Is NPR Taunting The Tea Party?
By Jason Kenney | Tuesday, April 5th, 2011 | ColumnsAt the top of the hour NPR runs top news stories for about five minutes. Today at 10am a segment on Congressional budget negotiations came up…
…compromise, a cornerstone of the Founding Fathers’ vision, is far from the lips from the Tea Party backed members of Congress…
In a news segment, folks, not commentary.
Now I’m a fan of NPR. I find its programming engaging and typically unbiased, with any slant usually being more in the stories they tend to cover rather than actual editorializing within the story itself. And, admittedly, I’m torn on the funding issue. There is a lot of programming NPR and PBS provide that is not available elsewhere and provides educational benefits to everyone. I grew up watching it, I listen regularly and have had many a driveway moment with its programming. But is it the proper role of government to fund it?
With this funding being challenged by the right, Ira Glass, host of This American Life, called on NPR to fight back against this “re-branding” as biased news.
“It is killing me that people on the right are going around trying to basically re-brand us, saying that it’s biased news, it’s left-wing news, when I feel like anybody who listens to the shows knows that it’s not,” he said. “And we are not fighting back, we are not saying anything back.
The problem is, this “re-branding” is hardly inaccurate when you have editorializing in news segments on the Founding Fathers’ vision in an attempt to get in a little dig on the Tea Party merely because you can.
NPR has every right to fight back. Their funding is on the line and they’re losing the media and branding war. But feeding fuel to the fire because of journalistic bias or just to get a dig in is hardly going to help.
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About the author
Jason Kenney has blogged at J’s Notes since 2001, is the director of RedStormPAC providing online fundraising for Republican candidates in Virginia, and co-founder of K6 Consulting. He is a graduate from Virginia Commonwealth University and resides in Richmond, Virginia.
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One Response to "Is NPR Taunting The Tea Party?"
Jason,
In a news segment, folks, not commentary.
There is no difference. All news is commentary. Once you step outside of “normal” news channels and see what is really happening, it’s at first shocking and then infuriating to confront the reality of how the debate is controlled. Certain subjects are never brought up. Most often, though, the public is instructed on what to think through the talk shows having panels of pundits presenting and “debating” the left-right viewpoints. No other views are given any credence, or even any voice. The only possible or viable views are either tradition “left” or “right” ones.
Individual liberty? Does not conform to the needs of the security and surveillance state (left and right) or the anti-property rights crowd (left and right). So, it’s never discussed except to say how radical anyone is who believes in such a thing.
When was the last time you saw anything on the need to balance the budget, for example, presented as something that was actually possible to do?
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