8 ms·

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.

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.