Attack On NPR

NPR has been getting bad press again lately after another video sting from the unsavory conservative videographer, James O'Keefe, of the pimp-at-Acorn fame. Actually, O'Keefe is a sort of pimp. He's selling undercover political porn, selectively edited videos designed to appeal to the basest of political instincts. To strip away any hint of nuance and blatantly appeal to emotion rather than reason. To divide and demonize.

Of course, in both of the recent black eyes suffered by NPR, the reflexive firing of Juan Williams for his comments about Muslims to Fox News and the Ron Schiller video sting by O'Keefe, NPR did some clumsy flailing around and some of the punches that landed were self inflicted. I thought both episodes were a bit of a case study in hysterical overreaction. Juan Williams was guilty of stating what most Americans feel but don't want to admit about Muslims on a plane. Ron Schiller also spoke mostly simple facts, in my opinion. Even though the heavy editing apparently made them sound worse than they were. Tea Party types are racist. So are almost all people. They're just more so. Republicans are generally anti-intellectual. The Republican party was hijacked by the Tea party. To the extent that a moderate Republican has become an endangered species. To the extent that Ronald Reagan, a hero so revered by conservatives that when he is mentioned at their gatherings there is a collective, worshipful swoon, would be unwelcome in today's no-compromise Republican party.

I've tried to see the liberal bias from NPR that conservatives complain about and has them gleefully seizing the opportunity the edited video gives them to make a case for stripping public funding from NPR and other public media. But all I see is news and events just presented factually. I don't see any slant. Maybe that's the problem. If there isn't an obvious conservative slant then they must be liberal. Or perhaps their view is so distorted from watching Fox News that any news less conspicuously conservatively biased than Fox must be liberal. I was eating lunch in a restaurant some time ago when Chinese president Hu Jintao was visiting Washington and being hosted by President Obama. The television was tuned to Fox News and showed Obama shaking hands and bowing to the Chinese president. Fox froze the picture of the bow on large screen window and left it there for a considerable time while the news anchor provided commentary on the visit from a small inset window. It was so obviously intended to highlight the contemptible spectacle of the liberal Obama kowtowing to the communist Chinese president you could almost see the subtitles. News channels with integrity don't do that sort of thing. That's unsubtle propaganda intended to manipulate opinion and elicit an emotional response. Not to inform or educate.