WTF has happened to NPR?

[Botany]

Calling President Obama Mr. Obama and then talk of the coming of huge republican victories this fall.

I have long smelled a rat or two at NPR but now they are a republican mouthpiece in many cases.

[TroglodyteScholar]

1. I think they follow the convention...

...that the first mention of him in a given story is "President Obama" and thereafter he is Mr. It's not uncommon.

As for your other gripe, do you think it's looking like the electorate is going to keep Dems in power?

[Botany]

5. thanx for the clear up on the Mr. Obama question

As per # 2 I feel that republican victories are being crammed down out throats
even before the vote and why in God's earth would people vote back in to power
the very assholes who caused all the problems to start w?

Obstructionism is not governing and that is all the repugs are doing right now.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

13. Huge Democratic victories were predicted in '06 and '08

...and they happened....there were no complaints there.....

The fact is that people have short memories. We aren't running against Mark Foley or Denny Hastert this time, but a bunch of unknowns saying all the right incendiary things to get elected.

[lpbk2713]

2. Huge republican victories.

I'm LMAO here. That's funny. :rofl:


What's left of the rethuglican party is so fragmented now they can't do anything huge.

[LisaM]

3. They did the same thing with Bush, relax.

By the way, studies consistently show that NPR audiences are among the most well informed in the country.

[markbark]

4. Well... To be fair

Their MO is to refer to whomever is President as "President <insert name here>" the first time he's referenced in a story and "Mr. <insert name here>" for every subsequent mention.


That being said, NPR does seem to stand for "Never Pressure Republicans" more and more these days.

--MAB

[Cleita]

6. NPR went to the dark side during the Bush years.

I believe if you really dug into whose funding them and behind them, all paths would lead back to the Heritage Foundation and other think tanks like it.

[Greybnk48]

9. You're right. They've leaned right for a while now.

Wasn't it revealed that they instated a known neo-con in an important position back in the early Bush* years?

[FormerDittoHead]

12. They've fallen victim to being accused of 'liberal biased' so they feel obliged to humor the idiots

Ultimately, they seem to try to be consistent with the stuff they learned in college, and that, at least, sets them apart from most of the others.

[Ken Burch]

11. They went to the dark side under Reagan, actually.

There was a mass purge(firings, not actual executions, but still)of anyone seemed as "leftists" during that decade. I think that's when Amy Goodman was fired there. There was also a sharp restriction of what stories would and wouldn't be covered, and NPR adopted the mainstream "non-analysis analysis" approach to State of the Union addresses and speeches from the Oval Office.

The argument, again and again, was "we HAVE to do it or they'll cut all our funding". And despite all the appeasement, the funding was cut anyway.

NPR still isn't over the shellshock from the Eighties, even though they should be feeling safer now.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. Yes, that's what I heard during a talk by a former NPR reporter in 1988

Anything too critical of the Reagan administration and the corporate underwriters would threaten to pull funding.

[fascisthunter]

7. corporate underwriting?

[librechik]

15. yes--they inherited the Ray Croc estate

the widow was notoriously RW (McDonald's) and they have gone to the right and not looked back, long ago. They use their ancient reputation for being a "public" institution to assume more credibility than their journalism deserves.

[EFerrari]

8. They've been like that for years.

After AZ SB 1070 passed, they interviewed a representative of an anti-immigrant hate group as an "expert" without disclosing his affiliations.

National 'Pub Radio.

[SoCalDem]

10. The Bush Administration happened

and with it the constant haranguing of NPR & PBS for being "librul"...and of course the "salting" with infiltrators didn't help much......and then there's the issue about funding that republican congresses have repeatedly gutted.

[Frank Cannon]

27. That's funny, because all they did was suck Bush's cock for 8 years

I could not believe some of the crap NPR was spewing about the mastery of the little monkey king. I remember one little vignette on Morning Edition in which they went on and on about how George Bush was going to succeed where so many Presidents had failed and help negotiate a lasting peace agreement between Israel and Palestine. There were many such WTF moments on NPR. There probably still are, but I stopped listening a long time ago.

[DebbieCDC]

14. They became National Puke Radio a long time ago

Look who is on their payroll: Cokie Roberts, Mara Eliason, Juan Williams

'Nuff said

[spanone]

17. bu$h* changed their name to Now Promoting Republicans

[alcibiades_mystery]

18. Our local NPR is great, but the national news NPR is GOP swill

I refuse to donate to either based on the awful journalism and GOP talking points coming out of the national NPR. It is a disgrace.

[LWolf]

19. Did you ever listen carefully to their list of supporters? nt

[grahampuba]

20. did not look back

They took the 2000 and 2004 elections and did not look back at all, did not report on any voting issues or irregularities, just accepted the results and deemed it all a non-story.
the issue that defined our era and they moved on to crab bisque recipes and whatever other milquetoast they serve up daily..
have not tuned in since.
worthless at this point.

[Bluenorthwest]

21. The Mr thing is silliness, that is convention

But they are about as stagnant and staid and status quo as anything can get. Nothing and no one new, ever, in years. A closed, stale system, slowly spinning to a well funded stasis. It is dull, redundant, and filled with people who have been spitting into their mics on NPR since I was in High School. Unforgivably boring, dreary, and droning.

[SpiralHawk]

22. NPR long ago jumped the cred shark

and is wholly an organ of the republicorporatistas.

No cred, no honor...

[northernlights]

23. W put a rethug in charge years ago.

I stopped watching much NPR after that. None of the political shows. Sometimes on Sunday nights...but even the movie line-up and the classics have gone downhill.

[Frank Cannon]

28. Here's the 411 on Kenneth Tomlinson

Who is the rethug I believe you are referring to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Tomlinson

I can't imagine the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has changed much since his departure.

[rucky]

24. I listen to NPR every day.

and every day I hear a lie or smear from their newsroom. (no CD player in my car)

I still like their features, though.

[Canuckistanian]

25. They've called the President, "Mr." for a long, long time

I think it was a conscious decision NOT to give the POTUS any kind of honorific title like "Your Honor" or "Your Excellency", but simply "Mr.".

Even President Lincoln was regularly called "Mr. Lincoln".

[donheld]

26. National Petrolium Radio at it's best

[Enthusiast]

29. I will never again turn on NPR.

They are just as you say - a Republican mouthpiece.

[KharmaTrain]

30. It's All About The Benjamins...

Public Broadcasting has grown into its own beauracracy over the years...a large staff that relies more and more on corporate donations...especially on the network level. During the booosh years their budget and that of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have been cut and to make up the shortfall and keep their nice paychecks coming, NPR has sold out to the large corporates; especially their news coverage.

[waronbanks]

31. The same thing that has happened to every other

Major Media Mouthpiece...its been corrupted by Corporate Cash. Our government, our courts, our education, our oceans...everything as been corrupted by Corporate Cash.

[Seneca]

32. People have been saying this on DU about NPR for YEARS

Nothing new under the sun. Fact is, they have been sucking at the corporate tit long before DU was a gleam on Joe Biden's forehead.