3 ms·

Don't you feel a little disingenuous making a flippant deceleration of what is true without substantiating it?

omginternets 10y ago
In all fairness, NPR's reporting is of exceedingly high-quality, by journalistic standards. I admit that the comment you're replying to is flippant, but NPR does check its facts quite well.
- vectorpush 10y ago
  I'm not sure the GP would agree with your sentiments, however, NPR pretty clearly slants to the left. All their hosts lean to the left and the composition of their multi-guest panels usually include a balance of viewpoints that lean more to the left. Still, among popular news sources on both the left and the right I think they are about as fair as they come. Certainly on NPR the hosts are not hostile towards opposing views and you can tell that they make an effort to let dissenting callers and guests be heard even though its often clear that they disagree. I also find that NPR tends to invite guests that are respected within their community instead of guests that are intended to showcase a weak or poorly supported viewpoint.
  - justinlardinois 10y ago
    Have you ever listened to NPR? A large portion of the content has nothing to do with politics.
    - vectorpush 10y ago
      And a large part of it does have to do with politics... what's your point? Obviously non-political content is not what I'm addressing here.
- Karunamon 10y ago
  You don't need to be broadcasting lies or bad journalism to be broadcasting a political slant. It can show up in something as mundane as story selection or one-off comments on shows that are not hard news. There was an interesting study[1] from 2011 where NPR's Twitter social graph correlates with what you'd expect a person with left-leaning political tendencies to have. Probably a bit too broad to draw general conclusions from, but interesting as a data point still. [1]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/03/22/science-settles-it-nprs-liberal-but-not-very/2/#645f15903183 http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/03/22/science...
  - omginternets 10y ago
    That's true, but I think it misses the point. Journalism is rarely (if ever) objective. Good journalism should, however, be factually-correct and analytical. In other words, the product you're paying for is along the lines of informed opinion. The claim, as I understood it, was that NPR was making factually incorrect claims (i.e.: reporting things contrary to reality). Either the OP has a confused understanding of journalistic function (evident in the implication that NPR isn't objective, or somehow politically-slanted), or he's making a demonstrably false claim (NPR systematically lies and/or misrepresents truth).
    - Karunamon 10y ago
      They've done that in the past too, but citing sources is hard because usually it's the right leaning media calling out the left leaning media (and vice versa- c.f. Media Matters against Fox), and it lends itself well to people shooting the messenger by way of "that's just a $slant-ist site" rather than actually evaluating the claims. Random search example: https://community.aarp.org/t5/Medicare-Insurance/NPR-Contines-Its-Medicare-Advantage-Lies/td-p/1723869 https://community.aarp.org/t5/Medicare-Insurance/NPR-Contine... Factually true, but misleading in context claims about Medicare. Another, worse example: http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/14/nprs-distortions-about-the-mh-17-report/ http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/14/nprs-distortions-abou... An NPR reporter misrepresenting a Dutch report on the downing of MH317 as evidence of Russia firing the missile (while the report only says the missile was Russian-made). NPR aside, I reject the notion that journalism can't be objective. Well, not completely, sure, in the same way that we can never completely reach the speed of light. Does that mean we stop trying? No! Does that mean we lower our standards? Hell no! My issue is, I see this concept used more often to excuse misconduct and lazy reporting. "We can't do it, so why try?" If someone claims to be unbiased, they should be held to their own standard, and when bias is pointed out, expected to change their ways, or else acknowledge that their statement about being unbiased was a lie.

In all fairness, NPR's reporting is of exceedingly high-quality, by journalistic standards. I admit that the comment you're replying to is flippant, but NPR does check its facts quite well.

vectorpush 10y ago
I'm not sure the GP would agree with your sentiments, however, NPR pretty clearly slants to the left. All their hosts lean to the left and the composition of their multi-guest panels usually include a balance of viewpoints that lean more to the left. Still, among popular news sources on both the left and the right I think they are about as fair as they come. Certainly on NPR the hosts are not hostile towards opposing views and you can tell that they make an effort to let dissenting callers and guests be heard even though its often clear that they disagree. I also find that NPR tends to invite guests that are respected within their community instead of guests that are intended to showcase a weak or poorly supported viewpoint.
- justinlardinois 10y ago
  Have you ever listened to NPR? A large portion of the content has nothing to do with politics.
  - vectorpush 10y ago
    And a large part of it does have to do with politics... what's your point? Obviously non-political content is not what I'm addressing here.
Karunamon 10y ago
You don't need to be broadcasting lies or bad journalism to be broadcasting a political slant. It can show up in something as mundane as story selection or one-off comments on shows that are not hard news. There was an interesting study[1] from 2011 where NPR's Twitter social graph correlates with what you'd expect a person with left-leaning political tendencies to have. Probably a bit too broad to draw general conclusions from, but interesting as a data point still. [1]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/03/22/science-settles-it-nprs-liberal-but-not-very/2/#645f15903183 http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/03/22/science...
- omginternets 10y ago
  That's true, but I think it misses the point. Journalism is rarely (if ever) objective. Good journalism should, however, be factually-correct and analytical. In other words, the product you're paying for is along the lines of informed opinion. The claim, as I understood it, was that NPR was making factually incorrect claims (i.e.: reporting things contrary to reality). Either the OP has a confused understanding of journalistic function (evident in the implication that NPR isn't objective, or somehow politically-slanted), or he's making a demonstrably false claim (NPR systematically lies and/or misrepresents truth).
  - Karunamon 10y ago
    They've done that in the past too, but citing sources is hard because usually it's the right leaning media calling out the left leaning media (and vice versa- c.f. Media Matters against Fox), and it lends itself well to people shooting the messenger by way of "that's just a $slant-ist site" rather than actually evaluating the claims. Random search example: https://community.aarp.org/t5/Medicare-Insurance/NPR-Contines-Its-Medicare-Advantage-Lies/td-p/1723869 https://community.aarp.org/t5/Medicare-Insurance/NPR-Contine... Factually true, but misleading in context claims about Medicare. Another, worse example: http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/14/nprs-distortions-about-the-mh-17-report/ http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/14/nprs-distortions-abou... An NPR reporter misrepresenting a Dutch report on the downing of MH317 as evidence of Russia firing the missile (while the report only says the missile was Russian-made). NPR aside, I reject the notion that journalism can't be objective. Well, not completely, sure, in the same way that we can never completely reach the speed of light. Does that mean we stop trying? No! Does that mean we lower our standards? Hell no! My issue is, I see this concept used more often to excuse misconduct and lazy reporting. "We can't do it, so why try?" If someone claims to be unbiased, they should be held to their own standard, and when bias is pointed out, expected to change their ways, or else acknowledge that their statement about being unbiased was a lie.