Journalists are always acting as though only liberals have agency. "If we just talk about things differently, everything will be great." But if someone is hitti

Journalists are always acting as though only liberals have agency. "If we just talk about things differently, everything will be great." But if someone is hitting you over the head, not every element of the relationship is in your control. From its first day of operation there have been people wanting to tear NPR down precisely because they do not control its content. The choice they have offered is "be controlled by us or we will destroy you." These aren't listeners saying this, but people who do control other media the listeners listen to. People who control ever more media with each passing year, in fact. At this rate, they control more every week. The people seeking to control NPR don't want to argue about particular articles. They want to argue about NPR itself, and no newsroom wants themselves to be the story. It's a hard beat to cover. No matter how hard you strive to be honest, thorough, disinterested, and engaging, you are in fact one of the parties, so anything you say is suspect and easily characterized as biased. Both-sides'ing stuff is a way to resist control, but there has been a backlash against that, because it is a compromise with the truth. It's lying by implication while not lying by outright assertion. It's lying in the interest of the people shaking you down.