http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2004/11/when-npr-fails-you-who-you-gonna-call.htmlTHIS IS THE LINK YOU WANT TO CLICK ON!!!
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
When NPR Fails You, Who You Gonna' Call? Not the Ombudsman
An e-mail came in on from a very angry reader asking me to address an incident re: NPR.
The incident aired on NPR during the program Morning Edition. Juan Williams had attempted to explain a statement of John Kerry's. Listeners were not pleased with Williams' attempt. So Robert Kagan (MY EDITORIAL COMMENT ADDED HERE. Kagan's wife works for Cheney!!!!) was brought on Morning Edition on October 7th to provide "a little clarification" regarding Kerry's statement. (You can find a summary of this at Media Matters:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200410070006). (In a nut shell, Williams referred to Kerry's "global test" as "global consent.")
I missed Juan Williams' attempt at an explanation but I did catch Kagan's on October 7th and I remember my mouth dropping as he was introduced. Kagan writes an op-ed for The Washington Post and, as noted in his introduction by Renee Montagen, he's also a senior associate with Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
That's what listeners were told. But Kagan also brings what appears to be a conflict of interest which Montagen didn't inform the listeners of. (This conflict of interest is why my jaw dropped as he was introduced, I'll get to it in a moment.)
The person who e-mailed this site advised that Jeffrey A. Dvorkin (NPR ombudsman) had addressed this issue in a column. Here is the section of Dvorkin's column (October 21, 2004) on Kagan:
Immediately after this correction, Morning Edition compounded its initial error -- or so many thought -- by airing an interview with Robert Kagan. Some listeners consider Kagan, a senior associate for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a "hawk" on Iraq.
Even though Mr. Kagan's specific remarks to Renee Montagne were, in my opinion, non-controversial, the very fact that he was asked to comment on Kerry's position was seen as a neutering of the correction of Juan Williams' statement.
Alex Pritchard from Fairbanks, Alaska, writes:
I was amazed to hear your story "clarifying" Juan Williams's earlier error regarding John Kerry's use of a global test. Your follow-up story went on to describe what the two candidates might do if we knew a foreign government posed a serious threat to the U.S. -- this is not what is in question. The pertinent question is did Iraq pose a serious threat that justified a preemptive attack?
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