I’m not giving those fuckers a dime until they can Juan WIlliams. I suggest you all follow my example. I realize that this lapses into boycott territory, but honestly, why should anyone pay for what we can get for free on Fox?
NPR
by DougJ| 114 Comments
This post is in: Assholes
Lisa K.
I’m there.
Cat Lady
… and let them know why.
El Cid
Joan Kroc left them $200 million for basically having covered the leadup to the (most recent) Iraq more with somewhat greater independence than the rest of the broadcasters, and they used that as an opportunity to kiss way more Republican and conservative ass than ever before.
I’d rather listen to the official U.S. government broadcaster, the Voice of America, because unlike NPR they actually have to earn an audience of listeners around the world, particularly in the 3rd world, who would listen to NPR’s soft-pedaled conservative nationalism and laugh before turning away.
DougJ
. and let them know why.
I have. And everyone should.
Balconesfault
On Meet the Press, after Orrin Hatch did his best to illustrate why Republicans should be irrelevant to the healthcare reform debate … Morning Joe pretty much came right out and declared that given the Democratic majorities, any failure to pass healthcare should be viewed as a Obama failing to be able to deal with the Democrats in Congress.
In other words – Joe believes that Republicans are irrelevant to the healthcare reform debate.
From your mouth to God’s ears, Joe.
ricky
Does anyone who listens to NPR take Juan Williams seriousy any more? Why make him a martyr?
jwb
Juan Williams definitely sucks, but really the whole operation needs a huge overhaul—just like the rest of the MSM. I’ve supported NPR for more than 25 years, and I’m seriously thinking of not giving them money this year. I wish I could support the local programming on my public radio station without also giving to NPR, but unfortunately, I don’t think that is possible.
Eric U.
I haven’t been able to force myself to give them money for years. They certainly have some good stuff occasionally, but I can’t do it. Every time I listen, I get sucked in, and then they beat me over the head with republican bullshit. They still call me asking for money, I don’t know why. Last funding drive I got a call from a pompous professor type who was shocked when I told him NPR was a republican propaganda outfit. Apparently it’s subtle enough that you can ignore it if it’s your only source for news.
El Cid
On the plus side, I’m amused at ‘This Weak’ (I avoided the President McCain interview) watching the tag team of Paul Krugman and Robert Reich kick the shitbag teamup of George Will and David Axis Frum up and down the panel.
Balconesfault
The problem is that he’s picked up by other shows to represent a “liberal” POV, since everyone knows that NPR is socialism incarnate, and a black guy working for NPR must be Communist or something.
And if the Dems are doing something that even a communist NPR talking head cluck clucks at as being too leftist … wow, it must be so liberal that Lenin would be envious. Or something.
The NPR label gives Williams cover to be a useful tool, when his ability to shoot down right wing talking points is as good as Cheney’s ability to shoot quail. It’s his supposed friends who usually end up with the faceful of buckshot.
Jackie
I@jwb: I always come down to supporting the local coverage. Otherwise there is basically none. I have no interest in the latest crime wave or really big fire and I already know the weather outside. None of the commercial sources are worth a second of attention.
I do however send a nice note congradulating what I enjoy and blasting the national political coverage. I don’t know if they care, since they are getting the money anyway, but it makes me feel better about it.
used to be disgusted
I’m not boycotting NPR. Too much like cutting off my nose to spite my face.
But I totally agree that the Juan Williams interview I heard yesterday was utter crap. Especially his use of “nuclear option” to describe a completely normal procedural maneuver. What’s the address to write to?
JK
What’s wrong with lapsing into boycott territory?
http://nprcheck.blogspot.com is a great website which monitors right wing bias on NPR.
JK
Pacifica Radio http://www.pacifica.org has a fraction of the budget that NPR has, but their news and public affairs programming is a welcome antidote.
Tokyokie
Friday at the end of the first hour of the Diane Rehm Show, the subject of the passing of Robert Novak, the first pundit to make a fortune out of sucking up to Republicans came up, and Juan Williams was the guy who was praising his virtues. Don’t ask me what he said; I immediately clicked it off.
Davis X. Machina
I write them a nice note with my pledge renewal:
“Please find enclosed a check for one family membership — reduced, pro rata, for every half-hour of air time given over to news and public affairs programming that is neither produced locally, nor acquired from non-NPR (American Public Media, BBC, etc.) sources.”
beltane
NPR always disappoints me, probably because I can’t help but expect better from them.
evie
Because NPR is about a lot more than Juan Williams. Life without NPR would be much poorer.
Dave C
Nevermind his politics, Juan Williams should be tarred and feathered for his egregiously inappropriate use of the word “literally.”
Randy G
I already turned off the money and let them know why several months ago, and it’s hardly just because of Juan Williams. (P.S. I never understood why Williams became a rising star years ago; I always thought he was extremely overrated as a thinker and as an interviewer, going back to his Talk of the Nation days on NPR.)
Bob In Pacifica
If they made a TV series about Juan Williams they’d call it “House”. Too bad the name is already taken.
NPR has for years used these clowns to define the boundaries of “permitted thought” and the tried and true path of “common wisdom”. But Williams is just too obvious.
I would like to remind bloggers that in their autobiography Kokie and Steve Roberts admit to working as propagandists for the CIA operation at the Helsinki International Student Festival in Gloria Steinem’s shop. Steinem herself admitted much of it in a New York Times article in 1967.
Propaganda works in many ways, but one way to do it is to have public figures who become totems for individuals. If Gloria Steinem represents feminism for women, then she can be shorthand for feminists who see her as a leader. It doesn’t matter that she was squired by war criminal Henry Kissinger or was bedding that Pottinger guy, or that her publisher at MS. was yet another CIA operative. And so when she writes an op-ed in the NYT about how women have it worse than blacks in America and thus starts a civil war in the ranks of Dems, who remembers what she did in Helsinki?
These are careers that these people carry out. I’m sure that Juan Williams is eating at the same trough as the other pig propagandists. It’s their job. It’s our choice whether or not we eat the pigshit.
arguingwithsignposts
I wouldn’t necessarily boycott because of Juan Williams, because honestly I don’t think I’ve heard his voice on NPR in the past year.
But I WOULD boycott them because of that 5 minutes every couple of days that they let Cokie Roberts spew her IGMFU viewpoint. Ditto American Public Media when they allow Megan McArdle or David Frum to pollute the airwaves.
Frum, the man who said we were in a “peacetime economy” when discussing Obama’s economic plans. Dipshit.
I would boycott NPR, but for the economics podcast “Planet Money.” I love that podcast.
Egypt Steve
I’m already boycotting them over their torture wankery.
me
Naw, Juan expects the President to launch an Minuteman targeted on the RNC headquarters.
JHF
Haven’t been able to listen to NPR or watch PBS news (or any other kind) for over a dozen years because of constant drone of establishment bullshit. Lonely out here on the edge, but you get a better view.
Phaedrus
I’m on board with the idea, but I’m worried that this plays into the Republican’s hands – turn a government service into a conservative set piece and then kill it/let it live, either way they win.
Remember how the person disbursing funds after Katrina was checking business affiliation? What do we do, cancel FEMA’s disaster reparations?
It’s kind of an infinite regression problem, as I see it. Exposing this bias works if the American people understand and care. The American people will only understand and care if they have open minds and have a basic understanding of civics. They will only have open minds and civic understanding if they have had a liberal education. The education system is controlled by a board in Texas… a sealed system.
I get kind of depressed when I think about the amount of work required to turn things around.
T. O'Hara
NPR: too conservative. Doesn’t leave a lot of room for triangulation, does it?
Legalize
Been done with NPR for quite a while. It’s been an establishment mouthpiece with nicer sounding on-air personalities for some time. It’s not just Juan Williams.
Leelee for Obama
I only go to NPR when a blog post says something is worth a listen. I can’t send anyone money just now, so that’s a non-issue. I used to have nothing but NPR on my car radio and considered it the place to be. After 2003, I began to smell a CPB rat under GWB and drifted away, albeit unhappily. I felt like a friend died.
BoogerPresley
If they can’t call torture torture, then I don’t read, listen, or watch.
Bach anon
Does anyone who listens to NPR take Juan Williams seriousy any more? Why make him a martyr?
I had the impression that most of the people who listened to NPR were Republicans. So in that case, the answer would be yes, they do.
The “what happened to NPR?” question is almost a generation old now, mostly I forget these days that they were ever anything other than Nice Polite Republicans.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
I’d urge everyone to read this post from the Wayback Machine over at Teh Orange:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/3/14/99295/-N-P-RAnd-how-you-fix-it.
I haven’t given NPR a dime of money since 1999 and their appalling coverage of the presidential election. My boycott has proven ineffective since for the last 10 years, we’ve seen the rise of hacks like Liarson and Innscreep.
Everybody should also remember that Juan baby was fired from his WaPo job (or resigned before he was fired) because of plairiarism charges about 15+ years ago. He was a hack then and nothing’s changed.
flounder
Funny, I was laying in bed half-asleep yesterday when I heard that nonsense and jumped up and started ranting about what a douche nozzle Williams is. I think I annoyed my wife who was trying to leisurely read the paper.
This morning she had to run out early and asked me if I wanted her to turn on This Weak. I asked if she wanted me that pissed off that early. She left the TV off.
cleek
NPR still refuses to call torture “torture”, too.
Carl Walker
I second the person who complained about Cokie Roberts. I emailed NPR when she said it all but un-American for Obama to visit his grandma in Hawaii, not so much because of the Obama bash but because she was simply writing off a state because it was, what, far from the east coast and majority Asian/Pacific Islander? I live in California so I was not amused.
The Ombudsman’s response?
“The comments you heard on ABC were echoed on NPR’s Morning Edition. However, Cokie’s remarks are not a news report but the perspective of news based on her professional experience. Her extensive knowledge in journalism (you can view her biography here) has qualified Cokie to act as a political commentator on certain political analysis pieces.
Furthermore, NPR staff is held to a strict code of ethics and practices. These standards are in place to protect and support the integrity, impartiality and conduct of our journalists. We encourage you to review the code, which is posted online at http://www.npr.org/about/ethics.”
Yeah… thanks to her “experience,” she can say whatever the fuck she want. And then there was that interview they did with Obama conducted entirely with right-wing talking points… I try to convince my friends (who are still in grad school) periodically that NPR is slidiing into right-wing territory and I generally get blank stares.
Tim I
After many years of faithfully supporting NPR, I stopped 4 years ago because of Juan Williams and Mara Liasson, his Fox News crony. Cokie Roberts is appalling as well, but she tends to come off as a batty old lady while Williams and Liasson come off as straight news presenters.
de stijl
Between This American Life on the weekends and Fresh Air’s Terry Gross five days a week (best English language interviewer extant), I still have a jones for the cantankerous little cuss that is public radio.
I can’t quit you, Terry Gross!
WereBear
@JK: I agree!
Face it, we live in Corporate Land now. And there’s only two ways to get the attention of Corporate Land, and both of them involve money.
1) Prove they killed or injured us and ours deliberately, and, after a lot of time, effort, money of our own, anguish, and dodging “tort reform,” we sting their bottom line.
OR
2) We don’t give them any money, and sting their bottom line.
Well, to be honest, there’s 3):
Kick some Congressional ass to get real regulation going.
But that can be even more difficult.
Comrade Kevin
@JK: Pacifica stations are okay if you don’t mind also propping up their other programming, like the horrible crap that is on KPFK in Los Angeles, in particular. The local stations tend to be overrun with conspiracy nuts.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
I think there’s a difference here between boycotting and not giving them any money during Begging For Dollars. I listen to NPR’s main news broadcasts and many of it’s syndicated shows.
But I still won’t ever give them a dime of my money. Does that mean my local public radio stations suffer? You betcha but then I follow the advice in the link above. Hasn’t made a difference in their craptacular coverage on political things but at least the station yahoos know they’re losing out on thousands of dollars a year in donations becase me and mine won’t give em a penny.
arguingwithsignposts
@JK:
With this, I am in agreement. Unfortunately, as has been shown by the whole foods boycott effort, any concerted effort against NPR will likely drive more wingnuts to donate just to offset things.
I’m almost to the point where I think there’s really nothing that can be done to stop the shift in the media to more and more right-leaning viewpoints. I mean, they won’t even take Morning Joke off MSNBC, and they KNOW their audience leans left, and Joey the Scar is an idiot.
Cain
@Legalize:
Been done with NPR for quite a while. It’s been an establishment mouthpiece with nicer sounding on-air personalities for some time. It’s not just Juan Williams.
This is kind of dumb. NPR does a lot of other stuff other than just political commentary. I will remind you that NPR is the only place I’ve seen that has repeatedly gone back to report on Katrina victims even after it has passed our consciousness. Reconstruction continues and at least they report on what’s going on with those people. I think you’re missing out. You can always get your political commentary from somewhere else.
cain
Ned Ludd
Don’t forget that NPR won’t use the word “torture” to describe the Bush administration’s torture programs. I’m not sure what the policy is at NPR’s public radio competitors: PRI and APM.
The NPR ombudsman, responding to “a slew of emails challenging NPR’s policy”, wrote a nonsensical column defending their policy. She seems to admit that torture occurred, but claims that NPR can’t call it torture because: a) “torture is illegal under U.S. law and international treaties the United States has signed” and b) calling it torture would align NPR with “those who are particularly and visibly still angry at the previous administration”.
By her logic, if Bush shot and killed an innocent person, NPR couldn’t call it murder because a) murder is illegal under U.S. law and b) NPR doesn’t want to be seen as siding with those people who are still angry with the Bush administration.
arguingwithsignposts
Another thing about the beg-a-thons: Not all local NPR affiliates are worth supporting for their local reporting, either. I’ve been around several that had a bunch of one-source, corporate ass-kissing “reporting” during their local news spots. They are little better than an AM “news” station in these instances. Sure, there’s WBEZ, WGBH, WNYC and others, but there’s a lot of hackitude in the public radio bandwidth as well.
IndieTarheel
I’ll have to check out Pacifica online, as there are no outlets here that I am aware of. Small price to pay to not have to listen to Nice Polite Republicans.
debit
I turned off NPR for good during the Valerie Plame affair. Talk of the Nation had some right wing shill who said, “Look, everyone knows she wasn’t covert.” The host not only didn’t challenge this, but said, “Uh huh” and invited the shill to keep spewing the talking points. It was left to a caller to call out the shill; said caller was indulgently laughed at and then never answered. I deleted 91.1 from my presets right then and there.
They will never get another second of my listening time or another dime of my money.
Wayne T
I think have discovered an interesting parallel between percentage of birthers and cities with the worst teeth. I hope someone can fund a more detailed investigation into this conspiracy.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32492885/ns/today-today_fashion_and_beauty/?pg=15#tdy_beauty_teethcities
JK
@Comrade Kevin:
I hate the conspiracy nuts, but Pacifica is still worth supporting. Democracy Now http://www.democracynow.org with Amy Goodman is certainly worth supporting as is Free Speech Radio News http://www.fsrn.org.
Skippy-san
With all due respect-he’s not wrong. The Republicans may be behaving like jackasses-but they are dangerous jackasses. And if health reform did passes under the circumstances suggested, Obama would have an alabatross around his neck-especially if something happens with the economy, interest rates or the debt ballooned even more.
Just because they are mean does not mean you do not have to be careful around them. Obama’s support is not what I would all rock hard-and it would only take a big shift of a couple of key groups and it will be teabagger city in 2012. Dismiss that danger at your own peril.
Ned Ludd
@arguingwithsignposts: I turned on public radio a couple weeks ago and I thought I heard McArdle. After about 60 seconds of nonsense, I turned it off instead of waiting to find out.
Given all the qualified economists out there willing to speak or write on public policy — Krugman, Stiglitz, DeLong, Mankiw, Zandi, Baker, Kuttner etc. — why ask for economic analysis from an MBA-turned-blogger? She didn’t even do much with that MBA. In her own words, “my management consulting firm blew up”.
PeakVT
NPR is frustrating, but it’s still better than any alternative on the radio or teevee. I also think that boycotting won’t do much because that will just increase its reliance on corporate underwriting. The only thing to do is provide frequent and specific feedback.
The Grand Panjandrum
Yes, yes, yes let’s sacrifice the good for the perfect. Again. Jesus. Then we can spend all day hanging out at Balloon Juice snarking away at all the idiot teabaggers for being in an “echo chamber.”
So if you give money to your local public radio station that airs NPR programming is that still not pure enough?
geg6
Ha ha ha. Glenzilla weighs on Joke Line’s meltdown at a picnic where he cries to IF Stone’s granddaughter that Glenn made his edotor cry. And on Chuckie T’s pwnage by Scahill on Real Time where Scahill quotes Chuckie’s interview with Glenn. Glenn is having a good week if having a good week is watching your nemeses go batshit insane in a very public way. I say David Gregory must be the next one to crack and once again, DFH Greenwald will be to blame. LOL!
arguingwithsignposts
@Ned Ludd:
While he’s a qualified economist, I wouldn’t give Mankiw the air time to spew his trickle-down bullshit. He was Bush’s chief economic adviser, after all, and we know how that worked out.
Brachiator
@Ned Ludd:
Yeah, this about did it for me. The ombudsman came onto one of the public radio shows here in Southern California and “explained” the policy on the air. It was a ridiculous, weasel rationalization.
Fortunately, one of the better public radio stations out here, KPCC, carries non-NPR programs and has generally excellent local coverage. For those who want to check out the station via the InterTubes, I strongly recommend Air Talk hosted by Larry Mantle.
As for Juan Williams, Cokie Roberts and others, I find it interesting that Obama’s election has not given rise to new, smarter, more diverse journalistic voices, but instead has seen a retrenchment of increasingly clueless, establishment voices.
TuiMel
@Davis X. Machina:
I have also written and told them that my donation is and will continue to be 50% of what I might give until they find someone better than Juan Williams and Mara Liarson for national political reporting and analysis.
When my local NPR affiliate interviewed the NPR Ombuds(wo)man, they read a question from me regarding Willams and Liarson and their relationship with Fox. She chided me for wanting to take away their ability to rake in cash because I did not like Fox. She said that their relationship w/NPR could not be used to muzzle them at Fox. I wrote back to her and said I was more concerned that their relationship with Fox was influencing what they said on NPR. I also said it wasn’t so much “bias” that bugged me. It was more that I never hear anything but conventional wisdom from them. They are lazy. (This was BEFORE Williams referred to Michelle Obama as Stokely Carmichael in a dress, which should have gotten him canned from NPR. He obviously cannot accept the success of Obama.)
pcbedamned
@El Cid:
[quote]I’d rather listen to the official U.S. government broadcaster, the Voice of America, because unlike NPR they actually have to earn an audience of listeners around the world, [b]particularly in the 3rd world[/b], who would listen to NPR’s soft-pedaled conservative nationalism and laugh before turning away.[/quote]
Actually, anyone outside of the U.S.ofA. No disrespect intended, but the crap going on in your Country has gotten to the point that the rest of the world is now looking at American News the same way that they look at Reality TV – “that shit can’t possibly be real…’coz if it is, they are ALL nuts!!!” ;-)
pcbedamned
P.S. – Yep, we really need a preview button…
Miss T
Same can be said of Cokie Roberts.
MikeJ
I would say he’s a “credentialed” economist, with all the proper degrees. As you point out, Republican economists have repeatedly demonstrated how unqualified they are.
The Grand Panjandrum
Instead of bitching about NPR and Juan Williams on a thread here at this blog, why not go to the comments section of that segment of Weekend Edition Saturday and let your opinion be known? If Simon and the NPR news folks get enough comments MAYBE they will once again address them on the air.
Whaddya say DougJ? Put up a link to the comments section of that segment and send people over to make a complaint. The complaints are legitimate, but the GBCWish posts of not given ONE DIME to NPR until they get rid Juan Williams seem silly to me.
kay
@pcbedamned:
They get credit for covering the run-up to Iraq somewhat skeptically, and I guess that’s true, but I started listening with a lot of reservations during their coverage of the actual invasion. I just heard something there that made me deeply uncomfortable.
There was a rah-rah glee there that was all out of bounds to anyone reporting anything seriously. It was an invasion, and that means death and destruction, whether you were “pro” or “contra”. I think they should have made some effort to treat it like something other than kick-off at a football game.
It was cringe-worthy.
El Cid
@pcbedamned: Actually VOA still remains pretty popular. There’s a reason — it’s a lot saner and has more perspective than the sort of programs (radio and TV) produced for domestic U.S. consumption.
It’s a strange thing, that the official U.S. government broadcaster maintains a much saner tone and incorporates more sources in its news than the partially publicly-funded domestic public radio broadcaster, NPR. And VOA claims to have a weekly estimated audience of 134 million, and it cannot legally broadcast or rebroadcast within the U.S. itself.
But then, the VOA modeled itself partly on the success of the BBC, which was listened to widely even in areas of the world not exactly happy with British government policies.
InflatableCommenter
I think that unless the can Juan, we are well and truly fucked.
Heh.
David
The BBC has more and better news about the United States than any US news service:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/
gbear
I donate to MN Public Radio because their local news and music channels are consistently good-to-excellent, but I always make a comment about how smug and awful Morning Edition and All Things Considered have become. I wish there was a way of withholding my donation from those two show, which cost MPR a huge amount of money to air.
shoutingattherain
Do what you want. I ain’t giving up “Car Talk” for nobody.
InflatableCommenter
@Leelee for Obama:
Luckily, my car radio plays CDs and also has a Sirius-XM receiver hooked up to it. That way I can listen to things like Les McCann at Montreaux and Raw Dog comedy and forget about Nolonger Public Radio.
gbear
@arguingwithsignposts:
Cokie Roberts on NPR is the reason that snooze alarms were invented.
Deborah
@evie:
Yeah. Both Juan and Cokie are well past the sell-by date (Is Hawaii even a real state, indeed) but a lot of the rest–Weekend Edition, local news, Wait Wait, Only a Game–is very good. I listen for several hours a week and Juan occupies at most a couple of minutes, usually not that.
mai naem
I have XM satellite radio. They have 3 public radio stations. Bob Edwards has an AM show where I kid you not his weekly news pundit is Broder but Edwards still does some great long interviews. I used to love TOTN with Ray Suarez. Neil Conan is horrid and I don’t even listen to TOTN anymore. The only good thing I can say about Conan is that he’s better than Juan Williams. All that said NPR is worth it for TAL, Fresh Air, WWDTM, Harry Shearer,Marketplace and I don’t think To the Point is that bad.
jennifer
I am glad to read that you are boycotting, regardless of your reasoning.
gbear
This thread reminded me that Wait Wait comes on at 2:00 today. I just flipped the radio on.
Ned Ludd
I used Google to search npr.org for “Glenn Greenwald”. I got a paltry eight matches (including one duplicate and many on-line-only entries). It looks like he’s only been interviewed once for a story broadcast on the radio. And for that story, he got to speak all of three sentences. FWIW, NPR.org’s search engine says there are eleven matches, but only lists seven, and the second page of results is the same as the first.
Glenn is the author of two New York Times best-selling books and is an experienced civil rights litigator. He’s been quoted on the floor of the U.S. Senate by Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold. He led the fight that stopped John O. Brennan from getting a top intelligence post, such as Director of the CIA, in the Obama administration. Technorati ranks Glenn’s blog in the top 50 for authority among all blogs, including non-political blogs. You’d be hard-pressed to find a single blogger who has had more front page stories at digg, and digg has 23 million visitors every month (click the “month” button on the quantcast graph for monthly visitors).
But for NPR, the guy is almost invisible. He’s been on Hugh Hewitt’s show more often than he’s been on NPR. Instead, NPR fills the public radio airwaves with conservative talking points from Juan Willians, Mara Liasson, and Cokie Roberts. I think that says everything you need to say about NPR’s objectivity.
arguingwithsignposts
Just to be clear, This American Life is produced by WBEZ-Chicago Public Radio and distributed by PRI. Marketplace is produced by American Public Media.
I don’t understand all the ways that these public radio syndicates work, but those two are not on the NPR brand, for some reason.
srv
Try CBC1 or some such, at least any propoganda is being paid for by a foreign government.
Xenos
Talking about the nuclear option on NPR: WAMC is playing the BSO doing Beethoven’s 9th at Tanglewood, and they are playing the hell out of it! LOUD.
I expect to look out the window and see pieces of the shed flying overhead…
Brick Oven Bill
I sat on a plane out of New Orleans with this rich-kid, rebel-against-the-affluent-upbringing, hippy-wanna-be looking guy. But this guy could not even pull off a good hippy impersonation. Hippies are not necessarily bad people in my opinion, so long as, if they are going to a public food establishment, that they practice proper hygiene.
So anyway, this guy was a loser. I really doubt he had many friends. He was flying back alone from Marti Gras, if that is any indication.
So, trying to make conversation, I asked what he does for a living, and he told me he was a journalism student. I asked him where he wanted to work following graduation, and he answered NPR. I asked if he would consider any other outlets, and he said no, just NPR.
In this manner, this student was very much like Barack Obama, who would only associate with whites who were Marxist professors or structural feminists. Some people are very closed minded. A journalist who is not willing to work for ABC News based on political ideology, is very similar to one who would be intimidated by a white hippy, and will not be the hippy’s friend because of his race.
NPR does suck by the way. I listen to it on cross-countries.
Max
I love my Sirius/XM and the iphone ap rocks. Other than Howard, I mainly listen to their POTUS channel. Its pretty straightforward and based in reality. The Press Pool show has a lot of reporters who seem to actually be reporters and not pundits.
I also love Make It Plain, hosted by Mark Thompson (Matsimela Mapfumo). He’s on the Sirius Left channel from 2p to 5p Pacific. Check him out if you haven’t.
Sadly, Sirius Left still has on the horrible Lynn Samuels, who is a PUMA birther. I wish they’d lose her and have more of the Thom Hartman show.
Mike
Last week on their “financial news” segment they had McMegan
and Mike Mandel (Business Week) as their only experts, opining that
health care reform was a bad idea. Mandel predicted that Republicans would be the ones to come up with a good plan
once Obama failed.
I stopped contributing years ago.
Xenos
Was that ‘Marketplace’? That is, the business news show sponsored by GE, with the GE ‘We Bring Good Things to Life’ jingle worked into the theme song for the show itself? That came out in the late ’80s, and I guess, in hindsight, that was the turning point to corporate shill-dom.
mai naem
@arguingwithsignposts: I do know TAL, PHC,Studio 360,WWDTM,What da you know? and I think even Harry Shearer is distributed by PRI but I am not sure PRI could distribute anything without NPR providing the base to distribute it to. All that said one can donate to PRI instead of NPR.
And, oh, BTW BOB you probably thought he was a loser because he no doubt thought you were a loser and ignored you for good reason.
InflatableCommenter
@Brick Oven Bill:
Unlike you, for example.
Brachiator
@arguingwithsignposts:
Good point. Unfortunately, NPR has successfully branded itself as the generic name for all public radio. This in turn helps them get credit and funding for programs that they do not originate.
It reminds me of people talking about how they get their news from the InterTubes, which often means AP wire stories, the same crap that’s fed to most broadcast media news organizations.
Ned Ludd
@arguingwithsignposts:
NPR, PRI, and APM are competitors. They each compete to sell shows to local stations. NPR is the oldest. PRI was founded by some of the big public radio stations — according to Wikipedia: MPR, WGBH, WNYC, and KUSC — to allow them to distribute their shows to other public radio stations without going through NPR. After MPR grew bigger, they decided to go it alone. They left PRI and restructured the organization into two branches: MPR to run its broadcast stations and APM to distribute its shows.
Starfish
No one here said anything about David Frum’s weekly non-sensical essay on NPR?
JenJen
Serious question for very serious journalists like George Stephanopolous and Jake Tapper: Why do ABC News journalists specifically refer to Democratic plans for health care reform as “Obamacare,” in tweets, and on-screen graphics?
This is something that’s been going on at “This Week” for a few weeks now, which makes it all the stranger, since you’d think someone at that program, not naming any names, might recall ’93/’94 and the politically-snarky, ultimately damaging term “Hillarycare.”
I haven’t seen any media outlet other than ABC News use the word “Obamacare.” It’s something I first saw over at Our Lady of Perpetual Outrage’s granite-countered digs.
I dunno. That’s my nitpick of the day.
Brick Oven Bill
Label conservatives have been found to be more open minded than label liberals. See the loser who would only work for NPR, and this call for a boycott of free expression.
Although the true liberals here surely recognize that I am a big true liberal, the label conservative side of me likes to take in many different opinions, even (shudder) the idea that using a procedural maneuver to eliminate the filibuster is an extremist act. You are allowed to talk about this before the American people.
This is not to be taken, in any manner or inference, as my perception of Juan Williams as anything other than a dim-wit, having found a niche peddling himself as a non-angry black man in the media, and selling his book.
The NPR loser would not have taken me for the same. I had a good looking date for Marti Gras. I am also nice. He might have projected and thought I was flying around with my daddy’s money with this date, but in actuality, it was my own money.
InflatableCommenter
@Brick Oven Bill:
Well, for a racist spooftroll, maybe. Nice is as nice does, though, eh?
Xenos
‘Nicist’ is the word your looking for here.
JenJen
@Brick Oven Bill: That last paragraph. Seriously… wtf? Eww, just ewwww.
Laura W
@Brick Oven Bill: Irregardless, it’s Mardi Gras, Bill.
I think you need the Mardi Gras crown!
http://mardigrasday.com/
InflatableCommenter
@Laura W:
I think Bill celebrates Marty Gras. It’s a gay pride thing.
Bill is having a rough Sunday. He invited his neighbors over for pizza, but his nearest neighbor is ten miles away and spends most of his time panning for gold.
Laura W
@JenJen: Here’s a visual palate cleanser for you:
Scroll down the hats and free associate which hat goes with which BJ commenter.
Fun even when sober!
(Apologies in advance since I’m sure to screw up the link, as usual.)
athena
NPR lost me during the 2004 elections. Could NOT stand their coverage.
Luckily, Air America came along to fill the drive-time void.
Ned Ludd
@mai naem:
NPR does not own any radio stations. Instead, the stations own NPR (much like a co-op). If your local radio station leaves NPR, it saves money on its membership dues and can broadcast all the PRI and APM shows it wants to. PRI also has a deal with BBC World Service which allows public radio stations to broadcast BBC World Service live if they want to.
WYNC produces a morning show called “The Takeaway” that they are positioning to compete with Morning Edition. Any public radio station can buy the show, via PRI, and broadcast that instead of Morning Edition. It is shorter, so they would need something to fill in the rest of the time slot.
So, donations don’t go to NPR or PRI or APM. They go to your local radio station, which then decides who it wants to pay membership dues to and which programs it wants to buy. In fact, a local public radio station could shun the Big 3 altogether and just produce all its own programming.
JenJen
@InflatableCommenter: Up next? Marty Feldman Gras! (which actually isn’t the worst idea ever.)
@Laura W: Why does the eye jump to “Yellow Show Daddy”? Is it just me?
Also, Zebra-print biker hats: Not just for “Marti” Gras, or Meghan McCain, anymore!
InflatableCommenter
@JenJen:
Not a bad idea. In my case, I was thinking more of the Marty character played by Ernest Borgnine.
Ryan Cunningham
Did anyone else imagine nuclear explosions engulfing the planet as soon as Obama signs the bill? Maybe he finishes his signature, flashes a smile, and then presses a giant red button labeled “nuclear option”. People dying of radiation poisoning all over the globe weeping and moaning, barely able to cough out the words, “If only the Democrats had held out for ONE Republican vote, none of this would have happened.”
THAT’S NOT HOW THE WORD “LITERALLY” WORKS, JAUN!
arguingwithsignposts
@Starfish:
I mentioned him above – it’s on marketplace (see “dipshit” re: peacetime economy).
Laura W
@JenJen: Now see, after I placed the Yellow Fruit Hat on TattooSydney’s head, I immediately chose the Pink Zebra Hat for me.
Upon second run through, I favor the
Leopard Pimp Show Daddy for me.
God. Two more link attempts. I am so pushing my luck here today. Cocky.
InflatableCommenter
In fact, I have updated my url for the occasion.
InflatableCommenter
I knew you were a guy.
Wile E. Quixote
Juan Williams, professional negro? It must be nice to be Juan, I mean if he were a white guy spouting the kind of crap he does he’d have a lot of competition at Fox, white conservatives are a dime a dozen. But Juan is a negro, which means that what would otherwise be warmed over conservacrap is authentic because it’s coming from a negro and is chock full of authentic negro authenticity. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton haven’t pimped their ethnicity as much as Juan Williams has.
chrome agnomen
haven’t had a tv or radio in many years. as someone recently said, if i get to thinking i miss them, all i have to do is sit in a room with one for a few moments and that cures me. i get the majority of the news i need from BJ and the links provided. otherwise i go to foreign sources.
Persia
FYI, most public radio stations would probably be fine with accepting your donation “exclusively to support local programming.” Not every donation with strings attached is accepted, but I think the local stuff would be an easy one.
Blake
I stopped contributing when they canned Bob Edwards, and I’d been a member for 5+ years (and had been listening to Edwards for more than 15). Stopped listening about the same time, mostly.
Bob
Remember, they fired him from “Talk of the Nation” years ago. He lasted about six months, well, not long.
By-by Mr. Williams
sal
Steve Inskeep (sp?) on Morning Edition needs to go as well. Not as baldly biased as Williams (then again, that’s a high standard to meet), but the guy’s just a hack.
Silver Owl
I stopped listening to NPR a few weeks ago. I got sick of hearing the freak Cokie Roberts and them airing the crap out of McConnell, Cornyn etc. No sane responsible republicans just the laziest and most manipulative.
If I want shit standards I can tune into Fox.
I’m glad I was spared Juan Williams by already having had tuned NPR out.
Flugelhorn
You folks are hilarious. Now NPR is not left enough for you.
Some of you should open up your minds a bit and embrace the exchange of ideas rather than scream, “Get a rope!” each time someone says something you do not agree with.
joshers
This is thread has taken a turn toward Crazytown.
Bob
Social Security passed without a Republican vote. Was that the “nuclear option”?
Yeah, that social security thing is sooo unpopular now, I wish the Dems would have negotiated a more bipartisan solution.
Charles Peterson
I quit NPR in 2002. Too many unchallenged hacks and from Cato and AEI, and never anyone from the actual left, like Chomsky or Zinn. I quit PBS News and McGlaughlin a decade earlier because their “left” was so lame while their right was sharp turn.
Pretty much Democracy Now! has been my standard since then. Available in nearly every possible medium except probably broadcast in your area. I stream it on my iPhone during my daily walk, whenever I want it. Would have liked Grit Radio too but it never streamed and wouldn’t download over G3 because of AT&T’s limit.
Tons of good alt media out there, just rarely on broadcast. Was better when we had the Fairness Doctrine. But I guess we can’t force right wingers to listen to actual information anymore.
Nuclear Option==Democracy
Freedom==Wage slavery, market manipulation, internalized profit and externalized costs
Democracy==Corporatocracy and Empire
Invisible Hand==Visible Foot
Market==Your friendly local monopolies
Competition==International wage arbitrage
Union==Don’t even think about it