on the second part of NPR's Liberal Vs Conservative media piece

[G_j]

on today's Morning Edition

First of all they use Ted Koppel as the 'middle voice of reason'.
Anyone who watched Koppel's negative and hostile interview with Bruce Springsteen recently would have to question that.
But by far the biggest problem I had with the piece was a complete blurring of the difference between tone and content. They went on and on about the argumentative tone that Americans seem to want and their main conclusion seemed to be that Americans want their news with a bias they agree with.

But what they refuse to touch on is the element of truth and who is doing factual reporting.

Though they mention "Outfoxed" they never approach the subject of Fox and truthfulness. They give the impression that it is all about tone. They don't tell you about the survey that found that Fox viewers had more distorted perceptions of the actual facts than those who got their news from other places. I couldn't help but feel that this report was a very clever attempt to cover for the actual lies and false information that corporate media propagates.

Americans may want their news with bias, but who is actually telling the truth and giving them factual information?
This was a slick propaganda piece if I ever heard one.

[sendero]

1. I heard...

... it yesterday and I agree, it not only missed the point, it missed it with a calculated vengeance.

NPR is crap, please don't waste your money on them, let the right wing fund it's own propaganda.

[mediaman007]

2. Time to end my contributions to Minnesota Public Radio

[G_j]

4. I didn't hear yesterday's piece

but I saw it discussed here. I gather they used Koppel as the 'middle ground' in that segment also.


To ad to my original blurb,
It's not that they didn't bring up the issue of being 'factual' in today's segment, they just did not address who was in reality telling the truth.

They harped quite a bit on F 9/11. Again this blurred the distinction between actual news programming and efforts such as Moore's which are up front about trying to influence people's opinions.

[The Zanti Regent]

3. NPR = Nothing but Propaganda for Republicans!

NPR is endless GOP propaganda. Time to cut all funding for these liars along with Jim Liar at PBS!

[AP]

5. NPR opened the hour with headline "terrorism is biggest threat to economy"

NPR has been a tremendous cheerleader for the Bush admistration by focussing so much on terror since 9/11. It's incredible that they'd headliine the hour whith what is basically a lie and an attempt by the Bush campaign to address the problem the campaign is having with people shifting their eyes off of terror (no matter how much NPR wants to give them only stories about terror) and look critically at the economy.

What's Bush solution to this problem with his candidacy? It's not to say, 'well, my tax code and my policies have fucked the middle class." It's to say, "no, no, you see the economy is bad because terror applies to the economy too, so don't ask us for a better tax code and better policy goals."

NPR hasn't always ignored the economy (or put the fram of terror arround it the rare moments they mention it). From '98 to 2000, all NPR talked about was the stock market. Granted, they were just being cheerleaders, trying to get people to buy tech stocks so that insiders could cash out at the peak with billions in their pockets, fucking over all those NPR listeners who bought the hype.

It's amazing how NPR always headlines the news in a way that services the same peole the Bush administration is trying to service.

[G_j]

6. The best thing that ATC, & the morning and weekend editions

have to offer are I guess what you could call human interest stories, such as interviews with artists etc.

As soon as they report "political" stories, including world news such as about Iraq or Haiti for example, I become suspect.