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I assume the parent is referring to NPR's rather single-sided ideological lens which diminishes its credibility when reporting on politically charged issues. Gi

I assume the parent is referring to NPR's rather single-sided ideological lens which diminishes its credibility when reporting on politically charged issues. Given the fact that nearly everything is being politicised and the fact that your country is divided in half along political lines this means that NPR is seen as an oppositional propaganda channel by nearly half the population.

oliwarner 6y ago
But compared to other organisations sharing their opinions? The others all seem to have abandoned balance, some more than others, obviously. So who's doing better?
- Yetanfou 6y ago
  The difference here is that NPR, like PBS, is publicly funded and with that should be politically neutral.
  - oliwarner 6y ago
    So again I ask, who does it better? I ask because I'm not sure it's possible to be politically neutral, well before asking whether it's desirable. Everybody has a political opinion on almost everything. Even if you're only reporting what has happened, you will find people questioning why you're looking at these things, and not others. NPR absolutely has political influence, but is it disproportionate? I don't think so. Is it unbalanced? I don't think so. I think we've just spent 6 years beating each other up over extremes, pushing every envelope, that we struggle to recognise neutral coverage. I know you didn't write the head comment, but I think we need to regain trust in neutrality. Perhaps reinstate some laws to redress balance in things calling themselves "news"... I know I don't know, but what I know is NPR seems like one of the goodies.
    - Yetanfou 6y ago
      "Who does it better" is not the right question here since the problem is not related to other actors being "better" but to NPR (and PBS) not fulfilling the mandate of being politically neutral. Commercial actors do not have that mandate since they are not publicly funded, they can be (and most certainly are) as partisan as they wish. As to the supposed difficulty of being neutral I'll just state that it is actually quite easy, all you have to do is make sure that your programming represents the political diversity of the region or country. Given the near 50/50 split between those who align themselves with the GOP and those who prefer the DNC it would be simply a matter of having half the programming made by "progressives", half by "conservatives". Both groups should have essentially the same amount of influence on what gets put on the air. There should not be room for shenanigans like having a station master from party A who does his best to put all programming which aligns more with party B in the nightshift. Throw in a few Libertarian/Green Party/etc. people in the newsroom to give them a proportional voice and you're well on your way to political neutrality. Maybe you're confusing being politically neutral with being politically centric? They're not the same. It just means that the net average political stance ends up as a weighted average of the current political spectrum.
      - Raidion 6y ago
        I think your method has a lot of complexity under the hood. For example, you need a republican and a democrat to co-host a show. Does the republican need to be pro trump? Does the democrat need to be anti trump? Do you think a Liz Cheney and AOC hosted show would be politically neutral? You seem to have this idea of what a "textbook" conservative/liberal is, and I think that sort of binary representation is harmful to political discourse at large. You'll find democrats care more about government spending than some republicans. You'll find anti gun republicans, and pro gun democrats. Who represents each side? How do you make sure all viewpoints are represented (green and libertarian)? This is the curse of dimensionality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_dimensionality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_dimensionality. the more complex the subject the less likely it is for someone to actually be able to represent the "Average" of everything.
        Yetanfou 6y ago

oliwarner 6y ago

But compared to other organisations sharing their opinions? The others all seem to have abandoned balance, some more than others, obviously. So who's doing better?

Yetanfou 6y ago
The difference here is that NPR, like PBS, is publicly funded and with that should be politically neutral.
- oliwarner 6y ago
  So again I ask, who does it better? I ask because I'm not sure it's possible to be politically neutral, well before asking whether it's desirable. Everybody has a political opinion on almost everything. Even if you're only reporting what has happened, you will find people questioning why you're looking at these things, and not others. NPR absolutely has political influence, but is it disproportionate? I don't think so. Is it unbalanced? I don't think so. I think we've just spent 6 years beating each other up over extremes, pushing every envelope, that we struggle to recognise neutral coverage. I know you didn't write the head comment, but I think we need to regain trust in neutrality. Perhaps reinstate some laws to redress balance in things calling themselves "news"... I know I don't know, but what I know is NPR seems like one of the goodies.
  - Yetanfou 6y ago
    "Who does it better" is not the right question here since the problem is not related to other actors being "better" but to NPR (and PBS) not fulfilling the mandate of being politically neutral. Commercial actors do not have that mandate since they are not publicly funded, they can be (and most certainly are) as partisan as they wish. As to the supposed difficulty of being neutral I'll just state that it is actually quite easy, all you have to do is make sure that your programming represents the political diversity of the region or country. Given the near 50/50 split between those who align themselves with the GOP and those who prefer the DNC it would be simply a matter of having half the programming made by "progressives", half by "conservatives". Both groups should have essentially the same amount of influence on what gets put on the air. There should not be room for shenanigans like having a station master from party A who does his best to put all programming which aligns more with party B in the nightshift. Throw in a few Libertarian/Green Party/etc. people in the newsroom to give them a proportional voice and you're well on your way to political neutrality. Maybe you're confusing being politically neutral with being politically centric? They're not the same. It just means that the net average political stance ends up as a weighted average of the current political spectrum.
    - Raidion 6y ago
      I think your method has a lot of complexity under the hood. For example, you need a republican and a democrat to co-host a show. Does the republican need to be pro trump? Does the democrat need to be anti trump? Do you think a Liz Cheney and AOC hosted show would be politically neutral? You seem to have this idea of what a "textbook" conservative/liberal is, and I think that sort of binary representation is harmful to political discourse at large. You'll find democrats care more about government spending than some republicans. You'll find anti gun republicans, and pro gun democrats. Who represents each side? How do you make sure all viewpoints are represented (green and libertarian)? This is the curse of dimensionality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_dimensionality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_dimensionality. the more complex the subject the less likely it is for someone to actually be able to represent the "Average" of everything.
      - Yetanfou 6y ago