The Gonzales coverage on Morning Edition was just appalling. First, they lead with a quote from Spector. No Democrats quoted at all. That’s been a continuing pattern—you’d think that Leahy wasn’t the committee chair and that the Republicans, led by Spector, were the ones bringing Gonzales to heel.
Worse, the Republicans, as usual, are using the incompetence dodge for the framing, when the framing ought to be perjury. But you’ll never hear a peep from them about that, and NPR doesn’t mention
Then, Juan Cole Williams covers the “voter fraud” angle, note the quotes, and that’s even worse:
Cole Williams leads with concerns from Republicans about “voter fraud,” reinforcing the phrase several times. Only about two minutes into the piece does Cole mention the expert study which concludes that there’s “no evidence” of voter fraud. Cole Williams does give the study a fair rundown, citing the reality that there are only isolated cases, and nothing “systemic.” He then reverts right back to the “voter fraud” meme, still treating it as if there were some reason to believe it exists, despite the evidence Cole just quoted, and citing Republican efforts to combat it with ID laws, and so forth. Which “drive the Democrats crazy” because they percieve it as voter suppression.
Classic example of the massive suckitude of “he said/she said” reporting. And when the facts support the Democrats, they’re buried, and there are no implications drawn from them.
[Like, say, a coordinated effort, run by Rove, to affect election outcomes by turning the Justice Department into an arm of the RNC, in two ways: (1) by targeting Democratic candidates in close races, and (2) by suppressing the Democratic vote systematically by denying voting rights. I mean, does anybody think it’s a coincidence that Rove used an RNC account?]
I expect transparent bias, distortion, and outright lying from FUX on a regular basis. I didn’t used to expect it from NPR, and I don’t want to get in the habit. No doubt NPR, like the rest of the government, has been infested with Regent University grads and Christianist
operatives, who will have to be purged. Sigh.
NOTE Thanks to Leah, “Cole” is corrected to Williams. Just goes to show which names the aware news-seeker retains, I guess.
Front page
wan cole and the rest of the polite republicans
drove me away from npr long ago. i wish i could convince more people to turn it off, like my sister. this is why the loss of air america (now that all the good people like seder have been replaced by hacks) is so devastating.
and it also tells us what we need to do here in the blogosphere: audio. we’re the only alternative to the SCLM
, as everyone here knows.
The good traditions
..of reporting facts and serving the public interest go down hard for most people. That they are the enemy hasn’t really caught on widely, and as ChiDyke says, its on the internet that we can begin to prove that to readers.
It really works out well for the criminals that we have grown up with certain expectations of these good things, and the GOPerverts can rely on a public that has not woken up to their plight. Taking over the government to use it against the people it’s supposed to serve has given the GOP’s a swift downhill road, but hopefully it’s led them to bottom out.
Ruth
Do you mean Juan Cole, or Juan Williams
Juan Cole is not a Republican, he’s not an NPR guy, although he has been interviewed on NPR.
Air America isn’t lost - it’s still going.
And NPR still has some of the best reporting you’ll find anywhere.
The difference between the way NPR covered the Virginia Tech story compared with the cable news outlets was stunning.
Juan Williams is a real weakness, as is Mara Liasson, and several others.
Turning off NPR strikes me a meaningless gesture.
As with PBS, we need to be working to protect these institutions, make them stronger, strong enough to weather the constant attacks they receive from the right. .
Is Bill Moyers wrong for appearing on PBS?
Yes, we need to criticize their work - and we should do it by sending emails to their ombudsman, critiques exactly like the one Lambert has posted here.
The right would like nothing better than for all of us to abandon public radio and public television, which is already almost on its last legs. And it’s damn faux-liberals like Michael Kinsley and all those TNR brats who are embarrassed by any support for those institutions, a hostility that springs from their elitist assumption that working class and non-academic middle class folks couldn’t possibly have any interest in Shakespeare productions, documentaries like Frontline, and on and on.
Make sure if you send a critque to NPR that you’ve got the names right.
gotta disagree, leah
i grok your point that there are still good people working for npr and cpb. however, by working with the essentially republican propagandists on most of the shows, the good people are basically giving cover to the ’nicer, more polite’ republican propaganda. “see, moyers works for pbs, it must be liberal!” when in fact these days it’s 50% center right and 25% hard right. supporting public tv and radio also sucks away the audience for open source media types, who for the most part don’t have the problems that make cpb productions so fucked up.
the local stuff, which can be good in some markets, is worth supporting, and i’ve been told by local public radio employees that you *can* give money to just the local shops. but i say that moyers and other right thinking folks who work for cpb should strike out with their own shows and market them elsewhere, on DVD, to new media outlets, etc. one good apple doesn’t make the spoiled barrel unspoilt.
as far as AA, i never really could get into it because of the ads- too many too often. and i didn’t really find the programming that stimulating. i read that thread that atrios linked to about seder’s replacement, and the comments pretty much agreed with what i said above- they’ve killed off the best hosts and shows at AA one by one, and replaced them with hacks. i’m sure there are still a few hosts worth listening to, but on the whole it seems like AA has been doomed by tin eared producers and financially fumbling managers. sorry to see if fail like this, but there you have it.
and i think you’re right- i don’t think lb got the host name right here. but then again, i really wouldn’t know as i don’t subject myself to this kind of anger generating nonsense anymore. :-)
take over your local pbs station
most of these stations are run by a volunteer Board of Directors, the thing to do is take them over.
I will say in defense of WETA, they finally dropped NPR except for 5 minute news snippets. It is all classical music now.
Have to disagree..
NPR is absolutely the best. There is a sense of journalistic integrity, unbiased reporting and responsibility in every one of their voices and stories.. Try finding that anywhere else.
First look at the facts, then disagree
Ramki:
They are the best, I agree. That’s not saying a lot. And the example I gave above simply cannot be described as “unbiased reporting.” Too bad. Once I would have agreed with you on “journalistic integrity” but no longer.
Honestly, when you have evidence that the “voter fraud” meme just isn’t true, why lead with what’s untrue, treat what is untrue is of equal weight with what the story itself shows is not true?
Isn’t there something wrong with that picture?
No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.
NPR infiltrated
NPR, before the Bush regime, was really great. Then Der Furer Bush sics the neo-con nazis onto NPR and the next thing you know, every other story was about god, christian faith and other right wing, pro israeli garbage. What the GOP wanted to do was simply silence a secular, public news outlet that is generally untrusting of the far right. I think the intent was to drive people away from NPR or just spread shameless lies and propaganda. And Juan Cole is a tool. NPR should send him packing once the Bush mafia is purged from the government.
Juan COLE is not a tool, dammit
Can we get these peoples’ names straight? I don’t listen to NPR because I don’t have a station in this area and am not a radio listener anyway except in the car, which is rare these days.
Juan Cole is the guy who writes Informed Comment and is the only source worth reading (imho) on anything Iraq or Middle East issues in general. He is going to be my nominee for both MacArthur and Nobel prizes as soon as somebody gets around to asking my opinion on the matter.
Whoever this is at NPR that y’all are reviling is Juan Somebodyelse, apparently Juan Williams from what better-informed Leah says above.
Sheesh, this is starting to take on uncomfortable overtones suggesting we are not capable of keeping two people named “Juan” straight in our heads.
Just a little touch of nominal aphasia, Xan
Sorry, what was I going to write about?
No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.