes for 3 &4 and was unable to find anything on their site. There were 33 stories that came up when I searched using the term flat tax. I listened to 3 that I thought more likely to show bias and I did not see any. That said, you seem to be able to see bias where I cannot: I don’t think the word “stunning” indicates bias.
See, here’s the problem.
There seems to be no objective method for determing the bias of a story, or of a media outlet.
I perceive one.
NPR’s listeners are overwhelmingly liberal/progressive. They must be hearing something they like.
I’ve pointed out instances of bias.
What sort of evidence do you need?
Ah. Never mind, Shodan. I see where you got the impression. It seems clear to me that he was saying that it confirmed the belief in a liberal bias for those who already held that belief, rather than an objective confirmation of the existence of said bias.
But it’s an easy spin on a poor choice of words, and not quite as blatant a misrepresentation as I first supposed.
WHAT?
How about the “not enough” comment? What’s that doing in her “cold, hard facts” recitation?
What does “stunning” indicate? Is it a positive word? Should the listener regard a stunning statistic with calm satisfaction, secure in the knowledge that all is well? Or does “stunning” indicate an urgent need for attention, for change?
OK, tell you guys what. Now you’ve given me a great education in how to defend bias, you might join me in this thread in which I contend that Fox News is not biased.
All of the methods employed here to defend NPR will be recycled and re-deployed in that thread. Let’s see how well this works out.
OK, I went and listened to the whole report, and you know what? I agree with you. Nina is showing bias in the the “not enough” quote. It is bias I agree with, but it is still bias. The stunning adjective is a reach IMO. I think the numbers are stunning and that the adjective is applicable. On 29 qualified African American and 114 hispanic out of over 4400 applicants? That is shocking to me.
Still though, you said you would provide cites and I am humbly requesting them. I am curious and skeptical of your claim. I cannot imagine a NPR host advocating any position on abortion or the flat tax and I would like to listen to it.
Ok…if you say it wasn’t aimed at me in particular thats fair enough. I’ll take you at your word.
As for the rest, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that I don’t find your position on government funding of NPR/PBS remarkable in any way either…its the same old tired back door socialism (with an ironic dose of ‘think of the children’ thrown in on the PBS side…though granted not by you in this thread). And you probably won’t be surprised that I don’t find the kind of society you advocate very compelling either. ‘Depressingly dull’ is only the start…
As I said, YMMV.
-XT
Certainly a good case can be made that the government should not be in the business of funding anything along the lines of PBS or the NEA (to name two). However, I would maintain that PBS/NPR have a ‘better’ claim to government funding than something like the NEA.
I believe it is a given that one of the pillars of a democracy is a free press. Unfortunately we are seeing the hijacking of the free press by corporate interests perhaps best exemplified by how Rupert Murdoch uses his media empire blatantly to pursue his own partisan agenda. Regardless of whether you agree with Murdoch’s political agenda it should still be very worrisome to everyone to realize just how much control one person has over what you get to see and hear. Add him together with a few other media conglomerates that have their own agendas and it gets increasingly difficult to figure on where to get your ‘unbiased’ news from.
Could NPR survive on its own? Almost certainly but to do so would likely require it to become a profit seeking corporate entity. Once that happens how they approach their reporting must be scrutinized under the “will this piss off our advertisers or shareholders” lens. As long as NPR receives federal funding along with voluntary donations they can maintain their journalistic integrity far better than anyone at FOX can these days.
Now, some may say they already have a compromised journalistic integrity as they show their liberal bias. I would agree that NPR is slightly left leaning inasmuch that if they err with bias it is likely they will err to the left. That said I think they are arguably the best broadcast organization in existence in the US at actually really believing in journalistic integrity, quality of their reporting and trying to be unbiased, fair and balanced. They are not perfect but they are the best. Throughout all of this thread people are hard pressed to come up with more than one or two examples of bias and even the claim of bias there is thin at worst and not certainly not overt. Out of thousands of news reports this is all and the best anyone can come up with to prove what a bastion of far left politics NPR is?
I also find the notion of NPR becoming some kind of perfect “unbiased” news agency if they do receive federal funds to be terrible. To be perfectly unbiased (or as near as possible) reports on things such as the KoC meeting would consist of little more than, “The Knights of Columbus met today at XXX with over 4000 people attending. There were 12 protestors. The weather for today is…”. News is supposed to be more than a mere reporting of the existence of events. However, as soon as anyone starts looking more deeply into questions such as what the KoC are meeting for, what the KoC is about, etc., you perforce introduce some ability for bias to be claimed. Likely no matter how it is reported someone can come along with a microscope and nitpick choice of adjectives such that the exercise is pointless…you could do that to most anything and show some sort of bias.
Finally, to say the Pubbies get to do what they want with the money because they are in power really damages the notion of a stable government. Does anyone want to envision an NPR that is the “Rush Limbaugh Show” when republicans are in power and then switch to “The Al Franken Hour” whenever democrats take control? The idea would be silly. What’s more, the power of incumbency is already powerful enough. The thought of whoever is the power of the day co-opting a news source such as NPR by threatening their funding is downright frightening.
Shocking in what way? Again, the word you use suggests that there is a need to fix a problem - the numbers are shocking, it’s a problem, it needs to be fixed… which is, of course, exactly what affirmative action proponents believe and opponents deny.
I do appreciate your agreement on the “not enough” business.
I will.
But you know what? It’s very hard keeping all these plates spinning. There are many posters in this thread on the opposite side. I’d like a little chance to focus just on one set of accusations for a bit.
And I note that not one person has responded to my question about Dan rather. Was this the first time he ever injected bias into his reporting? Was he unluicky enough to choose to display bias one time, get caught, and have to resign?
Or did Dan’s bias ever creep in before?
I agree with everything you’ve said here.
Of COURSE their bias is not overt. And I agree that they are trying their best to be objective. As I said above, if they took a lie detector test about whether thay are slanting news stories, they’d never bounce the needles.
But because they have certain beliefs, and because they are convinced in their hearts that these beliefs are correct, those beliefs will influence reporting. We all know affirmative action in SOME form is good, after all, because not enough minorities are applying, and the low numbers are stunning. That’s not “bias,” that’s just common sense, a view shared by all reasonable people.
Let me just slip these media filter goggles over your head, friend Bricker …
There now … liberal … or conservative? Liberal … or conservative? Liberal … or conservative?
We’ll soon have you seeing things our way … bwahahahahahA!
I agree with you but what is the alternative? No NPR? An NPR owned by Rupert Murdoch? I think either of those would be a tragedy.
Introducing bias into reporting is unavoidable. There will always be someone who thinks that a report is biased no matter how balanced it is. The only thing that can be done is to have an organization that tries very hard at attempting a fair shot at balanced reporting. The alternative is to just have unabashedly partisan news agencies that make no bones about leaning one way or the other and let the public try and sort it out for themselves. For my money I would hate to have to listen to Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern and try to piece together reality out of the two but that’s just me.