Is NPR the National Propaganda for Republicans?

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

I'm listening to this podcast from the Diane Rhem Show, and the first hour today they discussed Blagojevich. There are a number of callers accusing the show (and NPR at large) as being part of the Republican propaganda machine.

I know people's blood is up on both sides of this issue, but it's piqued my curiosity. In my experience, NPR has been fairly liberal, but that's just my experience. What about you guys? Does NPR have a conservative streak that I'm just not noticing or do those callers need to adjust their tinfoil hats?

[whippo]

1. If they mentioned Blago and Obama in the same show, they are repug tools.

[YOY]

2. NPR sometimes tries REALLY hard to be unbiased.

But the middle ground of far-right and center is still to the right. I heard Clinton and Bush's economic advisors talking a year or so ago. They agreed on so much it made me ill.

[Captain Hilts]

5. The rt. wing has played the refs really well. nt

[jzola]

3. Yes!

They used to be much more balanced and then Bush started putting his own people in charge. He didn't manage to corrupt it totally but it is definitely not the station it was in the nineties. Diane Rehm has always tended to let right wingers get away with stuff---though I have heard her nail a person or two now and then.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

8. Thanks.

I just started listening to her show about a week ago. I mostly listen to the shows from the Northeast, which aren't too bad usually.

[Robbien]

4. The RNC installed so many GOPers on the Board of Governors

that NPR has a hard time trying to disguise their GOP bent.

[aldo]

6. You got it

I almost vomited over one of their specials on Cheney.


Republicanists = economic terrorists. They hate the American way of life. They hate the middle class.

[Venceremos]

7. I'm in Illinois and of course,

the local NPR call in shows are all Blagojevich, all the time. I don't see any conservative streak in the shows I'm hearing in my area, they're just reporting the news and responding to a barrage of angry Illinois voters who want Blago gone and NOW.

There aren't any serious attempts to tie him to Obama on the Senate seat sale issue, but some reporters are questioning and digging to see if there's dirty ties somewhere else. Personally, I think that's fair, considering the depth of Blago's corruption.

[Traveling_Home]

10. No -Time to limit what they are allowed to investigate or

we'll turn pirate and hang them all!!!

Argggghhhhhhh

[Chef]

9. Not Biased, lazy

On Morning Edition this morning they interviewed some Reagan stooge who espoused the fabrication that the economic meltdown was Clinton's fault because they forced Fannie Mae to loan to poor people. The only mentioned that some people disagreed with that theory. They should have never put the puece on without having someone call BULLSHIT on him. It passed as fact.

[Catherine Vincent]

11. I heard the stooge this a.m. that said that.

The interviewee didn't challenge him either.

[madrchsod]

12. npr is right of center..

i used to listen to npr during the day but i can listen to air america now. i do listen to the bbc overnight and local programming

[Two Americas]

13. very right wing

They provide a platform for WSJ mouthpieces and AET propagandists on every subject, and very rarely challenge the right wing ideas that fill up all of their shows.

The problem for people in seeing just how extremely biased and conservative NPR has become, is that we have come to see right versus left as being determined by positions on a handful of the right wing's "culture war" issues. On all issues of Capital versus Labor, the investor class versus the working class, profits versus people, NPR is consistent in taking the right wing point of view and in biasing all of their "news" coverage to be in alignment with that.

[TreasonousBastard]

14. When Diane comes back she...

can bury most of the AAR and other radio lefties-- her bias against what's going on in the White House is pretty blatant and she's spot on in her interview texchnique to get them to expose how empty they are.

It's not so much hating the White House, or Republicans, but she seems to be genuinely repulsed by a lot of what's going on.

Anyway, I listen to NPR all the time and what might appear to be "bias" is often letting the assholes hang themselves. It's not an interviewer's job to argue with a subject, but they can lead them to a spot where they trip themselves up. Which Diane, and others, often do.

(A study was recently done, by the Annenberg people I believe, which shows that how a media outlet is perceived usually depends upon the biases of the listener-- so it stand to reason NPR would be hated by both left and right.)