4 ms·

This is, after all, NPR...no surprise the war was prominent as they have a decidedly progressive news team. I won't call NPR liberal, but certainly left of cent

by Aetius 16y ago

This is, after all, NPR...no surprise the war was prominent as they have a decidedly progressive news team. I won't call NPR liberal, but certainly left of center, and very critical (as they should be) of the wars.

kscaldef 16y ago
I think the bias in the table actually goes the other way. By breaking down, and omitting parts of, military spending, they make it look relatively minor compared to SS, Medicare, and Medicaid. They have also chosen to display SS intakes, not outflows, which is a $400B difference.
- hugh3 16y ago
  If you look at the pdf from the think tank which came up with it, you'll see that one of their arguments for doing it this way is that "An educated taxpayer is a progressive's best customer", leaving no doubt what their political agenda is. Somewhat disingenuous from a think tank called the "Third Way", which was originally intended to imply centrism. Still, it's a general law of NPR reporting that a left-wing think tank is called a "think tank" and a right-wing think tank is called a "right-wing think tank".
  - Poiesis 16y ago
    Still, it's a general law of NPR reporting that a left-wing think tank is called a "think tank" and a right-wing think tank is called a "right-wing think tank". I don't really have a dog in this fight, but a quick search suggests you may be mistaken. [site:npr.org "right-wing think tank"] os 8 results; [site:npr.org "think tank"] has about 2380. Nothing funny in robots.txt. But you never know, maybe there aren't that many transcripts on there or something...
    - carbocation 16y ago
      And 4 results for [site:npr.org "left-wing think tank"]
    - hugh3 16y ago
      Or perhaps they rarely quote right-wing think tanks? Still, a bit more googling: 7 hits for "right-wing think tank" vs 4 hits for "left-wing think tank", so apparently they don't use either term very often. 1200 hits for "liberal think tank" vs 285 for "conservative think tank" vs 447 for "libertarian think tank" (all of which seem to be Cato) vs 6 for "moderate think tank". 3 for "Republican think tank", 345 for "Democratic think tank" and 57 for "non-partisan think tank" I take your point, though. What you'd really need to do in order to analyze bias would be to check out "think tank" is used without an adjective and figure out what kind of think tanks those are.
      - yv 16y ago
        These numbers of grossly inaccurate. Go to the last results page of each query to see the real hit count.
- projectileboy 16y ago
  I thought the same thing. It looked as though they completely left out weapons procurement outside the scope of the wars, which seems almost dishonest. But it feels like I'm nitpicking; overall it's definitely a worthwhile effort.
hugh3 16y ago
Your comment would have been much better without injecting your own political opinions on the matter via the parenthetical "as they should be".
- Aetius 16y ago
  I'm actually not one of those antiwar protesters that crawls in ditches. I didn't say "they should be against" the wars. I just said they should be critical of it; as a publication-of-record it's their job to critique major national issues.
- nhebb 16y ago
  Everyone should be critical of wars. I think there's a knee jerk reaction to label war critics as partisan, but questioning war really should be apolitical. I'm a veteran (go 10th Mountain!) and a Republican, and I'm critical of wars. I don't feel that we have a clear, achievable goal in Afghanistan, and I'm appalled at the complete apathy by the media and America public to the fact that we are at war, both taking and losing lives.
  - Legion 16y ago
    An important point. Also important: "critical" is not a synonym for "anti-".
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
pigbucket 16y ago
Well, actually it's Thirdway.org, who've been plugging this idea for a few years now, but since it's somewhat progressive too, your point may stand. My sense was that Thirdway was deliberately trying to avoid being overly inflammatory: they don't, for instance, specify the amount of military aid to Colombia to fight the drug war, or the amount to Pakistan to fight terrorists, or to Israel to fight whoever Israel ends up fighting next.
jimbokun 16y ago
So only progressives want to know how much we spend in Iraq and Afghanistan? Depressing, if true.
eli 16y ago
Do you have any data to back that up? The empirical evidence shows that, for example, NPR is more likely to interview a conservative economist about a story than a liberal. I think they go out of their way to defer to right-of-center politicians because they are so afraid of the perception that they're liberal. In short, I think you're wrong.
- jbellis 16y ago
  > The empirical evidence shows that, for example, NPR is more likely to interview a conservative economist about a story than a liberal. To be meaningful, we'd need to compare the ratio of conservative economists on NPR to conservative economists in the population.

by Aetius 16y ago

kscaldef 16y ago

I think the bias in the table actually goes the other way. By breaking down, and omitting parts of, military spending, they make it look relatively minor compared to SS, Medicare, and Medicaid. They have also chosen to display SS intakes, not outflows, which is a $400B difference.

hugh3 16y ago
If you look at the pdf from the think tank which came up with it, you'll see that one of their arguments for doing it this way is that "An educated taxpayer is a progressive's best customer", leaving no doubt what their political agenda is. Somewhat disingenuous from a think tank called the "Third Way", which was originally intended to imply centrism. Still, it's a general law of NPR reporting that a left-wing think tank is called a "think tank" and a right-wing think tank is called a "right-wing think tank".
- Poiesis 16y ago
  Still, it's a general law of NPR reporting that a left-wing think tank is called a "think tank" and a right-wing think tank is called a "right-wing think tank". I don't really have a dog in this fight, but a quick search suggests you may be mistaken. [site:npr.org "right-wing think tank"] os 8 results; [site:npr.org "think tank"] has about 2380. Nothing funny in robots.txt. But you never know, maybe there aren't that many transcripts on there or something...
  - carbocation 16y ago
    And 4 results for [site:npr.org "left-wing think tank"]
  - hugh3 16y ago
    Or perhaps they rarely quote right-wing think tanks? Still, a bit more googling: 7 hits for "right-wing think tank" vs 4 hits for "left-wing think tank", so apparently they don't use either term very often. 1200 hits for "liberal think tank" vs 285 for "conservative think tank" vs 447 for "libertarian think tank" (all of which seem to be Cato) vs 6 for "moderate think tank". 3 for "Republican think tank", 345 for "Democratic think tank" and 57 for "non-partisan think tank" I take your point, though. What you'd really need to do in order to analyze bias would be to check out "think tank" is used without an adjective and figure out what kind of think tanks those are.
    - yv 16y ago
      These numbers of grossly inaccurate. Go to the last results page of each query to see the real hit count.
projectileboy 16y ago
I thought the same thing. It looked as though they completely left out weapons procurement outside the scope of the wars, which seems almost dishonest. But it feels like I'm nitpicking; overall it's definitely a worthwhile effort.

hugh3 16y ago

Your comment would have been much better without injecting your own political opinions on the matter via the parenthetical "as they should be".

Aetius 16y ago
I'm actually not one of those antiwar protesters that crawls in ditches. I didn't say "they should be against" the wars. I just said they should be critical of it; as a publication-of-record it's their job to critique major national issues.
nhebb 16y ago
Everyone should be critical of wars. I think there's a knee jerk reaction to label war critics as partisan, but questioning war really should be apolitical. I'm a veteran (go 10th Mountain!) and a Republican, and I'm critical of wars. I don't feel that we have a clear, achievable goal in Afghanistan, and I'm appalled at the complete apathy by the media and America public to the fact that we are at war, both taking and losing lives.
- Legion 16y ago
  An important point. Also important: "critical" is not a synonym for "anti-".

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

pigbucket 16y ago

Well, actually it's Thirdway.org, who've been plugging this idea for a few years now, but since it's somewhat progressive too, your point may stand. My sense was that Thirdway was deliberately trying to avoid being overly inflammatory: they don't, for instance, specify the amount of military aid to Colombia to fight the drug war, or the amount to Pakistan to fight terrorists, or to Israel to fight whoever Israel ends up fighting next.

jimbokun 16y ago

So only progressives want to know how much we spend in Iraq and Afghanistan? Depressing, if true.

eli 16y ago

Do you have any data to back that up? The empirical evidence shows that, for example, NPR is more likely to interview a conservative economist about a story than a liberal. I think they go out of their way to defer to right-of-center politicians because they are so afraid of the perception that they're liberal. In short, I think you're wrong.

jbellis 16y ago
> The empirical evidence shows that, for example, NPR is more likely to interview a conservative economist about a story than a liberal. To be meaningful, we'd need to compare the ratio of conservative economists on NPR to conservative economists in the population.