NPR Check: Q Tips

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Q Tips

NPR comments welcomed.

56 comments:

Unknown said...: Okay. I've heard NPR do this twice - start stories with "it's been a year since President Obama did [blank] and nothing's come of it."

Err, folks... A year ago BUSH WILL STILL PRESIDENT...

The stuff they're talking about is from FEBRUARY 09....; 1/12/10, 8:35 AM
Anonymous said...: maybe NPR should change their spiel to this:

It's not even been a year since Obama gave [blank] billions to Goldman Sachs, BofA, Citigroup and lots of other big blanks and lots of huge blanker bonuses have come from it (but not much for the ordinary Americans: unemployed and/or facing foreclosure on their homes).

..and if Summers/Bernanke/Geithner/Obama have their way, the American public will never fill in the blanks...

On a less important (but very related) note:

Glenn Greenwald nails what is wrong with journalism:

"Unjustified anonymity -- especially when mindlessly repeating what shielded government sources claim in secret -- is the single greatest enabler of false and deceitful "reporting." Despite its unbroken record of producing lies, it will never stop, because agreeing to it is how "journalists" end up being selected as favored message-carrying servants for the powerful. This falsehood-producing method isn't ancillary to American journalism but central to it;"

This is obviously the major problem with NPR, which has become the epitome of "hearsay news" without even questioning it.

But the complete lack of transparency and lack of accountability that comes with it are actually at the root of most of the major problems our country faces today. More than anything else, these two things are destroying our democracy.

Our country is run by people who hide their actions as a standard operating procedure.

Witness all the stuff that went on with the whole AIG bailout.

I think this article also nails it:

BIO Become a Fan
Get Email Alerts Bloggers' Index
Larry Summers, Robert Rubin: Will The Harvard Shadow Elite Bankrupt The University And The Country?

"The modern power elites thrive by forgetting any regrettable past."; 1/12/10, 9:32 AM
biggerbox said...: Thank goodness I woke up with a splitting headache already, so I wasn't given one by Inskeep's interview with Gregg and Conrad about their magical debt commission, and how it would use its super-ninja secret powers to convince a supermajority of both houses of Congress to vote for things they can't get a bare majority to vote for now. I do give them credit for mentioning that things were looking pretty good at the end of Clinton's term, but would it have killed Inskeep to ask how each of the august Senators voted on those tax cuts and unpaid-for wars?

Supposedly tomorrow we hear why this commission is a bad idea. It will be interesting to see how that goes.; 1/12/10, 10:34 AM
Anonymous said...: For any who are still naive enough to believe that there is no concerted effort to cover up the AIG bailout tracks:

SEC order helps maintain AIG bailout mystery
* SEC agreed with AIG to keep some bailout terms sealed

They believe the tracks have been covered, but all it would take would be one well placed courageous individual (either at SEC or AIG) to blow the lid off the entire thing.

My guess is that it is going to be next to impossible to keep this stuff secret.

but we shall see...; 1/12/10, 10:47 AM
Nate Bowman said...: Siegel interviews an executive compensation expert (!) to give us perspective on Wall Street bonuses.

Short:
1. $47 in bonuses is so big, the expert can't even comprehend it, (so why should we.)

2. They didn't do anything special to earn it (*) but they got the bonuses anyway. Not that the TARP money paid for the bonuses or anything.

3. What good would it possibly do to Main Street to not give out these bonuses?!!

http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=122456822

(*) they basically got interest-free loans from the Fed and invested in T-Bills. And isn't the interest they get from that basically profiting from the taxpayers?; 1/12/10, 11:40 AM
Anonymous said...: (*) they basically got interest-free loans from the Fed and invested in T-Bills. "

Actually, some companies got such loans (about $28 billion in the case o f Goldman Sachs) and proceeded to make a killing on high risk investments.

And why should they have?

They had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Like most of the "leaders' in our government, most of the people on wall Street have an entitlement attitude.

They believe they are entitled to everything they have (multi-million dollar houses, huge salaries and huge bonuses) not because of any real competence or because of what they have actually 'achieved" in life (many o f them have actually run their companies into the ground) but because of WHO they are (or, even more often, who their daddy was)

Ironically, many of these people (eg, Larry Summers) are actually perfect examples of Dunning–Kruger effect [wikipedia] "a cognitive bias in which "people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it".[1] The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than actuality; by contrast the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to a perverse result where less competent people will rate their own ability higher than more competent people."

It's really hard to understand the mentality o f these people unless you have experienced it first hand.

I went to school with a lot of these types (Cornell, where the entitlement mentality is actually not as prominent as places like Yale and Harvard).

but even at Cornell, there are lots of these types who will step on everyone in their path on the way to the top.

I suspect that NPR CEO Vivian Schiller is probably one of them.; 1/12/10, 12:23 PM
The Boss of You said...: I recommend following this NYU professor twitter.com/jayrosen_nyu. He writes a lot about today's poor journalism. He recently wrote a post about the Sunday talk shows and what can be done to improve them:

http://jayrosen.posterous.com/my-simple-fix-for-the-messed-up-sunday-shows

Here's a recent tweet from him about it:

"Linking to my original post on fixing the Sunday Shows in articles that mention it: Politico: no way, Jay. NPR: Sorry, no. The Nation: Yes!"

Of course, NPR: Sorry, no.; 1/12/10, 1:45 PM
The Boss of You said...: I wonder if any NPR 'journalists' would show up on this forum:

http://explainthis.org/; 1/12/10, 2:00 PM
Nate Bowman said...: RE: Jay Rosen

One of my favorites of his is coining the terms "Church of the Savvy" to refer to the religion of the villagers.

I love his stuff; 1/12/10, 2:00 PM
Anonymous said...: He [jay rosen] recently wrote a post about the Sunday talk shows and what can be done to improve them:"

probably the most worthwhile change they could make would be to ban Joe Lieberman from the circuit.

The guy is a jabbering idiot. An absolute disgrace.

Full disclosure: he's one of my own Senators.

The other is Dodd, of course, who is also a disgrace (see above comments)

And then we have Rosa DeLauro, Nancy Pelosi's pet zombie parrot (complete with the dark death-warmed-over circles under her eyes)

Good grief. CT is supposed to be one of the most "Democratic" states in the country??

Yikes!!

All our "representatives" seem to represent the entrenched monied interests (banks, insurance companies, etc)

Makes me want to move away. It really does.

I used to live in a red state where at least the Democrats acted like real Democrats.; 1/12/10, 2:19 PM
geoff said...: Mandalit Del Barco has a nice accent, which I suppose NPR thinks gives her the "street cred" to report on South Central LA, but she sure missed the story behind Ex-Gang Members Take Bang Out Of L.A. Crime . I wrote a comment something like this:

NPR missed the true hero of this story: Gary Webb, whose exposé of how the CIA's Oliver North and the Contra's Danilo Blandon spent years flooding the black community with crack cocaine to fund the Contras about 10+ years ago. Perhaps this angle was missed because NPR's ombudsman Alicia Shepard conspired with WaPo's Walter Pincus and LAT's Doyle McManus to ostracize Webb to the point where he lost his job and ended up leaving his three daughters fatherless after shooting himself in the head (twice) 5 years ago.

Thanks, Gary. RIP.

It hasn't appeared in the comments sections yet...usually there isn't a delay. hmmm...; 1/12/10, 7:48 PM
geoff said...: Reworked it a bit and tried again:

NPR missed the true hero of this story: Gary Webb, whose exposé in the San Jose Mercury News of how the CIA's Oliver North and the Contra's Danilo Blandon spent years flooding the black community with crack cocaine to fund the Contras in the 80's and 90's. Perhaps this angle was missed because NPR's ombudsman Alicia Shepard (who was at the SJ Mercury News then) conspired with WaPo's Walter Pincus and LAT's Doyle McManus to ostracize Webb, one of the few excellent investigative reporters we've had in the US of late - to the point where he lost his job. Webb ended up leaving his three daughters fatherless after shooting himself in the head (twice) 5 years ago. http://www.narconews.com/darkalliance/drugs/start.htm

Thanks, Gary. RIP.

Still nothing. Do you suppose there's filter?; 1/12/10, 7:55 PM
geoff said...: Hey, third time's a charm! Odd. I'm glad I got to revise it.; 1/12/10, 7:57 PM
Anonymous said...: goopDoggy

I think you are being overly magnanimous with "conspired to ostracize".

According to

Counterpunch

"...Webb got a call from a friend, saying that a reporter had requested copies of all of Webb's clippings. The reporter seemed interested in digging into Webb's personal background. She particularly asked about an incident in which Webb had fired his .22 at a man who had been trying to steal his prized TR6 and who threatened Webb and his then-pregnant wife. (The man turned out to be a known local crook already convicted of manslaughter.) The reporter pursuing this story was Alicia Shepard of the American Journalism Review. Shepard had formerly worked as a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News. Her story was another smear on Webb's journalistic ethics, but this time the smears were coming from a source much closer to home. Shepard recounted how Sharon Rosenhause, managing editor of the San Francisco Examiner (a paper boasting Chris Matthews as its Washington, D.C. correspondent), had filed a petition with the Society of Professional Journalists to have Webb stripped of the Journalist of the Year Award that had just been bestowed on him. This had elicited a stinging letter from the director of the Society of Professional Journalists, emphasizing how Rosenhause had a private agenda, and how the society stood behind Webb.

...Shepard got several Mercury News staffers to go on record with their criticism of Webb and his stories. "

The Gary Webb story involves journalism at its very best (Webb) and at its very worst (Shepard).

It was largely claims by anonymous sources that were used to discredit Webb, which bolsters Glenn Greenwald's claim (see above) that
"Unjustified anonymity -- especially when mindlessly repeating what shielded government sources claim in secret -- is the single greatest enabler of false and deceitful "reporting."

"Despite its unbroken record of producing lies, it will never stop, because agreeing to it is how "journalists" end up being selected as favored message-carrying servants for the powerful. This falsehood-producing method isn't ancillary to American journalism but central to it;"

I think that really describes Alicia Shepard's career to a T.; 1/12/10, 8:59 PM
Anonymous said...: Herre's the link to Shepard's article:

http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=257; 1/12/10, 9:59 PM
Anonymous said...: That Counterpunch article reads like the very same indictment of journalism that Glenn greenwald wrote (about journalists relying on anonymous sources and grovelling to the powerful):

Golden's piece, entitled "The Tale of CIA and Drugs Has Life of Its Own," was remarkable, among other reasons, for the pullulating anonymity of its sources. Golden claimed to have interviewed "more than two dozen current and former rebels, CIA officers and narcotics agents." From these informants, Golden had concluded that there was "scant" proof to support the paper's contention that Nicaraguan rebel officials linked to the CIA played a central role in spreading crack through Los Angeles and other cities. One conspicuous common link between all the officials quoted by Golden as being critical of Webb is that they remained anonymous. Only Adolfo Calero permitted himself to be identified. Golden's editors at the New York Times allowed him to offer scores of blind quotes without any identification. The Mercury News never offered Webb that indulgence, nor did he request it.

That describes NPR perfectly.

But the vast majority of the time, NPR does not even interview its own sources, but just relies on second (or third) hand hearsay coming through some think tank.; 1/13/10, 8:12 AM
GRUMPY DEMO said...: Hey goopdog! I'm the King of typos around here! Watch it bub!

Well to continue whipping a dead Ombudsman's Office:

Today's (01/13/10) ME did a story about Google changing it policy toward the China because of the regime's censorship practices.

Now if only NPR would change it's censorship practices, yeah the jokes writes itself.

But here's a bit of trivia:

Guess who thought it was just peachy to work with China's censored state controlled media?

http://www.npr.org/ombudsman/2009/07/china_national_radio_1.html

One pro-government mouth piece training another pro-government mouth piece. How meta is that?

No surprise that someone who doesn't know the definition of "torture" also doesn't think press freedoms are important either.; 1/13/10, 8:16 AM
Anonymous said...: By the way, it's almost certain that if the same thing happened today, NPR would be a major conduit for misinformation, mindlessly repeating the claims of anonymous sources.

And it is also almost certain that the Ombudsman at NPR would be the last one to criticize such an approach.

She reeks with an almost "religious" self-righteousness when it comes to doing and saying whatever it takes to protecting her employer.; 1/13/10, 8:18 AM
Anonymous said...: I am really surprised that not a single "journalist" at NPR has openly demanded the ouster of Shepard.

That speaks volumes about the journalistic integrity (or lack thereof) of people at NPR (including people like Terry Gross)

If I were working at NPR, even as a janitor, I would demand that either Shepard goes or I go.

But of course, people like Gross just have it too good (are making too much money) to ever even think of doing such a thing.; 1/13/10, 8:28 AM
Anonymous said...: Rosen will be on "Radio Times w/Mommy Most-Inane". Don't expect much cause it is a show concerning "responsibility" in journalism. I take not that the host of this dreck has managed to cut down on the number of callers allowed when there is anyone that might even be slightly "controversial" by using the time for her and the guest to lob softballs to each other (Farmer from 9-11, Jessica Stern about what makes a "terrorist" [turns out they are just boys that have been raped by their elders and are estranged from their families - there IS NO other reasons since we claim this is not war on Muslims and we certainly are not supporting corrupt regimes]) Sorry about the convolution above but . . . So we get two callers for Stern and Farmer but billions for the CES.

And she is on 20 hours a week at WHYY (a wholley owned Fox station) and pulls in over 100k/year. But since screeners are "missing" some people (lol), Mommy has just elimnated callers. But hey, they are on FaceBook and Twitter (how many tweets can one twit tweet?) so now I can follow them there. At least until Mommy Most-Inane bans me. I say a week.

edk; 1/13/10, 9:13 AM
Anonymous said...: NPR is mindlessly parroting Obama economic "stimulist" Christina Romer, who is claiming that the Obama stimulus saved or created 1.5 to 2 million jobs.

That claim is just unsubstantiated nonsense.

You can read here what NPR Planet Monkey parrots

As Joan Rivers would say, "Can we calculate?"

Let's assume that the numbers at the top of the range for each of the 3 quarters (3%, 4%, 3%) are correct (which is by no means a given, coming as they do from the White House, which has a vested interest in high-balling).

First, we will average the 3%, 4%, and 3% together to get 3.3% per quarter (for the 3 quarters in question Note that we are NOT talking about an entire year here. That is important, for obvious reasons: the stimulus did not act for the entire year so one can NOT use the entire year to estimate how many jobs were saved/created.

Now, empirical evidence has shown that unemployment declines by 1% for every 3% growth in GDP.

The average number of employed last year was about 140 million.

So, even if the stimulus has increased economic growth over those 3 quarters by an average of 3.3% (over what it would otherwise have been without the stimulus) unemployment is now only (3.3 / 3)x (0.01) x (.75) x (140 million) = 1.2 million lower with the stimulus than without.

NOT 1.5 to 2 million as Romer is claiming.

Note that the 0.75 factor above accounts for the fact that the stimulus only acted for 3 out of the 4 quarters last year. It is actually absurd and/or dishonest to assume that the stimulus somehow created/saved jobs during a quarter (1st) when it was not even yet in existence.

Also note that if one does not account for the fact that the stimulus only acted over 3 quarters, one gets 1.2 million/0.75 = voila, 1.5 million! (hmm, very interesting)

But actually, the difference is even worse than a comparison of 1.2 million to 1.5 million might make it seem. The numbers I used were actually at the upper end of the range (optimistic), so my 1.2 million estimate should really be compared to Romer's top estimate: 2 million (ie, my calculation gives only slightly more than half of Romer's claim)

if you use the numbers at the bottom of the range, my above calculation gives 800,000 (as compared to Romer's 1.5 million)

Second, for Romer to claim that ALL the difference in jobs last year was somehow due to the stimulus is just disingenuous in the extreme. It is quite possible that some jobs were added/saved due to factors quite unrelated to the stimulus.

Finally, Romer REALLY has some gall claiming that "It [the job market] has done exactly what we have anticipated it would do" when her own original prediction that the stimulus would prevent unemployment from going above 8% was WILDLY OFF the mark.

Her claim is actually a baldfaced LIE.

first, empirical evidence has shown that unemployment declines by 1% for every 3% growth in the economy.

The average number of employed last year was 140 million.

So, even if economic growth had been 2% less last year than it was with the stimulus, unemployment would have been only (2/3) (0.01) (140 million) = 1 million greater.

NOT 1.5 to 2 million greater as Romer is claiming.

Second, for Romer to claim that ALL the difference was due to the stimulus is just disingenuous in the extreme.

Finally, Romer has some gall claiming that "It [the job market] has done exactly what we have anticipated it would do" when her own original prediction that the stimulus would prevent unemployment from going above 8% was WILDLY OFF the mark.; 1/13/10, 10:17 AM
Anonymous said...: From producer at Radio Slimes:

"Denis here: Excited about tomorrow's conversation with John Farmer about his experience as Senior Counsel for the 9/11 Commission. But that's a VERY difficult show for which to screen calls."

So let's make it easy and just have Most-Inane and her guest BS each other and pretend they really believe the dreck they spout!

edk; 1/13/10, 10:43 AM
Anonymous said...: grumpy Demo says "No surprise that someone who doesn't know the definition of "torture" also doesn't think press freedoms are important either."

Actually, the worst part is that Shepard actually does know the definition of torture (she even said at one point that she considers waterboarding torture) but STILL nonetheless insists on defending NPR's refusal to use the word in its description of Bush admin interrogation practices.

In other words, it is not simply a case of ignorance of the law.

It is purposeful.

Dishonest in the extreme.; 1/13/10, 11:35 AM
The Boss of You said...: I didn't know who anyone was talking about with Mommy Most-inane so I googled Radio Slimes (which I assumed was Times) -- we don't have that show in Seattle. When I found the website, it just so happened that Jay Rosen was on this morning. Here's the link if anyone has an hour to spare:

http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/2010/01/13/accountability-in-the-news/

Does anyone else get To The Point with Warren Olney? That show is a piece of neo-con work.; 1/13/10, 1:30 PM
Anonymous said...: Chomsky: "Obama Is Fast Becoming Proof That American Democracy Is Nothing But Media Performance Art, Designed To Deceive The Electorate While The Financial Elite Pillage The Treasury"; 1/13/10, 2:02 PM
Anonymous said...: Note, for the above unemployment calcs, i should have multiplied by 154 million (total work force0 rather than by 140 million (number employed).

but it would not change the result materially.

It would change my high end estimate of 1.2 million [reduction in unemployment] to 1.3 million which is STILL far less than Romer's claimed 2 million (high end0 estimate.; 1/13/10, 2:11 PM
larry, dfh said...: edk: about 10 or more years ago radio slimes had a show about capital punishment. I called in a floored them with this comment: to me the real murderers are the D.A.s, because they pick the most helpless victims, the least able to defend themselves, and have the most to gain from both the murder that was committed and the one they are trying to create.
Needless to say, there aren't any calls from 'larry from Newark' on radio slimes anymore.; 1/13/10, 3:09 PM
geoff said...: Wan Willy on this AM with a jolly by golly it's good to hate athiests!

WILLIAMS: I think I was surprised to see that when it comes to intermarriage, young people - black and white - pretty much no problem. But once you get into a group in the mid-50s among whites, you see a precipitous drop in acceptance of interracial marriage. And here's the really funny thing, Deborah - that if you ask people about who they most object to marrying into their family, it's not a black, white, Hispanic, it's atheists. [laughs with jolly abandon] They say they don't want any atheists to marry into their family.; 1/13/10, 7:17 PM
geoff said...: After the Negroponte interview I became more curious about where someone like Inskeep comes from. It turns out, he grew up in Carmel, IN - quite a wealthy enclave near Indianapolis where people get rich selling health insurance to suckers like me, it seems. The median family income is north of $100k, and you know it's a hell of a lot cheaper to live there than CA! The racial makeup of Carmel is 92.63% White, 1.47% African American, 0.14% Native American, 4.38% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 0.46% from other races, and 0.89% from two or more races. I guess somebody's got to do the yardwork and cooking, etc. To explore the diversity of the big wide world, Inskeep attended college at Morehead in Kentucky. The racial makeup of Morehead is 94.25% White, 2.57% African American, R0.15% Native American, 1.52% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.12% from other races, and 1.37% from two or more races.

He must find DC a pretty scary place, if wonders of the beaten track...something I doubt he does.; 1/13/10, 8:44 PM
geoff said...: Screwed up the Negroponte link, somehow: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122516569; 1/13/10, 9:12 PM
Nate Bowman said...: Speaking of Inskeep and Amos had this warm and fuzzy this morning:
"STEVE INSKEEP, host:
So Deb, did you ever get your swine flu vaccine?

DEBORAH AMOS, host:
Not yet. Did you get yours?

INSKEEP: I finally did, because I've got a small child. And so we went the other day and there was absolutely no line. Nobody was getting it.

AMOS: Do people still need to get it?

INSKEEP: Well, U.S. government officials say that in fact you still do. Here's NPR's Richard Knox."

Knox then goes on to pen a disjointed piece basically about the business of the vaccine market. In the process, he inadvertently reveals what a sweetheart deal these companies got and what a bad contract writer the government is.; 1/13/10, 9:22 PM
Nate Bowman said...: goop doggy; 1/13/10, 10:55 PM
Nate Bowman said...: goop doggy

Oops on that last accidental post.

"One" Williams upset me with that piece, too.

I took him to task for several things:

1. He took poll findings and told us what HE THINKS the reasons are for the answers, with no support.

2. He made a big deal about certain stats to support his theory that blacks are responsible for their own situation and that there is a great class division in black society. I checked the 2007 version of the poll, and there were basically no differences to the current results which Williams wanted to make "astounding."

3. He never bothered to check the 2007 poll. (If you think his analysis of this one is bigoted, go back and read that one. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16260629)

4. I asked him if atheism is the new black.

link to the piece
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122516602; 1/13/10, 11:06 PM
Anonymous said...: Please go visit Planet Monkey and listen to the latest podcast, 'The Awesomest Economy?'.

They really need a take down for this, but I don't have the ability to do it myself.

Someone please take those clowns at PM to school.; 1/14/10, 1:55 AM
Anonymous said...: Interesting post as for me. It would be great to read a bit more concerning that matter. Thanx for posting that info.
Joan Stepsen
Cool geeks; 1/14/10, 6:08 AM
Anonymous said...: All NPR has on Pat Robertson's outrageous claim that the Haitian earthquake was somehow God's payback for a haitian pact with the Devil, is this:

"So, as far as Robertson is concerned, the fault is not in the ground; it's in the Haitians. "

and this

"As we're reminded by NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty who covers religion:

"Robertson has a history of blaming disasters on victims. He said Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke because he ceded land to the Palestinians. And he said Americans brought the 9/11 attacks on themselves for their banning school prayer and allowing abortion."

//// That's IT for NPR's "denunciation" o f Robertson's idiotic and thoroughly disgusting "theory".

you know, I'd bet good money that if NPR had been around at the time of Hitler, they probably would not have denounced his vile claims about (and murder of) Jews either, for fear of offending some of his supporters.

Then again, maybe NPR was around, just with a different name: "Reichspropagandaleitung"; 1/14/10, 7:30 AM
Anonymous said...: RE: "The Awesomest Economy?".

We have come to expect such nonsense from the Planet Monkey's.

Those chimps revealed their ideological (free(forall)marketeer) hand long ago.

These are the type of folks who, after having all but one dime stolen from their bank account, proceed to run after the fleeing robber -- not to get their money back but to give him the dime that he dropped.

Planet Monkey is definitely in the running for "Most pathetic economic [sic] program on the Planet" -- and that includes the programs produced by the monkeys (and no, I'm not talking about the TV singing group, though their program was pretty bad); 1/14/10, 10:08 AM
Anonymous said...: goop doggy:

Have you ever found just what Inskeep got his degree in? As far as i could find (I am far too inept with computers . . .) it hasn't been disclosed. For some reason I find that ommission "interesting" ("interesting" = WTF???)

edk; 1/14/10, 10:21 AM
Anonymous said...: Larry from Newark:

Most-Inane is so very NPRish. She is as shallow as urine on a rock, US-centric to the max, and filled with all the angst and fear the typical NPR supporter/employee revels in.

It's hard to tell which is worse: Most-Inane or Gasbag Gross.

edk; 1/14/10, 10:40 AM
geoff said...: Ed,

I'm working hard to out typo Grumpy. I'm polishing the carved claws at the feet of his thrown.

As to Inskeep, even the announcement of his honorary doctorate in broadcasting or whatever just says that he's a 1990 graduate. It seems that getting a college degree in something specific is just passÉ. The characterization of Inskeep described in the link is laughable.

For the record, I have a master's degree in math from UC Davis.; 1/14/10, 10:48 AM
Anonymous said...: programs produced by the monkeys (and no, I'm not talking about the TV singing group, though their program was pretty bad)

Sir or Ma'am: Now you have gone over the line. Dog America, dog the media, dog 'em all but you got to lay off The Monkees cause i'd be willing to bet that anyone of the faux Fab Four were better economists than the entire Market Place, Money, and Planet Money staff put together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4bB8pI-7L8

edk; 1/14/10, 11:13 AM
Nate Bowman said...: Ms. Shepard went on TOTN and did her usual "don't want to be perceived as left-leaning, need to be middle-of-the-road speech in response to the Fiore animation complaints.; 1/14/10, 11:18 AM
Anonymous said...: Nate:

She only mentioned two(2) communications and both were right-wing. Whatever happened to fair and balanced?

edk; 1/14/10, 12:30 PM
Anonymous said...: It took only one day to be booted from Radio Times/facebook. Today i can not post at all there. I guess I should have just accepted Stern's drivel and Farmer's mendacity.

edk; 1/14/10, 12:34 PM
geoff said...: Earthquake Sets Back Progress In Haiti
In this CIA induced amnesiac puff piece about the idyllic nature of Haiti prior to the quake, Debora Amos interviews Ms. Charles of the Miami Herald about how terrible it is that Haiti has suffered such a setback, just when they were finding their feet and getting stable. Who is Ms. Jacqueline Charles? To get a sense of her perspective, read this exchange with Jacqueline Charles (Maimi Herald) re Father Gerard Jean-Juste.; 1/14/10, 1:47 PM
geoff said...: Dear Frumpy,

Thank you for completing our recent NPR Listens survey.

Your feedback will be extremely helpful to the Morning Edition and All Things Considered hosts and producers. We appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts, and we thank you for your help in improving the future of public radio.

Thank you,

Sandra; 1/14/10, 11:05 PM
Anonymous said...: The fact is, the catastrophic nature of what has happened in haiti is due primarily due to things that were entirely under human control: eg, building methods.

SanFrancisco suffered over a 7 magnitude quake in 1989 with very little loss of life.

And LA suffered a relatively large one in the early nineties with similar results (little loss of life).

of course, the people of haiti can not afford proper houses largely because their (US-installed/sponsored) leaders and the corporations they are lackeys for have been robbing them blind for decades now.

but, of course, NPR is not talking about this.

Haitian Earthquake: Made in the USA
Why the Blood Is on Our Hands

I have sponsored school children in haiti through a church program so i have a little better feel than some people about the situation in haiti.

i have seen ( the kind of conditions that these folks live under (from pictures sent by the children i have sponsored).

It is no exaggeration to say that WE (in the US) are directly responsible for what haiti is now experiencing.

it is disgusting that we have not only ALLOWED the people of a country that is literally outside our back door step to languish in poverty the way we have, but have actually played a direct role in contributing to that poverty (ie in ensuring that the poverty continues)

It is immoral, actually.

lots of "Christian" people in this country go to church on Sunday and talk about religion (eg, Pat Robertson), but practicing it seems to be a different matter entirely.

Incidentally, what Robertson said is WAY beyond the pale. That his church and university have not taken him to task over it speaks volumes about the "Christianity' of these folks.; 1/15/10, 10:29 AM
Jay Schiavone said...: I will confess that I was not appalled a couple of times this week with Deborah Amos co-hosting. The interview with Dean Baker completely caught me off guard. Someone who is both knowledgeable and reasonable was permitted to speak at length on a topic of some importance on NPR. It's not unprecedented (I would hope), but it was definitely unexpected. I'll add bonus points because Baker is a frequent critic of NPR news. Also, her interview with Patti Smith failed to make me cringe. Liane could not have managed such a feat.; 1/15/10, 11:37 AM
geoff said...: Wow, I missed the Dean Baker interview. That was good. To nitpick, Deborah asks, "In your opinion, do you think the deficit is bad and must be addressed?" That's redundant (she's obviously asking for his opinion) and somewhat loaded. "Do you think death is bad?" she might ask, and he would have to answer something like, "Yes well we need death to do something about all these people being born." I mean, c'mon! Still, it's very refreshing to have someone sensible on!; 1/15/10, 12:47 PM
Anonymous said...: I'll add bonus points because Baker is a frequent critic of NPR news."

Schiller and the other management at NPR are not stupid.

Even they recognize that you can't simply act as if people like Baker do not exist.

Ironically, the best way for them to "dis" him is to have him on once (or a couple times).

That way they can claim to be "airing all opinions".

What they will NOT do is directly address his many criticisms.

..because that would require admitting what a bunch of ideologically driven idiots they are -- on economics, at least.; 1/15/10, 2:46 PM
larry, dfh said...: Anon 1/15/10 10:29 AM:
Thanks for the link. As I've written before (and to npr as well), soon after Aristide was 'removed', npr ran an interview w/ colin powell (gee, he's never lied before), while Amy Goodman was on the plane with Aristide. That juxtaposition is all one really needs to know.; 1/15/10, 9:59 PM
Nate Bowman said...: Danie Zwerdling had another installment in his hysterical series that should be titled "Someone should have seen Nadal Hasan's shootout at Fort Hood coming and prevented it, damn it! And I, DZ, broke the original manufactured story."

It is, as usual, based on scant or non-existent evidence, inflammatory, hyperbolic, distorting and misrepresentative.

DZ is following the FOX example very well.; 1/16/10, 12:59 AM
am said...: Dean Baker sticks it to the twerpy, snarky serial misinformers on the Planet Monkey team once again.; 1/16/10, 6:59 AM
Anonymous said...: Dean Baker:

Also, given the enormous human suffering caused by this downturn, the laughing tone adopted by the reporters is completely inappropriate. Perhaps NPR will soon advance to Holocaust jokes."

Actually, given the people running NPR (eg, Vivian Schiller), the latter would not surprise me at all.

NPR really has become grotesque.

It's not only propaganda, but it's slimy, callus, condescending propaganda.

It really IS Fox News masquerading as a liberal.; 1/16/10, 8:50 AM
geoff said...: This is the comment I tried to leave at Scott (moist bauble) Simon's commentary on Robertson this AM. For some reason, it's not posting.

"Martians, moon landings and 9-11" is a very odd grouping. It's a disjoint progression from science fiction to science fact to...9-11? What's the point of this? Clearly, the implication is that anyone who questions the official narrative of 9-11 propagandized by mainstream media outlets like NPR is a lunatic. Got it. It's nice to know my place in the NPR mosaic.; 1/16/10, 1:47 PM
Anonymous said...: "given the enormous human suffering caused by this downturn, the laughing tone adopted by the reporters is completely inappropriate. Perhaps NPR will soon advance to Holocaust jokes."
-- Dean Baker

When you are talking about people like Pat Robertson and members of the NPRyan race, nothing is beyond the pale.; 1/16/10, 6:30 PM

Tracking rightwing, pro-government, and corporate bias on NPR News

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Q Tips

56 comments:

Twitter Feed

DONATE

Profiles

Emailing Me

A REMINDER FROM NPR'S OMBUDSMAN

Regarding Q TIPS

Comment Guidelines

Search This Blog

Contact NPR

News and Commentary

General Media Critics

Public Media Critics

Economic Antidotes

Friends and Shared Links

Followers

Blog Archive

Blog Pictures

Labels