Cross posted at Rational Resistance:
Part of our regular radio diet is On the Media, a public radio program produced by WNYC that examines various aspects of the mass media. It's valuable for people who are interested in the news, how the news gets to them, and what forces are at work influencing the content we hear.
Last week's program examined the relentless right-wing claims that National Public Radio has a liberal bias. I don't think it does, and I think the evidence shows that I'm right, but you can certainly listen to the podcast and make your own decision.
I thought it was ironic when I was listening to All Things Considered just yesterday, the day after hearing “On the Media” report on claims of NPR liberal bias, and I heard what struck me as a clear illustration of the opposite of liberal bias.
The story was about President Obama announcing at a campaign stop in Ohio that his administration had filed another unfair trade complaint against China. It was a dialogue between Audie Cornish in the studio and Scott Horsley on the road with the campaign, and at about 2:00 into the story the following exchange occurs:
The question asked by Cornish was a factual question of how many trade complaints have been filed by the Obama administration. The true answer appears to be that the Obama administration has filed complaints at twice the rate of the Bush administration, and after providing a one-word factual answer Horsley replies with a comment of “boasts” by the Obama campaign.
Nothing would have been lost in the report if Horsley's answer had been, “No, the Obama administration has actually filed trade cases against China at more than twice the rate of the Bush administration.” That would have been a factual and complete answer to a factual question.
By adding the phrase, “the White House boasted . . .” to his answer, Scott Horsley implicitly indicated that the answer was one of opinion or political posturing, rather than one of fact. By doing this, and by characterizing the statement as a boast, Horsley's answer undermined the credibility of the Obama administration's statement and gave President Obama's opponents reason to reject the answer, since it was not a factual statement but merely a campaign boast.
There are many situations in which the facts are more favorable to one side of a debate or the other, but the media, especially NPR and other media aiming for credibility and impartiality, still have the obligation to report the facts.
1. These host/reporter Q&A’s are meant to seem spontaneous, but they’re carefully planned out in advance. I don’t know if the exact phrase “the White House boasted” was preplanned, but there’s a good chance it was.
2. There’s also a fundamental assumption in the exchange: that China deserves the hard-line treatment. How about asking if the complaints are merited? Is the Administration pursuing the proper course? This is a very frequent issue with NPR: accepting conventional wisdom, particularly in its political coverage. It might, at some other point, do a piece exploring the merits of the issue. But when they’re talking politics, there’s rarely any questioning of conventional wisdom.
since public radio has become more dependent on private donations (the big ones being corporate), it has tracked ever more to the right.
This is not to say that I think it has been completely appropriated by the right.
To make that charge would be the sort of over-characterization that comes from the right. Culturally, it has not; but politically they have begun to indulge in the game of false equivalency that has so undermined the credibility of private media.
But take a look at their national underwriters sometime, and you will see big conservative players like Walmart being represented more and more; and notice the direction that even regional stories often take. Public television even more so.
I can’t help feeling that the decision by Republicans to cut-off funding to public media was calculated to choke-off that powerful organ of liberal thought that it once was, and redirect its loyalties through corporate funding.
I no longer love VPR for its courage the way I did twenty years ago.
….they took time for a Q&A with Erick Erickson, one of the most hateful figures on the far right. That was edifying.