Former NPR newsman Bob Edwards says dissent stifled -

[Democrat 4 Ever]

DANVILLE-- Louisville native Bob Edwards warned last night that the United States is in a period like the McCarthy era of the 1950s, in which the government is stifling political dissent while the news media and the public fail to speak out in vigorous opposition.

Speaking at Centre College, Edwards, a host for XM Satellite Radio, said the "Bush administration holds reporters in contempt" and has become the "all-time champion of information control."

Edwards built a theme based on a quote by Bush's former press secretary, Ari Fleischer, in the wake of 9/11: "People should watch what they say."

Edwards also said journalists "have done a terrible job explaining their role to the public."

He quoted Edward R. Murrow's famous TV response to Sen. Joseph McCarthy's communist witch hunt: "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty," and "we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."

http://legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news with a link to the story at http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/state/11106776.htm

For some reason NPR felt the need to get rid of Bob Edwards - long time and much revered host on NPR. I think the analogy of McCarthyism media is very apropos. That is the new buzz word we need to be using every single time we get the chance when talking about Bush and the MSM - McCarthyism. And ask Chimpy, McClellan, repukes and the media, "Sir, have you no shame?"

[rpannier]

1. Sounds like the words a one 'a dem der commies to me. n/t

[mod mom]

2. Moyers, Cronkite, now Edwards. Let's hope these revered journalists

talk some sense into Corporate Sponsored Media. I hope Dan Rathers will come back kicking and screaming with outrage!

[Gman]

3. Bob Edwards hates the troops and supports gay marriage

damn communist!

[liberalitch]

7. I hate bob edwards and support gay marriage among the troops...

just joking... I like bob edwards...
and the soldiers can marry anyone they want

[johnaries]

22. Hmmm, you gave me an idea...

How about a yellow ribbon car magnet that says "Support Gay Troops"?

Do you think anyone will notice?

[ezee]

23. Make the ribbon PINK,

like the pink triangle. That will get some attention.

[RaleighNCDUer]

28. Pink ribbon has already been claimed.

Rainbow.

[AllyCat]

31. No, no...just leave it yellow

The surprise is in the people who actually read it on the yellow one.

Love it!

[Morose]

36. I've been considering lawn signs

that I can put next to all the "SUPPORT OUR TROOPS AND PRESIDENT BUSH" signs in my neighborhood. I think they should read:

SUPPORT EMPTY GESTURES AND MINDLESS SLOGANS

Think it'll catch on?

[atommom]

4. I hope we haven't seen the last of the great journalists.

In today's climate, it's a lot harder for these voices to be heard.

[paineinthearse]

5. All Things Bob Edwards gets an automatic nomination.

OK, I know he was "Morning Edition" host for 25+ years, that was a stretch.

Bob left under less than auspicious conditions. Perhaps some day he will tell all. I suspect some kind of a Rovian putsch.

If you have not read his book on Edward R. Murrow, get it! Morrow and Edward, two of American's greatest journalists.

[1gobluedem]

13. I work for an NPR affiliate

and Bob Edwards wouldn't take on a co-host when asked. He was free to remain on Morning Edition but was unwilling to compromise. I have met him several times; he was wonderfully affable on the air but exceedingly difficult off the air. NPR's audience, like all its affiliates, is aging and in order to attract younger listeners the format of the program needed to become faster paced and more in sync with what they're used to.

I have said here many times and elsewhere that what has been happening to NPR is a direct result of the 104th Congress, led by Newt Gingrich, trying to eliminate federal funding for public broadcasting. They didn't succeed but they did succeed in changing federal funding criteria. Before the 104th federal funding was based on market size, now it's based on audience size according to the horribly flawed and commercial Arbitron system. Public radio lost a lot of its individual flavor and diversity just to survive and that's why you have heard more corporate underwriting on the air and more centrist coverage. Survival has its price, unfortunately. Case in point; my station had a very fun doo-wop show on Friday nights instead of our usual jazz. The show never showed up on Arbitron and didn't fundraise very well. But it filled a unique niche and was unlike anything else on the radio. New funding criteria killed it. We had to drop the show and replace it with jazz. Arbs and fundraising went up but now this diverse little niche goes unfilled.

It's unfortunate that this happened; the best thing that we can do is to change the balance in the house and change the federal funding criteria back. I can almost guarantee that content will become more diverse and bold as a result.

[catzies]

14. Well, then good luck to NPR. They lost me when Bob Edwards left

Since they're attracting younger listeners they probably don't miss me or my measly little $100 a year at all.

Bob Edwards at the helm of ME was exactly in sync with what I was used to.

I'm sorry, but since you say you work for an NPR affiliate, aren't you just "repeating the company line" when it comes to Edwards' leaving NPR?

[1gobluedem]

15. No, I'm not

In fact, the company line was that Bob made the decision to leave himself. This was 'off the record/behind the scenes' talk with people I know on the NPR staff including other on-air personalities and reporters.

I can understand how you feel; believe me as a development director, I deal with this daily. I think it would be great if nothing changed either (I am 45) but there is the future of the industry to consider. As the audience ages, they are not being replaced by younger listeners. I'm not talking about college kids; I'm talking about people in their late 20s to mid 30s who are establishing their listening patterns. In 20 years, when my generation goes to fixed incomes (assuming SS hasn't been completely destroyed by the idiot-in-chief) there has to be another generation taking on the financial responsiblity. I wish they would embrace public radio as we know it and love it but, truth is, they aren't interested. So compromises have to be made or the industry will die with us.

[spooky3]

18. Is there any possibility that people change their listening habits as they

age? Maybe many of those 20-30 somethings aren't interested now, but their tastes change as they enter late 30s-40s and have the capacity to take over the financial responsibility as their earnings also grow.

I know I listen much more to public radio than I did when I was in my 20s, but maybe that's not typical.

[Name removed]

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[catzies]

21. Thank you for yor candid and honest reply, and thanks for working for NPR

I'm 42, and I established my listening pattern in my late 20s, so there is much truth in what you say.

You'll be happy to know that through long-term exposure to NPR, my 24-year-old daughter listens to one of the many affiliates we have here in Southern California.

But Howard Stern means to her what Bob Edwards meant to me: the first voice I want to hear in the morning. She's following him to Sirus, but I have yet to follow Bob Edwards to XM.

[trekbiker]

30. NPR lost my measly $120/yr after..

I listened to a few absolutely pathetic NPR interviews concerning the current SS debate. They never asked hard questions or probed with good followup questions. The interviews were either incompetent or dishonest. They never challenge the bullshit numbers this corrupt BushCo is blathering constantly. I was so disgusted I canceled my annual donation and will donate it to more worthy causes. NPR is a shadow of what they once were and have betrayed thier true base. If they keep this up thier pledge drives will be in trouble.

[Supersedeas]

20. Soundbite news and 'Art' info segments don't really appeal to me

Are they just looking for the 25 and under crowd?

[1gobluedem]

29. No

More like 28 and over.

[etherealtruth]

24. Thank you for that explanation

Though I was aware of many of the facts, I certainly was not able to link them. I have been a fan of NPR, PRI... since my early twenties (that would make it about 20 years).

Thanks!

[AllyCat]

32. This is survival?

They are terrible! I never even listen anymore. Very disappointing.

"Survival has its price, unfortunately"

[Name removed]

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[sendero]

6. Mr Joseph Welch uttered the phrase..

... that effectively ended McCarthyism...

"at long last, have you no sense of decency?"

[seabeyond]

8. another ari quote, bush wants to make the news

not the reporter, not an event. but bush

[AP]

9. I don't understand how Bob Edwards became the poster boy for what's

wrong with NPR.

I heard that NPR wanted their anchors to do more in-the-field reporting and Edwards wasn't interested in doing that, and that's what precipitated his exit. If he had been willing to do that, he could have stayed, and wanting their anchors to get more involved in their stories wasn't a plot designed to oust Edwards.

NPR has definitely become increasingly corporate and has lost whatever meager courage they might have had 15 years ago, and most of their reporting is cheer-leading for consumption and is an opiate of the masses suppressing any kind of critical reflection, but all that was going on while Edwards was anchoring. We wasn't a bulwark against any of that stuff.

[pscot]

33. They wanted to pair Edwards with a Bimbo, he resisted.

So they replaced him with a bunch of Bimbos, male and female. I was a listener since the inception of Morning Edition. I no longer bother. NPR used to be my first source for news. Now days I look to the blogs and the print media.

[PATRICK]

35. Edwards a little belated

As AP also noted any listener of NPR with Edwards revealed someone who mildly went along with some trashy reporting by anti-Dem "journalists" like Cokie Roberts as if either he was doing no critical research himself, was told what to say or agreed(mildly as ever) with it. I would like to see some of these "revered" figures looking a bit more in the mirror(which is not very common on radio) before posthumously laying about them with more "mild" criticism of a situation they enabled.

Even the experienced and integrity bound Cronkite had flaws being part of the system, some of whose pressures he escaped because of his stature. He used that stature when things FINALLY got through a sometimes too positive and trusting personality long removed from actual reporting. The innate flaws of corporate media journalism render some of this critical dismay over backsliding in a flawed system much too late. Too much money success and even schmoozing with the major characters in the news had more of an impetus than the need to improve media news. Now it is much too late and being outside is just being outside and little contribution to getting the journalism job(never done well enough in the media) recreated in friendlier venues.

Instead the stardom glossed over the electric media flaws so much that in their nicheifying and decline they are taking down the integrity of lazy, pressured newspaper reporting with them.

Lead anchors never lead. Not for a long long time.

[AP]

45. I also wouldn't be surprised if Edwards's belated criticism of reporting

...has something to do with his new job. He needs to give it a TM. He needs to give people a reason to switch from NPR, and follow him to his new program. If he's suggesting that suddenly he's going to dissent from the status quo, it might be a marketing ploy.

I'm not saying he's wrong about dissent being stifled. I'm just sayign that if he's suddenly going to take this up as his banner, his motivation might be financial rather than ethical.

[AP]

44. That's not the story that Ira Glass tells. Glass says that he knows ...

... Edwards and the guy who fired him. Glass says that Edwards was asked to do more on-location reporting and Edwards decided that he was a studio anchor and that this wasn't something they imposed on Edwards to make him quit. It has been a trend at NPR for a couple years and they expect all their anchors to go around the country, probably as a way to make NPR less about DC and also because they probably also expect them to do fundraising luncheons and dinners when they're out on the road. (It seems that the affiliates raise a lot of money for their stations when they have events with the NPR "celebrities.")

[Name removed]

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[Borgnine]

10. It's scary.

In the last four years, they've been pushing people like Edwards out of the media and have replaced them with lobitomized propagandists who have nothing but a good head of hair. Hell, they brought down Dan fucking Rather.

Even when we finally get the neocons out of office, how do we go about repairing our media?

[Roland99]

11. Too bad he didn't follow Seymour Hersh as a 2nd speaker here

a couple of weeks ago.

I miss hearing his voice on the radio.

[aintitfunny]

12. Maybe I am being overly optimistic

but between this, articles I have read in the WP and the Baltimore Sun, The Gannon scandal, the purchase of columnists, the government produced propaganda videos for newscasts, I think there may be a momentum building to restore a free, unbiased, unafraid 4th Estate.

Of course they will all still be owned by major corporations, who really are running the show, so I guess I am being overly optimistic.

[DearAbby]

16. Remember the Media is a business, and it's all for the Bottom line.

Shut it off, starve the beast that feeds this tripe called news, They can see that the bottom line is not profitable. It's a business afterall.

[aintitfunny]

17. Oh Yes, I have been doing so

They do not get my business. I read the Baltimore Sun, and get news on line, but not from the majors. I do not watch ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN and have never watch the ever evil lying sack of shit that Fox News is. I don't visit their web site either, as a rule.

Unfortunately that is where so many get their new and that is why if would hope that the free press comes back into being and starts doing its duty.

[tsuki]

19. "Bush administration holds reporters in contempt"

The media brought this on themselves. They feed like a pack of wolves on each other competing for the biggest contract, and excusing the corrupt in government. They are too easily manipulated. They are too star struck. If they spent 10% of the time covering news events, rather than the lastest from Hollywood, Jackson, or Spears, they could raise their ratings substantially. But they are afraid. Afraid that the GOP won't like it.

[ixat]

25. Tsuki's right, before "educating the public of their role,"

journalists would be well reminded of it themselves.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

26. kick

[gardenista]

27. I invite all of the naysayers

who said that some of us were being too critical of NPR as we saw it twirl farther and farther to the right to read this piece.

Yes, Virginia, NPR *has* been co-opted.

[angryxyouth]

34. NPR lost my funding also, " Fresh air is getting stinky"

I've noticed across the board that NPR hosts have stopped asking the tough questions and the news is leaving out important stories. My wife has caught me yelling at the radio with what should be the appropriate follow ups to guests. She thinks I have gone over the edge, that I'm a conspiracy nut.

[4_Legs_Good]

37. I love Bob Edwards

I miss him so badly on NPR. I almost started crying the other day when a co-worker played an archived online story which he introduced.

Anyway, at least we have the Bob Edwards show on XM, but it's not quite the same as having him wake me up on my drive to work every day.

I'm no longer a Morning Edition listener.

david

[bush_is_wacko]

38. This is WHY the old timers are retiring in record numbers.

They are protesting, but apparently they don't have the balls anymore to come out and tell the public what is going on. They could easily pool together enough resources to create a battle-cry loud enough to be heard over the bushitler din. Instead they are slinking off quietly into the abyss!

[madamheidi84]

39. Tavis left not too long ago...

and I've been suspicious of NPR ever since. He said he left because NPR needed to be more committed to diversity or something like that, and I was very upset by his departure.

Air America comes to Dallas in 6 days!!! Yay!

[PassingFair]

43. You will LOVE IT, heidi!

We got it here in Michigan about 2 months ago, and it makes my day (I drive all day) a LOT more pleasant!