On her blog Alicia Shepard recently made an enhanced response to her initial harsh defense of not using "coded language" like the word torture, Alicia Shepard makes the following bold claim:
"But I am shilling for strong, credible journalism that is as objective as humanly possible. I am shilling for NPR to practice journalism based on putting out reliable information, to the best of its ability -- without taking sides -- so the public can make its own informed decisions."
Hey that's a noble thing to shill for, eh? Let's see how her employer's doing in "putting out reliable information" about some major news stories of the past week.
- On June 24, 2009 the BBC released a damning report on the torture and abuse of detainees at the US-run Bagram airbase from 2002-2008.
- On June 29, 2009 the International Committee of the Red Cross released a report detailing the Israeli imposed poverty, despair, economic collapse, infrastructure failures, etc. being imposed on the population of the Gaza Strip.
- Yesterday, the Israeli Defense Forces
hijackedused enhanced boarding techniques to commandeer a boatload of humanitarian supplies in international waters,kidnappedused harsh removal tactics against its crew - including a Nobel Peace Prize Winner and a former (not lifetime) US Representative - and placed them in detention in Israel. - Today, Amnesty International released a report documenting multiple war crimes committed by Israel in its December assault on Gaza (and denounced the war crimes of rocket fire by Hamas).
How did NPR do?
- On the BBC detainee abuse story, CBS picked it up...but NOT NPR.
- On the Red Cross humanitarian disaster in Gaza, Voice of America got it...but NOT NPR.
- On the Israeli seizure of humanitarian supplies on the high seas, the Salem-News got it...but NOT NPR.
- On the Amnesty war crimes report, CBS again...but NOT NPR.
How's that for "strong, credible journalism"? My math might be a bit weak, but I'd say that's 0-for-4. At least Shepard was right about the shilling part.
- Mytwords's blog
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N...PR
heck I stopped calling them NPR (National Public Radio) in favor of N...PR (Public Relations). Of course, National Propaganda Radio works too...
They seem more interested in putting a positive PR slant on horrific things done by their Corporate Johns (what they laughingly call "sponsors"), US Government and its allies.
NPR
Cut off the financing, a noble experiment that went into uninterrupted shit mode about 30 years ago. I resent a dime being spent on NPR.