8 ms·

Likely because NPR has yet to tread on one of their beliefs with biased reporting. It will happen eventually, the rate at which it's happening is accelerating,

Likely because NPR has yet to tread on one of their beliefs with biased reporting. It will happen eventually, the rate at which it's happening is accelerating, and when they realize it happens they'll feel the same outage we all did our first time. The umbrage, the "you were supposed to be unbiased" cry I grew up on NPR. It was always on in the background. On the way to and from daycare, in the car on Sunday mornings on the way to the uu church, playing out of a small boom box on the back porch, or winding up the miles of a long road trip. Prairie Home Companion, Car Talk, Schickelie mix, etc, all were the background music to my childhood. When I entered adult life, I tried to continue listening, but leading to, during, and after the 2016 election, the biases became too base, too visible to ignore

baseballdork 2y ago
Is there no chance that instead of NPR all of a sudden being exposed as biased, it was your own biases that were exposed?
- brewdad 2y ago
  My problem with NPR is that is the spirit of remaining unbiased, they allow both sides of the political spectrum to say their piece with little to no push back. Whichever side spews the best lines of BS wins regardless of the actual facts on the ground.
  - mulderc 2y ago
    Can’t speak for all of NPR but what I listen to regularly pushes back on claims from both sides. My local affiliate had an especially critical interview with the state governor and the interviewer and governor agreed that they should do these hour long interviews more often.
    - dredmorbius 2y ago
      NPR has been pushing back harder, and will label untruths as "lies" where earlier (circa 2015/16) it was very reluctant to do so. Many news organisations in the US tried very hard through the 2016 campaign cycle to normalise what was a very-far-from-normal. I've recently been going through some Brookings Institution podcasts from ~2012--2016, and the degree to which the hard-right shift was normalised at the time is telling. NPR in particular avoided the word "lie" as late as 2017, see: "NPR And The Word 'Liar': Intent Is Key", January 25, 20175:00 AM ET <https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/25/511503605/npr-and-the-l-word-intent-is-key https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/25/511503605...> Contrast 2024 where this is no longer a problem: "162 lies and distortions in a news conference. NPR fact-checks former President Trump", August 11, 20247:00 AM ET <https://www.npr.org/2024/08/11/nx-s1-5070566/trump-news-conference https://www.npr.org/2024/08/11/nx-s1-5070566/trump-news-conf...> NPR also pressed the former president on lies in an interview in 2022. It didn't go well: "Pressed on his election lies, former President Trump cuts NPR interview short", January 12, 20225:01 AM ET <https://www.npr.org/2022/01/12/1072204478/donald-trump-npr-interview-presidential-election-lies-vaccines https://www.npr.org/2022/01/12/1072204478/donald-trump-npr-i...> My view is that NPR's stance change is a positive development.
  - listenallyall 2y ago
    At some point, you the audience member has to be able to whittle down two sides of an argument and determine who "wins", rather than having some broadcaster decide for you.
  - zifpanachr23 2y ago
    This is...kind of an insane take on what NPR does and does not cover? First, the insinuation that they make an effort to remain unbiased is kinda wild. As an NPR listener and donator, that isn't at all the impression I get. They seem to overwhelmingly cater their coverage and their slant towards people a lot like me. That's why I listen and why I pay and what paying customers actually expect (whether they are consciously aware of how they are supporting and consuming their own preferred bias in media is maybe 50/50 but whatever).
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
  People conflate bias with increased criticism of one side vs. the other. But those would only be equivalent if there was some law of the universe dictating that both sides of an issue were consistently equally deserving of criticism.
  - incompatible 2y ago
    I think this would be a desire for bothsidesism, the principle that (say) flat Earth theory and spherical Earth theory are both valid view points and should be given equal amounts of coverage.
- zifpanachr23 2y ago
  Maybe so, but that doesn't matter all that much. All journalism has a point of view and its impossible to be completely unbiased...the most suspicious kind of media consumers are those that cannot recognize the bias within the media they consume. NPR is undoubtedly a "leans left" shop in the same way Fox is undoubtedly "leans right". Of course, even if we were talking about the WSJ or Economist or something...that's still biased. Being dead center between the current interpretation of left or right is still a kind of bias.
  - chiefalchemist 2y ago
    > All journalism has a point of view and its impossible to be completely unbiased... So the alternative is to not even try? To double-down or triple-down on bias and shamelessly continue to self-label as journalism? To whine & cry about "the threat to democracy" while neglecting their duties as The Fourth Estate? I think not. The problem is simple: stop lowering the bar. Stop calling things journalism that don't qualify. If your pet barks, would you call it a cat? You've got Jim Leher is turning in his grave. https://www.openculture.com/2020/01/jim-lehrers-16-rules-for-being-a-journalist-with-integrity.html https://www.openculture.com/2020/01/jim-lehrers-16-rules-for...
    - watwut 2y ago
      No, the alternative is to be more honest about it. The whole debate about "objectivity" is because the previous definition of objectivity produced consistent bias. And by that I mean consistent huge bias. Objectivity meant that journalist had to identify two sides and report on both equally - even if the acts in question were not equal in any objective way. If I obviously lied and you obviously did not, articles did not reflected that at all. What was called objectivity enabled and facilitated bad actors. Consistently. Second issue was that just a selection of topics and selection of who will be allowed to express things itself creates bias. And the rules about that consistently disadvantaged certain groups and advantaged other groups.
      - chiefalchemist 2y ago
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > Is there no chance that instead of NPR all of a sudden being exposed as biased, it was your own biases that were exposed? There is a fairly simple heuristic to determine if a media outlet has a partisan bias. Does their coverage disproportionately portray one party in a positive light and the other party in a negative light? The US has two major political parties that are each supported by approximately the same number of people. It would be mighty shocking if it turned out that one of them was right about everything and the other was wrong about everything. So if that's the impression that a media outlet leaves you with, that is a biased media outlet. This is different than their coverage of an individual story. For any given issue, one of the parties might legitimately be right and the other one wrong. But that's not going to be true for every issue in the same direction.
  - aredox 2y ago
    "The Confederacy is not as bad as portrayed by the media in the pocket of the Union would let you believe"
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      That statement is unintentionally factually accurate and clearly an attempt to make someone try to defend the despised enemy, which really proves my point. The Confederacy were obviously wrong on slavery but if they were right on something else then "Union media" would be the last place you'd find an objective account of it.
    - gottorf 2y ago
      Reasonable people can unironically agree with this statement without being a bad person or condoning slavery, so I suppose it's an illustrative point.
  - aredox 2y ago
    Republicans support a known liar, who lied and lies about almost everything. How could someone honest not portray them in a negative light? There is nothing redeemable about the whole Trump cult.
- paulmd 2y ago
  Not really. I think the change from Diane Rehm to JJ Johnson and now the new “1A” host is precisely emblematic of the decline of NPR/APM (I do not care about the difference) in that era.
  - standyro 2y ago
    Agreed. I was a longtime listener since I had fond memories of my dad listening in the car growing up, but it’s borderline unlistenable now. Emblematic of the drastic change this generation in the aims of journalism, where everything in public life has become politicized, and the goal is no longer to inform and engage listeners, but to persuade and influence.
    - paulmd 2y ago
      Yup. I used to listen to it while working summer jobs, something new every day to pass the time (not just politics either, Diane was almost a variety show in a sense, sometimes it’d be literature or authors or whatever too) and her retiring/her slot switching to 1A was really the catalyst for me to stop listening to npr altogether. I lasted a few months and realized it wasn’t going to get better and this was just the angle they wanted now. I adore Terri Gross tho, I should put fresh air on my podcast app.
washadjeffmad 2y ago
NPR does an excellent job of manufacturing a facade of being fair and disinterested, but in recent years, they've become more brazen about being a PR campaign for wealthy elites, their enterprises, and their politics, a la the Pareto principle. If you're against that, then NPR has been pretty intolerable for the past decade. NPR member stations are on the whole decent, but the way NPR came out in force against Sanders showed both how out of touch and unabashedly unreasonable they could be when called to toe their betters' line. I'd been a regular supporter through the early Car Talk and Science Friday days, ending with their disgusting behavior during the primaries. Pulling off making everyone look biased but you is quite a feat, and I'm impressed how many still consent rather than admit their emperor's indecency.
- chiefalchemist 2y ago
  Fwiw, I feel the same. What annoys me the most about NPR is the relentless gaslighting. They act / speak as if they don't have an agenda (i.e., bias) and the rest of us are too stupid to see it. There's a smug "we didn't say X or Y" attitude but the problem is the questions they don't ask, the subtle ins and outs they pretend don't exist. Their news feels redacted to the point it looks like Swiss cheese. I enjoy the speciality shows (e.g., Hidden Brain) but the sociopolitical current events on the local NYC and PHL stations is gringe-tastic too often.
  - chiefalchemist 2y ago
    Oops. I should have said, "Their news feels redacted to the point it looks like Swiss cheese, and smells like Limburger."
- zht 2y ago
  are there elites that are not wealthy? or does wealthy elite just sound better as a soundbite?
  - harimau777 2y ago
    Academics, artists, and public intellectuals reasonably qualify as elite while often not being wealthy.
DoctorOW 2y ago
Unbiased news is literally impossible now that "alternative facts" are in the mainstream. Take climate change for example: Party A: "As greenhouse gasses increase, so too does the temperature according to historical measurements. We should do something about this." Party B: "There is no way to measure the global temperature, and anyone claiming to have done so is working for Party A. We shouldn't address this at all." Whether or not you as a journalist, were to include a factoid about it being the hottest summer on record, you're now doing biased reporting. Sure, if you include the fact you're siding with Party A and saying the fact is wrong is siding with Party B. However, not talking about it all is still siding with Party B, since that's their end goal. Factually accurate, inaccurate, and ambiguous are therefore all a form of bias.
- roenxi 2y ago
  The trick it to be biased towards truth and humility. If they choose which party to align with based on considerations other than considering which party believes what that would be an excellent start. For example, in this case a publication could run an article saying that the hottest summer on record just happened, and present cases on how big a problem it is and how much in the way of resources should be dedicated to solving it - including the case for the whole thing being a non-issue. That'd be pretty good journalism. They'd probably manage to upset both parties or make both of them happy if they did that IMO.
- gottorf 2y ago
  Neither of those are factually accurate statements; they pair a claim to fact in the first half with a policy proposal in the second half. "We should/should not do something about this" is not a statement of fact, it's a value proposition. So if a media outlet is consistently pushing the same value proposition (namely, that we should expend considerable effort to counteract climate change), then it's biased, regardless of the factual accuracy of what they report.
dredmorbius 2y ago
Biases in which direction?
eltoxo 2y ago
I love NPR but to believe NPR is not biased reporting is completely delusional.
ekianjo 2y ago
biased ? sure they are. Groundnews ranks them as clear left leaning. https://ground.news/interest/npr https://ground.news/interest/npr
- harimau777 2y ago
  I think that's an overly simplistic reading. The rate them as leaning left with high factualness. While that's not perfect, calling that clear left leaning is likely to give the wrong impression.
  - autoexec 2y ago
    > rate them as leaning left with high factualness. that seems to be the trend with left leaning news sources. They don't make up lies, but they hide truths leaving people with a distorted view of the facts they have. It's nice to be able to trust that you're not being directly lied to by NPR, but you still end up feeling deceived. The right leaning news sources tend to tell a mix of truth and complete fabrications, while also refusing talk about truths inconvenient to the narrative they're telling so sure NPR is the clear winner in that sense, but the bar is set so low that it can't really be counted as a victory.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      > They don't make up lies, but they hide truths leaving people with a distorted view of the facts they have. It's nice to be able to trust that you're not being directly lied to by NPR, but you still end up feeling deceived. It's not just the omissions though, it's the implications. For example, they were covering the Republicans saying they want to do something about the immigrants and Fentanyl illegally coming over the border. NPR's coverage made a point of telling you that most of the Fentanyl comes over at marked border crossings rather than through the desert, strongly implying this was meant to be refuting some lie the Republicans were telling. But the clip they aired didn't have the Republicans claiming otherwise. They were plausibly talking about the desert in the context of the people crossing there. And installing a border fence there could arguably free up some customs resources to use to inspect more trucks. But they're so desperate for a "gotcha" that they make one up.

baseballdork 2y ago

Is there no chance that instead of NPR all of a sudden being exposed as biased, it was your own biases that were exposed?

brewdad 2y ago
My problem with NPR is that is the spirit of remaining unbiased, they allow both sides of the political spectrum to say their piece with little to no push back. Whichever side spews the best lines of BS wins regardless of the actual facts on the ground.
- mulderc 2y ago
  Can’t speak for all of NPR but what I listen to regularly pushes back on claims from both sides. My local affiliate had an especially critical interview with the state governor and the interviewer and governor agreed that they should do these hour long interviews more often.
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    NPR has been pushing back harder, and will label untruths as "lies" where earlier (circa 2015/16) it was very reluctant to do so. Many news organisations in the US tried very hard through the 2016 campaign cycle to normalise what was a very-far-from-normal. I've recently been going through some Brookings Institution podcasts from ~2012--2016, and the degree to which the hard-right shift was normalised at the time is telling. NPR in particular avoided the word "lie" as late as 2017, see: "NPR And The Word 'Liar': Intent Is Key", January 25, 20175:00 AM ET <https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/25/511503605/npr-and-the-l-word-intent-is-key https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/25/511503605...> Contrast 2024 where this is no longer a problem: "162 lies and distortions in a news conference. NPR fact-checks former President Trump", August 11, 20247:00 AM ET <https://www.npr.org/2024/08/11/nx-s1-5070566/trump-news-conference https://www.npr.org/2024/08/11/nx-s1-5070566/trump-news-conf...> NPR also pressed the former president on lies in an interview in 2022. It didn't go well: "Pressed on his election lies, former President Trump cuts NPR interview short", January 12, 20225:01 AM ET <https://www.npr.org/2022/01/12/1072204478/donald-trump-npr-interview-presidential-election-lies-vaccines https://www.npr.org/2022/01/12/1072204478/donald-trump-npr-i...> My view is that NPR's stance change is a positive development.
- listenallyall 2y ago
  At some point, you the audience member has to be able to whittle down two sides of an argument and determine who "wins", rather than having some broadcaster decide for you.
- zifpanachr23 2y ago
  This is...kind of an insane take on what NPR does and does not cover? First, the insinuation that they make an effort to remain unbiased is kinda wild. As an NPR listener and donator, that isn't at all the impression I get. They seem to overwhelmingly cater their coverage and their slant towards people a lot like me. That's why I listen and why I pay and what paying customers actually expect (whether they are consciously aware of how they are supporting and consuming their own preferred bias in media is maybe 50/50 but whatever).
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
People conflate bias with increased criticism of one side vs. the other. But those would only be equivalent if there was some law of the universe dictating that both sides of an issue were consistently equally deserving of criticism.
- incompatible 2y ago
  I think this would be a desire for bothsidesism, the principle that (say) flat Earth theory and spherical Earth theory are both valid view points and should be given equal amounts of coverage.
zifpanachr23 2y ago
Maybe so, but that doesn't matter all that much. All journalism has a point of view and its impossible to be completely unbiased...the most suspicious kind of media consumers are those that cannot recognize the bias within the media they consume. NPR is undoubtedly a "leans left" shop in the same way Fox is undoubtedly "leans right". Of course, even if we were talking about the WSJ or Economist or something...that's still biased. Being dead center between the current interpretation of left or right is still a kind of bias.
- chiefalchemist 2y ago
  > All journalism has a point of view and its impossible to be completely unbiased... So the alternative is to not even try? To double-down or triple-down on bias and shamelessly continue to self-label as journalism? To whine & cry about "the threat to democracy" while neglecting their duties as The Fourth Estate? I think not. The problem is simple: stop lowering the bar. Stop calling things journalism that don't qualify. If your pet barks, would you call it a cat? You've got Jim Leher is turning in his grave. https://www.openculture.com/2020/01/jim-lehrers-16-rules-for-being-a-journalist-with-integrity.html https://www.openculture.com/2020/01/jim-lehrers-16-rules-for...
  - watwut 2y ago
    No, the alternative is to be more honest about it. The whole debate about "objectivity" is because the previous definition of objectivity produced consistent bias. And by that I mean consistent huge bias. Objectivity meant that journalist had to identify two sides and report on both equally - even if the acts in question were not equal in any objective way. If I obviously lied and you obviously did not, articles did not reflected that at all. What was called objectivity enabled and facilitated bad actors. Consistently. Second issue was that just a selection of topics and selection of who will be allowed to express things itself creates bias. And the rules about that consistently disadvantaged certain groups and advantaged other groups.
    - chiefalchemist 2y ago
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> Is there no chance that instead of NPR all of a sudden being exposed as biased, it was your own biases that were exposed? There is a fairly simple heuristic to determine if a media outlet has a partisan bias. Does their coverage disproportionately portray one party in a positive light and the other party in a negative light? The US has two major political parties that are each supported by approximately the same number of people. It would be mighty shocking if it turned out that one of them was right about everything and the other was wrong about everything. So if that's the impression that a media outlet leaves you with, that is a biased media outlet. This is different than their coverage of an individual story. For any given issue, one of the parties might legitimately be right and the other one wrong. But that's not going to be true for every issue in the same direction.
- aredox 2y ago
  "The Confederacy is not as bad as portrayed by the media in the pocket of the Union would let you believe"
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    That statement is unintentionally factually accurate and clearly an attempt to make someone try to defend the despised enemy, which really proves my point. The Confederacy were obviously wrong on slavery but if they were right on something else then "Union media" would be the last place you'd find an objective account of it.
  - gottorf 2y ago
    Reasonable people can unironically agree with this statement without being a bad person or condoning slavery, so I suppose it's an illustrative point.
- aredox 2y ago
  Republicans support a known liar, who lied and lies about almost everything. How could someone honest not portray them in a negative light? There is nothing redeemable about the whole Trump cult.
paulmd 2y ago
Not really. I think the change from Diane Rehm to JJ Johnson and now the new “1A” host is precisely emblematic of the decline of NPR/APM (I do not care about the difference) in that era.
- standyro 2y ago
  Agreed. I was a longtime listener since I had fond memories of my dad listening in the car growing up, but it’s borderline unlistenable now. Emblematic of the drastic change this generation in the aims of journalism, where everything in public life has become politicized, and the goal is no longer to inform and engage listeners, but to persuade and influence.
  - paulmd 2y ago
    Yup. I used to listen to it while working summer jobs, something new every day to pass the time (not just politics either, Diane was almost a variety show in a sense, sometimes it’d be literature or authors or whatever too) and her retiring/her slot switching to 1A was really the catalyst for me to stop listening to npr altogether. I lasted a few months and realized it wasn’t going to get better and this was just the angle they wanted now. I adore Terri Gross tho, I should put fresh air on my podcast app.

washadjeffmad 2y ago

NPR does an excellent job of manufacturing a facade of being fair and disinterested, but in recent years, they've become more brazen about being a PR campaign for wealthy elites, their enterprises, and their politics, a la the Pareto principle. If you're against that, then NPR has been pretty intolerable for the past decade. NPR member stations are on the whole decent, but the way NPR came out in force against Sanders showed both how out of touch and unabashedly unreasonable they could be when called to toe their betters' line. I'd been a regular supporter through the early Car Talk and Science Friday days, ending with their disgusting behavior during the primaries. Pulling off making everyone look biased but you is quite a feat, and I'm impressed how many still consent rather than admit their emperor's indecency.

chiefalchemist 2y ago
Fwiw, I feel the same. What annoys me the most about NPR is the relentless gaslighting. They act / speak as if they don't have an agenda (i.e., bias) and the rest of us are too stupid to see it. There's a smug "we didn't say X or Y" attitude but the problem is the questions they don't ask, the subtle ins and outs they pretend don't exist. Their news feels redacted to the point it looks like Swiss cheese. I enjoy the speciality shows (e.g., Hidden Brain) but the sociopolitical current events on the local NYC and PHL stations is gringe-tastic too often.
- chiefalchemist 2y ago
  Oops. I should have said, "Their news feels redacted to the point it looks like Swiss cheese, and smells like Limburger."
zht 2y ago
are there elites that are not wealthy? or does wealthy elite just sound better as a soundbite?
- harimau777 2y ago
  Academics, artists, and public intellectuals reasonably qualify as elite while often not being wealthy.

DoctorOW 2y ago

Unbiased news is literally impossible now that "alternative facts" are in the mainstream. Take climate change for example: Party A: "As greenhouse gasses increase, so too does the temperature according to historical measurements. We should do something about this." Party B: "There is no way to measure the global temperature, and anyone claiming to have done so is working for Party A. We shouldn't address this at all." Whether or not you as a journalist, were to include a factoid about it being the hottest summer on record, you're now doing biased reporting. Sure, if you include the fact you're siding with Party A and saying the fact is wrong is siding with Party B. However, not talking about it all is still siding with Party B, since that's their end goal. Factually accurate, inaccurate, and ambiguous are therefore all a form of bias.

roenxi 2y ago
The trick it to be biased towards truth and humility. If they choose which party to align with based on considerations other than considering which party believes what that would be an excellent start. For example, in this case a publication could run an article saying that the hottest summer on record just happened, and present cases on how big a problem it is and how much in the way of resources should be dedicated to solving it - including the case for the whole thing being a non-issue. That'd be pretty good journalism. They'd probably manage to upset both parties or make both of them happy if they did that IMO.
gottorf 2y ago
Neither of those are factually accurate statements; they pair a claim to fact in the first half with a policy proposal in the second half. "We should/should not do something about this" is not a statement of fact, it's a value proposition. So if a media outlet is consistently pushing the same value proposition (namely, that we should expend considerable effort to counteract climate change), then it's biased, regardless of the factual accuracy of what they report.

dredmorbius 2y ago

Biases in which direction?

eltoxo 2y ago

I love NPR but to believe NPR is not biased reporting is completely delusional.

ekianjo 2y ago

biased ? sure they are. Groundnews ranks them as clear left leaning. https://ground.news/interest/npr https://ground.news/interest/npr

harimau777 2y ago
I think that's an overly simplistic reading. The rate them as leaning left with high factualness. While that's not perfect, calling that clear left leaning is likely to give the wrong impression.
- autoexec 2y ago
  > rate them as leaning left with high factualness. that seems to be the trend with left leaning news sources. They don't make up lies, but they hide truths leaving people with a distorted view of the facts they have. It's nice to be able to trust that you're not being directly lied to by NPR, but you still end up feeling deceived. The right leaning news sources tend to tell a mix of truth and complete fabrications, while also refusing talk about truths inconvenient to the narrative they're telling so sure NPR is the clear winner in that sense, but the bar is set so low that it can't really be counted as a victory.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    > They don't make up lies, but they hide truths leaving people with a distorted view of the facts they have. It's nice to be able to trust that you're not being directly lied to by NPR, but you still end up feeling deceived. It's not just the omissions though, it's the implications. For example, they were covering the Republicans saying they want to do something about the immigrants and Fentanyl illegally coming over the border. NPR's coverage made a point of telling you that most of the Fentanyl comes over at marked border crossings rather than through the desert, strongly implying this was meant to be refuting some lie the Republicans were telling. But the clip they aired didn't have the Republicans claiming otherwise. They were plausibly talking about the desert in the context of the people crossing there. And installing a border fence there could arguably free up some customs resources to use to inspect more trucks. But they're so desperate for a "gotcha" that they make one up.