I am imagining that a fair number of my readers and many more in the general liberal/progressive world are saying something like this: “They’ve defunded NPR (National Public Radio)! How dare they! It’s an outrage!”
I find myself more inclined to agree with Uri Berliner, longtime NPR journalist who wrote that NPR has no one to blame but themselves. Berliner ran afoul of his longtime journalistic home when, a year ago, he published a critique of the network he loved and had served for 25 years. He said that NPR had become so biased that it no longer merited public (i.e. taxpayer) funding and support. For blowing the whistle, he was suspended and publicly, and falsely, attacked and shamed by NPR’s CEO, Katherine Maher.
The link above will direct you to a number of examples of what Berliner offered as NPR bias and blind spots, both in what they covered and how the coverage was framed.
I’ve listened to NPR and its television sibling PBS for a long time, as well as supported both financially. I’ve loved such shows as “Car Talk,” “This American Life,” and “Prairie Home Companion.” But I agree with Berliner that something changed somewhere along the way. The stories highlighted and the perspective taken by NPR became predictable, repetitive, and tedious.
I want to make two observations related to the NPR story, as I think it has broader ramifications.
One, we live in a time when, “You must take sides!” has become the accepted imperative. That is, you must be either an all-in Republican or an or all-in Democrat, MAGA or Progressive, Team Red or Team Blue, genuflecting to Emperor Trump or a woke progressive. I hate this. It makes us stupid. It leads nowhere. That said, I suspect that many people disagree with me about this. Many do in fact believe that choosing sides, and choosing the right one, is today an absolute imperative, or at least smart marketing.
I don’t think so. I think the demand that we choose sides and never deviate or question or criticize our own is the problem, not the solution. NPR, at some point along the way, decided, as have other journalistic outlets like MSNBC or Fox, that a side must be taken. Even if that meant dismissing stories that seemed to threaten their team, such as the “lab leak theory of COVID origins.” Even if it meant uncritically hyping stories that boosted what they had decided was the correct cause, such as “gender affirming care,” in the great life and death struggle of American politics. As CEO of NPR Katherine Maher has been all-in on “we must take sides.” Journalism must be advocacy.
Were I to make a theological argument about this it would be to speak of idolatry. In choosing sides among the two contending political forces and agreeing to never question our side, we are making an idol, a false god, a graven or craven image.
That said, I do take sides, meaning the side of truth wherever it leads. The side of seeing people as complex individuals, not simplistically as members of one or the other team, tribe, or identity group. It seems to me that journalism worthy of the name does just this, seeks truth wherever it may lead.
A second observation is that liberals, a group in which I include myself, live in a shrinking bubble and don’t really get what is going on in America today. Progressivism has a host of commitments that many, I suspect, most Americans simply don’t share, don’t buy, and don’t get. And this isn’t because they are evil or racists or misogynists (though some are). We liberals have been the establishment for a long time, dominating the culture. And that establishment like all establishments has grown smug and arrogant. We assume that our way of seeing the world is the only right way to see it and that anyone who doesn’t see it as we do is somehow beyond the pale, benighted, antediluvian.
My own liberal/progressive denomination, The United Church of Christ, provides a case-in-point. We are so convinced of our own superior enlightenment and rectitude that it never occurred to us to think that our precipitous decline meant anything other than that the majority of Americans were malign and callous people who didn’t get it (or that we only needed more and better marketing).
True, there is a lot of crap on the conservative, right-wing side. There are, pace Hillary, some deplorable people. There are lies upon lies. But here’s the thing: they don’t have the exclusive franchise on any of that.
I happen to think that there are some principles of liberalism, in both its political and religious forms, that are true and worth fighting for. But are we the truly “enlightened” in all respects? (Sorry.) Are we the truly righteous who have no need of self-examination or repentance, i.e. changing direction? (Again, sorry.) Too often we are the comfortable, the privileged who don’t know economic or social jeopardy, who have prospered while others have been left behind.
NPR had become a prime example of both these trends. You must choose sides, become an advocate, do advocacy journalism. We know better, we are the enlightened.
I feel for the fine journalists who have been and will be affected, and for the small stations in remote parts of the country that will struggle or disappear. It is unlikely that NPR itself will cease to exist. Maybe it can become what it seems to want to be, an independent, (not taxpayer-funded) progressive outlet.
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It is impossible to tell all truths in a single story. Does that make it biased? I’m not sure it always does, but I don’t think that’s the right question. In this case, the right question is whether an organization, industry, or cultural resource (for lack of a better word) is growing and adapting to the world today, is serving emerging voices and different perspectives. If it isnt, it is vulnerable to having change thrust upon it.
Agreed
FWIW, we take up the question of how much culpability NPR has in precipitating this Trumpist defunding in the latest episode of Blue City Blues. It’s a conversation with UPenn professor Jonathan Zimmerman, who penned a recent piece arguing that public media (and elite universities) would be better served by openly admitting their liberal cultural and political orientation. Zimmerman’s a very smart and interesting thinker, and his insights are worth considering.
“Trump Just Defunded Public Media. Did NPR Help Bring This Disaster on Itself?”
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blue-city-blues/id1777289409?i=1000718978804
NPR certainly makes some people uncomfortable. Like those who don’t believe in science, modern medicine, or think the earth is only 6,000 years old.
I totally disagree with your conclusions about NPR. Many, many time I have heard them present various viewpoints on issues with respect and openness.
This commentary is an example of how Republican/Conservative operatives shape and distort public opinion and perception.
In context, it needs to be acknowledged that the Republican political operatives have a history of ginning up fake scandals, e.g. John Kerry’s Swiftboating, Hillary Clinton’s email server, Tim Walz “stolen valor”, Benghazi.
NPR’s Uri Berliner in his article in The Free Press criticizes NPR in failing to report on three events:
1) Hunter Biden laptop
2) Mueller Report finding “no collusion”
3) COVID Lab Leak theory
Let’s begin with the Hunter Biden laptop story. Remember that this story was broken by The New York Post, owned by Rubert Murdoch. When the story broke with 3 weeks remaining in the election and how the story broke are red flags that this is a political hit piece. NPR and other mainstream media were justifiably cautious in providing legitimacy to the story, even more so when it is revealed later that both Rudy Guiliani and Steve Bannon had access to the laptop’s contents before they were provided to the New York Post.
As to the Mueller report, let’s remember that “no collusion” was White House spin language by Attorney General William Barr in his letter to Congress and his press conference. That language was purposeful and served to water down and deflect the conclusions of the report, which thoroughly documented the fact that Russia was an active participant in the 2016 presidential election on the side of the Trump campaign. The fact that this article adopts that language unquestionably is an indication of how successful that spin effort was.
Here is how PBS framed the Mueller report:
“And while Mueller shows the Trump campaign worked with individual Russians, he found the evidence didn’t show any conspiracy or coordination by the Trump campaign.”
— Lisa Desjardins, PBS.
“That’s been the president’s mantra ever since Mueller’s report came out. And like Lisa said, on the collusion-conspiracy issue, the president is right. The Mueller report doesn’t establish any such wrongdoing. But on the issue of obstruction, Mueller doesn’t agree with the president.”
— William Brangham, PBS.
“To Mueller, obstruction is a crime of paramount importance. He went out of his way to say that in public. … Mueller’s report lays out a long string of examples where it finds evidence, sometimes substantial evidence, that the president tried to obstruct justice.”
— Lisa Desjardins, PBS.
(Ref: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/all-of-the-mueller-reports-major-findings-in-less-than-30-minutes)
Both of these stories need to be placed in a broader context of an on-going covert and overt effort for control of Ukraine’s minerals, energy and factories. Team Trump has long established ties to the Russian mafia state and oligarchy. Trump political operative Paul Manafort was hired to do a make-over on Russia’s selected proxy for President of Ukraine Victor Yanukovych.
As reported by Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), Russia’s Gazprom which supplies natural gas to Europe and transships through Ukraine was privatized by Vladimir Putin in 2005 and serves as means to enrich Putin’s inner circle of mafia state oligarchs.
The war in Ukraine is not about security of Russia. It is about why wars are always fought which is who gets to control the wealth of the country. Which explains why Burisma, the largest private natural gas producer in Ukraine, brought onto its board of directors influential players like former CIA officer Cofer Black, ex-Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski, and of course Hunter Biden.
It not coincidence that the most promising Ukrainian gas fields for exploration and development are in the Donbas region, the area under dispute. The contents of the Hunter Biden laptop are all too convenient to implicate and undermine efforts to pry away Russian/Putin control of Europe’s natural gas supply.
There may not be hard evidence of conspiracy, but certainly one can draw the conclusion that the interests of Trump coincide with interests of the Russian mafia state.
In my view what is really happening concerning NPR/PBS has nothing to do with fairness of reporting. That is just spin and manipulation. It is all about eliminating independent institutions that serve as checks to authoritarian regimes. Authoritarian regimes need to control the narrative. It is advantageous to authoritarians to eliminate USAID/Radio Free Europe. It is advantageous to authoritarians to reduce and minimize the reach of NPR. Lesson here is that authoritarian regimes will use any means necessary to do so.
Dan Kennedy, media scholar, noted several factual problems in Berliner’s critique of NPR.
https://dankennedy.net/2024/04/11/fish-in-a-barrel-berliners-case-against-npr-is-based-on-false-and-out-of-context-facts/
Also, I think you have pretty clearly chosen a side when you put gender-affirming care in scare quotes. This is a term used by medical doctors — not just your dreaded “woke progressives.”