Thus Speaketh NPR's New Boss

So, along with news, underwriter announcements are choreographed on NPR. Peter Hart on Common Dreams: "Anyone who listens to NPR has heard plenty of corporate sponsorship announcements, and some listeners have raised substantive questions about whether those financial ties compromise NPR's journalism.... According to the new boss, nothing's going to change–you're just going to hear more about 'brands that matter' because you'll be 'interested' in them."

Here's a part of his interview with On the Media's Bob Garfield (9/5/14):

GARFIELD: You've said you can generate a lot more underwriting revenue than NPR has been getting, that we've essentially been undervaluing our ad inventory, considering the size and affluence of our audience. Which makes perfect sense, but it also infuriates and terrifies some listeners who fear for NPR's independence, and for its very soul. What can you say to talk them down?

MOHN: They're not going to, as a listener, notice anything different. We're not talking about adding more units to each hour. The only thing that I think they might perceive differently is that we're going to be talking about brands that matter a little bit more to them, ones they're interested in. And we're going to ask for larger commitments from these underwriters…. The audience is growing. It's not just affluent, it's a smart audience and it's very engaged. What more could a brand want than this type of audience?

HOW TO TELL NPR ISN'T TOO LIBERAL

A post today at the Undernews blog:

How to tell NPR isn't too liberal

This afternoon, discussing the budget negotiations and the possibility of a federal government shutdown, Mara Liasson said it would remain to be seen what the reaction would be on the part of "the voters, and, more importantly, the financial markets." - Pablo Davis

CHRIS HEDGES ON NPR (NO JOKE!)

NPR bills Inskeep's surprising interview with Chris Hedges this morning as a critique of the SOTU, and that it is, but Hedges also gives him a civics lesson. (My emphasis in bold.)

INSKEEP: Let me play a piece of tape here. This is from the State of the Union address, and I'm just interested what you think of the president's language as he talks about increasing the competitiveness of America.

President BARACK OBAMA: In the coming months, my administration will develop a proposal to merge, consolidate and reorganize the federal government in a way that best serves the goal of a more competitive America. I will submit that proposal to Congress for a vote and we will push to get it passed.

INSKEEP: Got some applause there.

Mr. HEDGES: Well, he quite consciously uses the language of the business community to indicate that he is pro-business.

INSKEEP: You mean the word competitiveness, talking about a...

Mr. HEDGES: Competitiveness...

INSKEEP: ...competitive America.

Mr. HEDGES: Investments in education, that kind of stuff.

INSKEEP: What's wrong with that? Don't people want America to be more competitive in the world marketplace?

Mr. HEDGES: Because government's not a corporation. Government is not about competition. Government is about addressing the necessities of citizens: health, education, housing, security, jobs, living wages, protection so that people have clean and safe water and food. It's not about business programs. And that, of course, is the ideology of the right wing, to not only to make government serve corporations but essentially reduce government and cut citizens loose.

INSKEEP: Well, you know the argument that is made against that. People will say, look, we can't afford education, the social services, all those things you just mentioned, unless the economy is strong and businesses are strong and people are making money and paying taxes.

Mr. HEDGES: Well, and they're right. But who's responsible for the debt peonage. It's not those people working extra shifts in WalMart.

INSKEEP: You're talking about the fact that the United States has a huge public debt now, much of it...

Mr. HEDGES: Yeah...

INSKEEP: ...owed to overseas investors.

Mr. HEDGES: That's the fault of Wall Street. I mean, they're the people who ratcheted it up. They're the people we had to bail out. It's not the person working on a minimum wage job, but they're the ones who are going to be made to suffer.

By the way, after you've clicked the interview link, you might want to note how NPR has named it.

Mondoweiss: NPR report on West Bank expulsion order makes horror a she-said/she-said story

From Mondoweiss: "NPR report on West Bank expulsion order makes horror a she-said/she-said debating point" Here's a bit but I recommend you read the whole post.

... nowhere does Garcia-Navarro grapple with the terrible inhumanity of a regime that has kept other people stateless for 60 years, depriving them not just of civil but human rights. A military occupation that arbitrarily defines the legitimate owners of a land as "infiltrators" is unspeakable. Why is "our" U.S. government paying for the illegal expulsions?

To do Garcia-Navarro justice, the on-air report gives details curiously absent from the transcript, but holes nevertheless remain. NPR’s transcript changes many terms and the order of the actual Garcia-Navarro report that aired this morning.

I've included choice bits of the actual broadcast that were not included in the online transcript of the story below. Why were they removed? They smooth over the ugly facts of the original broadcast. I guess we should also ask Lourdes Garcia-Navarro about the alterations.

"The question is: Does NPR deserve underwriting support from thinking and feeling people?"

Not if you listened on Thursday to NPR's All Things Considered's disgusting and disrespectful "remembrance" of Howard Zinn, who died the day before.

Fairness & Accuracy in Media & Reporting (FAIR) has issued an important Action Alert asking people to contact the NPR ombud to ask why "All Things Considered" brought on David Horowitz to trash Howard Zinn saying, "There is absolutely nothing in Howard Zinn's intellectual output that is worthy of any kind of respect." ... Details for how to contact NPR are here.

Here's my letter to Alicia Shephard, the NPR ombud:

David Horowitz ruthlessly and verbally attacked Dr Zinn on public radio a day following his death, when people were mourning. That is disgusting behaviour for a guest on ATC and your Ms Keyes should have called him on it. As a commenter wrote on this ATC story, "The question is: Does NPR deserve underwriting support from thinking and feeling people?" A very good question, especially since Vermont Public Radio and North Country Public Radio tell us continually that their listeners are sensitive and caring people – they donate generously to underwrite NPR programming! I am writing the management at those stations, demanding them to consider dropping your expensive programming.

I included the above in my letters to VPR and NCPR management, adding,

"I urge also that you contact Ms. Shepard, Vivian Schiller [NPR's President and CEO], and Ellen McDonnell [NPR's Executive Director of News Programming] and demand NPR issue an apology to Dr Zinn's family - in national print media and broadcast it on NPR and the local stations.

Recommended: NPRCheck, a blog that monitors NPR's news programs.

Cross posted at Antemedius.

It's not worth the anger, if no follow-through

North Country Public Radio and Vermont Public Radio, the two NPR affiliates in my area, offer some excellent local (and award-winning) programs, but I get extremely frazzled when I listen to - usually when on the road and rarely on my home radio - the NPR news and pundit programs. An interview with a smug, smart-ass Adam Davidson of NPR's Planet Money and "bailout" monitor and Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren happened over a week ago. TalkLeft calls it "infuriating," which indeed it is. (The comments at TL are also worth a read.) Corrente has a transcript of the ugly parts. I'd never listened to Planet Money or this interview until today. Actually, I admire Warren and think she's a breath of fresh air and definitely spot on in the thankless work she's doing now. I first heard her on Terri Gross's Fresh Air talking about the credit card industry (2007) and the rising costs of credit card debt (2008), and right away, I knew she was worth listening to.

Have you seen NPRCheck? It's a "watch-dog" blog full of gotcha comments by "liberals" and "progressive" listeners people - pissed off by the regular NPR correspondents and news analysts. It's true that NPR has earned the sobriquet "Nice Polite Republicans." I've read NPRCheck occasionally, just for fun, but never really take their rants seriously, because they love to complain, and that's all. I just wish these fuckin' arm-chair liberal types - whingers all - would take the advice of a commenter in the TL discussion on the Warren interview, it's [n]ot worth the anger, if no follow-through

Do what I did -- file a formal complaint with NPR. It does no good to blow our own gaskets merely amongst ourselves; you might as well just shrug your shoulders and move on, for all the good it does.

Rather, we should harness that anger for righteous purpose. If more liberal / progressive listeners complained consistently about the wasted airspace taken up by the biased likes of Adam Davidson, Mara Liasson and Cokie Roberts, I guarantee that it would eventually get NPR's attention.

I've commented on programs and have written the (useless, but well-paid) NPR Ombudsman, who rarely responds (with the usual excuses and formula letters). I'm even on some NPR Listen's panel and receive periodic questionnaires via email. I don't hesitate to complain about their biases when I have a chance. NCPR and VPR are always asking for money, but donations cannot be earmarked to local programming. So, next time they ask for a hand-out, I'll tell 'em, don't expect any dosh from me until they - as an affiliate - tell NPR to clean up its act.

(Cross-posted at Antemedius.)

THIS PROGRAM MADE POSSIBLE BY.....

A comment over at GMD:

Has anyone else noticed that lately the sponsorship list for NPR News / All Things Considered has included funding the the Department of Homeland Security???

I just mention it in case anyone still thinks of NPR as any kind of neutral news organization (I guess it was here that someone suggested NPR = Nice Polite Republicans).

But it still gives me the heebie-jeebies. The blurb is about how DHS is working to help employers by "confirming" the employable status of foreign workers. Uh huh. I don't think they've made those services available to the farmers of Vermont.

I'm no fan of National Propaganda Radio. I'd call the DHS 'sponsorship' an invitation for media collusion; they've done everything else in the past 8 years to push the government agenda. Not to mention any criticism of DHS by NPR could now be seen as....dissident. I wonder what the NPR ombudsperson would say.