Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Q Tips


It's open thread time. Any and all NPR related comments are welcomed.
Posted by Mytwords at 5:14 AM
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57 comments:

Anonymous said...

Remember when NPR held their 24/7 vigil to get Roxana Saberi freed from an Iranian jail, citing the importance of press freedoms?

So, where is NPR's vigil for Julian Assange? :)

All I see is innuendo, smear and vacuous speculation about his "childhood" with virtually NO analysis of and reporting on the actual substance of the released documents.

NPR is showing their true colors in this case and it is not a pretty site (except maybe "pretty fascist")

but no matter what NPR does or does not do in this case, as Assange himself says, The truth will always win’

And ultimately, people will recognize what a truly (journalistically and morally) bankrupt organization NPR has become.

12/7/10, 8:33 AM
Patrick Lynch said...

And yet there are very liberal people I know who listen to NPR everyday who can't seem to understand or acknowledge that their precious source of news is a totally co-opted piece of garbage. I really don't know what it takes anymore for people to understand what is happening all around them where the media is concerned.

12/7/10, 11:48 AM
Porter Melmoth said...

One of the reasons I follow this blog is because of what NPR SHOULD be: a truly open forum to examine current events and their effects with as much care as possible, and with the best minds available.

But because it isn't anything close to that, it's important to be aware of what 'thinking' people are being led into.

More and more I resent NPR News for their assertive role in dominating the notion of what listeners think is the only 'sane' option out there. That is, by coming across as the ONLY alternative to so-called commercial news organizations. They have the luxury of utilizing an already-existing network of stations that they have co-opted (why not say hijacked?) for their own purposes. In my book, that's a case of gross misuse of public opportunity under the guise of a Murrow-like integrity.

(No, that's not parroting Gingrich or Palin or O'Reilly-speak. Their NPR critiques were nothing more than bozo blather of the moment, a limp display of ersatz rage that was about as effective as Jesse Helms' tantrum about public broadcasting. We've seen just how sincere Tea Bagger whining turns out to be...)

Meanwhile, the true alternatives, like Democracy Now!, GritTV, LinkTV, the News Dissector, and other excellent sources are on the upswing. They haven't achieved NPR's accessibility yet, but if they can sustain their independence (with further success, they risk hostile corporate coercion), they will increasingly make NPR News irrelevant.

That's not only my hope, it's my expectation.

12/7/10, 12:31 PM
Bawlb Bunny said...

^ And I simply hop in here 'cuz I begrudgingly want all those misguided membership renewals made from yon days of yore returned.

Astute and cojent as ever you were, P-Mel (that's your Access Hollow-wood name, bee-tee-doppel-vu)

12/7/10, 12:57 PM
bps said...

ugh, and there's no Jay in "cogent"

12/7/10, 12:58 PM
Porter Melmoth said...

Boy, it's becoming increasingly apparent that NPR's really going for the laughs these days. It could be in order to foster a bit of seasonal cheer, but I detect that it's part of Viv Schill's circling of the wagons.

This morn Inskreep was about as chucklesome as he could get. Oh, he was careful to sidestep any Assange humor, but at just about every break, he was there with what Blob Siegel calls 'witty commentary' for us to brighten our existential day with.

After NPR's notre dame de Paris, Eleanor (d'Aquitaine) Beardsley gave a little postcard sketch of Paris's bookstalls along the Seine (perfectly accurate, but fitting as filler for Fresh Air or whatever), Inskreep made a barrel of monkeys quip about 'books, a famous river, and dogmeat', and that NPR was the only place where you might hear such a combination.

Aye, the Schill-er Era is a desperate one, tis true.

You know, some listeners may find Mme. Eleanor's spoiled (ugly) duckling quacking to be sort of charming, but... but... I've said it before, and sorry to be tiresome, but it's so STUPID sounding! So utterly distracting!

I mean, they've got the very nondescript Frank Browning covering the Paris beat, but obviously someone in DC has the hots for cutesy deBeardsley. How can NPR afford to have all this overlap coverage? I know they're both contractors, but where's the moneysworth in such a rinkydink setup?

I'm not a Paris snob, but I do harbor lots of pleasant Parisian memories, and I can't stand how this Beardsley person portrays things Parisian or French via her show-offy teenage snot tones, as if French stuff is essentially really stupid or something. She's a Freedom Fries relic, a perfect example of Narcissist Personality Radio in action: SO distracting, SO worthless.

12/7/10, 12:59 PM
Mytwords said...

Hey, if you feel up to it, head over here to 3 Quarks Daily and vote for my post on the suicides at Gitmo...thanks.

12/7/10, 1:40 PM
Anonymous said...

"they will increasingly make NPR News irrelevant."


NPR "news" is already irrelevant.

It's just that millions of folks don't realize it yet.

...and may never realize it.

There is way too much irony -- and hypocrisy -- in NPR's stance vis a vis wikileaks for me to handle.

NPR claims to want to avoid using "opinionated" terms (eg, "torture") to describe things (like waterboarding) and we nonthleless have NPR announcers (Liane hansen) bandying about charcaterizations of Assange like "imperious", "control freak", "ideologue", "egomaniac"
"reckless; he puts lives at risk."

NPR claims to staunchly support press freedoms, but clearly excludes wikileaks from "the press" (how convenient) -- even though NPR's CEO is very cognizant of the fact that the internet is the wave of the future with regard to the "press".

NPR claims to be interested in providing "all viewpoints", but is only providing a single one (that of the government) on this particular issue.

Finally, NPR calls itself "NPR News", but they show absolutely no interest whatseoeever in the actual content of the documents released by wikileaks.

It's all about heresay and nonsensical psychobabble about Assange's childhood.

next thing you know they will probably bring in some Freudian psychoanalyst quack to tell us what it all means.

How ANYONE listening to this stuff on NPR can NOT notice just how vacuous and hypocritical it all is is something I simply can not fathom.

Only a total idiot (or someone in complete denial) would be able to listen to this crap without vomiting.

12/7/10, 1:43 PM
Anonymous said...

I left out what is actually the biggest irony of all.

NPR and other media organizations are clearly opposing wikleaks because they perceive it as a "threat" to themselves - -and to journalism in general.

But as Assange has actually stated, the whole purpose of wikileaks is to MAKE the information AVAILABLE to journalists and others who can then sift through it and make sense of it and put it in proper context.

These organizations should be OVERJOYED because it means they don't have to do all the very difficult, time consuming and expensive legwork to gather the information.

All they need to do is ANALYZE it and report what they come up with.

then again, 'analysis" was never NPR's strongpoint -- and they have never done any of their own investigations to speak of anyway--, so maybe it's not as ironic as it looks at first blush.

12/7/10, 2:03 PM
gDog said...

Somebody commented in the previous thread that Agent Ferrari has reported that the Wikileaks memoranda from the Ambassador to Honduras somehow vindicates the US because the ambassador wasn't equivocal: the coup in Honduras was a coup. I found this from yesterday, which isn't attributed to anyone, but makes the following claim:

Evidence Of Professionalism

Not everything reflects badly on U.S. diplomats. []

The U.S. ambassador in Honduras also sent a cable last year saying that the removal of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya by the military was "illegal and unconstitutional."

Michael Shifter, an analyst in Washington and president of the Inter-American Dialogue, says the cable shows the U.S. was not involved in the coup. "I think the U.S. showed some professionalism in handling the Honduras crisis," he says. "And what the private communications show is pretty much what was said publicly. I think it will be disappointing for conspiracy theorists."

Robert Naiman has a much more sensible analysis of this revelation in WikiLeaks Honduras: State Department Busted on Support of Coup which appeared in Truthout a week before NPR caught on, or whatever it is they do. Catch down?

A month after [the US embassy in Tegucigalpa sent a cable to Washington with the subject, "Open and Shut: The Case of the Honduran Coup," asserting that "there is no doubt" that the events of June 28 "constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup."], the State Department, in its public pronouncements, pretended that the events of June 28 - in particular, "who did what to whom" and the constitutionality of these actions - were murky and needed further study by State Department lawyers, despite the fact that the State Department's top lawyer, Harold Koh, knew exactly "who did what to whom" and that these actions were unconstitutional at least one month earlier. The State Department, to justify its delay in carrying out US law, invented a legal distinction between a "coup" and a "military coup," claiming that the State Department's lawyers had to determine whether a "military coup" took place, because only that determination would meet the legal threshold for the aid cutoff.

And why the gratuitous denigration of "conspiracy theorists"? It seems that in NPR's world there are no conspiracies (at least not hatched by forces within the USG) and so anyone theorizing about such will get the tinfoil treatment.

12/7/10, 3:16 PM
informedveteran said...

How long before Tom Delay gets a show on Fox "news" ?? What is the statute of limitations, or should I say revisionist history threshold, in the US these days? Even I am old enough to remember seeing the Iran Contra hearings on the TV, but yet death-squad trickle-down Ronnie is a revered president and Ollie gets a TV show. United States of Amnesia indeed.

12/7/10, 4:09 PM
informedveteran said...

In response to NPR's "Liberals: Obama Doesn't Compromise, He Caves"


A little humor from the Borowitz report...

In his latest effort to find common ground with Republicans in Congress, President Barack Obama said today that he was willing to agree that he is a Muslim.

Differences over his religious orientation have been a sore point between the President and his Republican foes for the past two years, but in agreeing that he is a Muslim Mr. Obama is sending a clear signal that he is trying to find consensus.

“The American people do not want to see us fighting in Washington,” Mr. Obama told reporters at the White House. “They want to see us working together to improve their lives, and Allah willing, we will.”

But Mr. Obama’s willingness to back down on his claim of being a Christian does not seem to have satisfied his Republican opposition, as GOP leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) today insisted that the President must also agree that he was born in Kenya.

While Mr. Obama did not immediately agree to Rep. Bohener’s demand, he hinted that yet another compromise might be in the offing: “My place of birth has been, and will always be, negotiable.”

White House sources indicated today that the President might be willing to meet the GOP halfway on his birthplace and say that he was born in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

12/7/10, 4:16 PM
Anonymous said...

Glenn Greenwald notes what is really going on with wikileaks on Democracy Now!

"Whatever you think of WikiLeaks, they have not been charged with a crime, let alone indicted or convicted. Yet look what has happened to them. They have been removed from Internet … their funds have been frozen … media figures and politicians have called for their assassination and to be labeled a terrorist organization. What is really going on here is a war over control of the Internet, and whether or not the Internet can actually serve its ultimate purpose—which is to allow citizens to band together and democratize the checks on the world’s most powerful factions."
//end greenwald quote

The news organizations like NPR who remain silent about all this (or worse yet, attack the messenger) remind be of the famous Martin Niemoeller poem "First they came...

The NPR announcer version:

First they came for the newspapers, and I didn't speak because I was in radio "news".

Then thay came for the TV news stations, and I didn't speak because I was in radio.

Then they came for (and closed down) the internet and I didn't speak up because I was in radio

Then they came for radio, and by that time, there was no way left to speak out.

12/7/10, 7:23 PM
gDog said...

Si, es mi hermana. Antiwar runs in the family. Says Billo wanted her on his show, but she said "no. no. NO."

12/7/10, 10:46 PM
Anonymous said...

NPR's reporting on Wikileaks this morning (Morning Edition) was sensationalist and misleading. Imagine if these were Chinese or Iranian foreign ministry cables under the same circumstances.

It increasingly seems that NPR exists to comfort the comfortable and not to inform the public.

Ben

12/8/10, 5:43 AM
Anonymous said...

When it comes to unternet censorship, the folks at NPR are f...ing hypocrites. The double standrd is blatant.

If China is doing it, NPR covers it one way (here is just one example here, but NPR covered that issue quite extensively) while if the US is doing it, their response is totally opposite


It's telling that ONE of a very few cases where NPR has actually reported (or more precisely, repeated beause it comes from an AP wire article) INFORMATION within the recent cables released by wikileaks, it has related to Chinese internet censorship and hacking of google!

The mot hilarious thing of all are NPR's claims (in the above google censorhip piece) that Chinese censorship negatively impacts international corporations (international trade).

The irony here is just too rich, given that, along with (at the behest of?) the US government, corporations like paypal, mastercard, Visa, amazon etc are now censoring wikileaks!

12/8/10, 8:06 AM
larry, dfh said...

Wed AM, 8Dec10 The intellectual challenge for dinatempleraston was on full display this morning. Appatently 25% of prosoners released from Gitmo have RETURNED to terrorism. This really begs the point: people are released from Gitmo because they have not been shown to have links to terrorism (whatever that is). So it's funny that d-t-r would conjer up a scenario where they are returning from when they never were. I guess this is what d-t-r was referring to when she got all huffy with Glenzilla, touting her extreme national security creds. I guess if being a truly disgusting mouthpiece for the autoritarians constitutes professionalism at standsfornothing radio: the ability to subvert all logical processes in order to deliver the party line.
And yesterday was really no better. Sometime during a.t.c. the hostess had a Reuters reporter talking about Assange. The reporter was so detailed and forthright about the bullshit accusation, that the hostess had to end it with some hear-say about Assange's 'not taking 'no' for an answer'. I'm sure this little twist at the end was the 'money shot' for the audio pornography practiced at neoporn radio. As incredible as it would seem, standsfornothing radio is actually getting worse.

12/8/10, 9:08 AM
gDog said...

Dina Temple Raston for the NPR news
But that's more of the alphabet
Than she knows how to use.

NPR: It seemed a good idea at the time - Now it's a brilliant mistake

12/8/10, 9:31 AM
Porter Melmoth said...

Tom Gjelten just LOVES Julian Assange. To him, Assange is heaven-sent. There, in the form of one person, is proof positive that a New, Colder War ™ is not only necessary, it’s already started, and Gjelten has been there from the start, warning us and warning us again, his patience wearing thin. And now, there’s triumph in his warning us yet again – this time with conclusive proof. He’s going into turbo Bruce Willis mode now. And today, he doesn’t even sound all that constipated either. Julian’s given him a whole new lease on life. Cyberwar is what he pants for, and now that he’s got it, he’s going to be there more than ever for us, leading the charge. Like Wolfowitz, Gjelten’s a True Believer, just what the shadowy Neocons want for their publicity campaign.

Conversely, Philip Reeves’ report on Assange’s current legal situation was well measured and indeed, cautious. But that’s typical of Reeves, who has never fallen for NPR’s ‘Creative Writing’ BS. Strategically, NPR editors placed Reeves’ story BEFORE Gjelten’s so that the awesome horror of looming cyberwar, in which the evil menace of Assangism will be utterly annihilated, can be dangled before the good honest folks that tuned into NPR this morning.

NPR seems to be ‘trying out’ Reeves on the London beat, perhaps because they can keep a closer eye on him. He and Quist-Arcton are about the only international ones I trust at NPR. Times are tough. Reporters need gigs. I don’t look down my nose at them for that.

I mean, when you’ve got Juan Forerro, who always sounds like he’s been sampling the choicest Columbian, or maybe even the best crystal meth from the back alleys of Sao Paulo, or the Condescension Story Time from Gwen Thompkins, or the anger-management mutterings of Michael Sullivan (wow, haven’t heard from the last two for some time; still on NPR payroll?), what’s the point of trusting America’s Storytellers to deliver the goods?

12/8/10, 11:42 AM
Porter Melmoth said...

Speaking of bizarro spew from our American Storytellers, wonder-boy Guy Raz took time out from his cooking class on ATC yesterday to ask a guest about a particular vet who had his legs blown off in Afghanistan. Seems the vet is kind of mad at the Fred Phelps church psychos who plague the funerals of slain soldiers. (Kind of understandable, huh?)

So Raz gets to the point in the interview when he gingerly asks if the vet MIGHT BE SUFFERING FROM PTSD or something. Not even an inkling of insight that maybe it's the Fred Phelps zombies who are the ones that are utterly and horribly insane.

It was a brilliant thematic link to Auntie Liane's 'gotcha' psychoanalysis of Julian Assange.

12/8/10, 11:54 AM
Porter Melmoth said...

PS: Because you see, it’s really these lone Oswaldian weirdos that we must fear. And you WILL fear them, because that’s what the media commands you to feel. Because they’re entirely reasonable and objective about their duty to warn you of the imminent threats we face. (Never mind their falling down in light of all the pre-9/11 warnings that were so freely available…)

12/8/10, 11:59 AM
larry, dfh said...

Just wanted to copy a comment on a CommonDreams article from Laura Flanders, because cokie roberts and her spawn are so -all over- standsfornothing radio:

Kay Johnson December 8th, 2010 11:23 am
Thank you, Laura Flanders for speaking out on this issue -- violence against women! I agree with every word you wrote!

Recently, I watched the documentary -- THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, The Movie, directed by Mat Whitecross and Michael Winterbottom. Currently, the film is showing on the Sundance Channel and I had a chance to see it on Sunday. The School of the Americas/School of Assassins should be closed down. A U.S. official is interviewed in the film, and he worked at the School of the Americas, and talked in the film about the tactics and strategies taught at the so-called school. He let the word RAPE fall off his tongue as if it were an innocuous and harmless act, part of the strategy. As a woman, the indifference of this man shook my very soul!

I remember going to hear Diane Ortiz speak -- she was a nun who was working in Guatemala during the late 1980s. She was one of the panelists (Ethical Society here in NYC), along with Chris Hedges, Michael Ratner and Jeremy Skahill, discussing torture and war, perpetrated/supported by the U.S. Ms. Ortiz was kidnapped and tortured, and gang-raped -- she was also blindfolded. I still get chills when I think about her story. Men speaking Spanish, with American accents, were in the room when the men were torturing and raping her. She lived at a great cost to her faith, as you can imagine. BTW, the general in charge, Hector Gramjo later attended Harvard University, possibly at our, the people's, expense. How can any of these men have the audacity to call themselves "the best and the brightest?" An Ivy League degree does NOT entitle and justify rape, or any other crime.

In 1996, Diane Ortiz was interviewed on Nightline by Cokie Roberts, who contends that Ortiz is lying about the torture -- the more than 100 cigarette burns, gang rapes, etc.

That night, at the Ethical Society, the people in the audience wiped tears from their faces as we listened to Ms. Ortiz's story.

Here comes more U.S. intervention -- Tom Boggs (PR film Patton, Boggs & Blow), brother of Cokie Roberts, was hired by the Guatemalan military to spin the death squads, and other thugs involved in the wars in Guatemala, into something more positive, something more digestible to the unknowing masses in the U.S.

Our foreign policy is deadly.
end of comment

12/8/10, 1:27 PM
larry,dfh said...

sorry about the double post, somethin's screwy with the 'puter.

12/8/10, 1:33 PM
informedveteran said...

You’re not the only one having computer problems!

12/8/10, 3:39 PM
gDog said...

I heard some "economalist" on NPR this ME say that if the tax cuts for the rich are not passed it will take some tens of billions "out of the economy." As if...that's a fact. Brilliant...mistake, there Mr. jerkonomist.

12/8/10, 4:34 PM
Benoit Balz said...

Haven't checked the site in a long time and I'm glad to see you are still going strong. I woke up the other day to hear two pieces of Pentagon puff-piece garbage, involving our old friends Flintoff and Inskeep:

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/07/131870184/War-s-Progress-Measured-By-Commanders-In-Afghanistan


http://www.npr.org/2010/12/07/131857237/afghan-tv-show-aims-to-burnish-police-reputation


NPR, getting worse and worse with the blatant propaganda and still - no awareness or accountability on their part. It's a joke!

12/8/10, 8:03 PM
gDog said...

¡Viva Glennzilla!

12/9/10, 12:17 AM
Patrick Lynch said...

This morning was a trifecta of ME weirdness. First the latest "story" on the terrorist plot "thwarted" by the FBI in which Demon Temple-Raston who as usual completely fails to mention that without the FBI's money and support this kid probably would not have radicalised and wanted to blow someone up. It appeared to me that the gist of the story was to invoke a new fear of Hispanics as future Islamic terrorists. Two for the price of one!

Second was that piece on the New Yorker reporter who to use his word "embedded" with Wikileaks. I would have to either hear the piece again or read the transcript later because I missed a few seconds of it. The New Yorker guy while not outright condemning Wikileaks seemed to be trying to paint a picture of it as a military operation which certainly got Inscreep's jollies going towards his daily attempts at making Wikileaks look like a terrorist group.

For absolute bizarro juxtaposition was the piece that followed on the cheerleader teenager with a pronounced regional accent who discovers she likes to kill deer. Given where I live, I might not find it all that unusual but the way the story was presented and following the other two was just creepy and condescending at the same time. At that point the radio gets turned off in disgust and we get ready for the commute to work.

12/9/10, 9:07 AM
Patrick Lynch said...

As I think about the three stories I heard on NPR this morning, the common theme to all of them was death. No surprise there!

12/9/10, 9:19 AM
informedveteran said...

The link I posted above has been changed. Yesterday (12/8) it was a story and title all about the hackers in support of Wikileaks that attacked Mastercard and Visa (and said Twitter was next). NOW it is completely different story and any mention of hackers is gone. Something weird is going on.

12/9/10, 9:26 AM
informedveteran said...

This is the story that WAS here yesterday.

12/9/10, 9:40 AM
informedveteran said...

Now this shows up: MasterCard Site May Be Target Of WikiLeaks Backers with this quote “Material from the Associated Press was used in this report”.

12/9/10, 9:51 AM
Anonymous said...

informed veteran

regarding NPR's link changing:

That's pretty pathetic (and hardly the first time they have done it)

I frequent a lot of scientifically oriented blogs and the good ones ALWAYS note when they make a correction or change. In fact, they usually leave the old version up with a line through it so everyone can see the error/change.

These are BLOGS, mind you, which the folks at NPR are always belittling:


"What we have now is a Wild West of media...We have part of the media operating in a responsible manner and others doing whatever they think necessary." --Jeffery Dvorkin, former NPR ombot and journalism prof at the University of Toronto.

he was talking about wilikeaks in particular but its pretty clear that his snide "We're real journalists and you're not" comment was aimed at others like bloggers as well.

It's pretty bad (downright pathetic!) that an organization like NPR that claims to be engaged in journalism would just change things without even telling anyone.

"NPR: All the news that's fit to change"

12/9/10, 10:59 AM
gDog said...

Just in time Barbie Promotion: dolls-grow-up-a-little-for-the-holidays

I've been worried sick about how are young people aren't buying enough Barbie dolls these days. Fortunately, NPR is on the job.

Barbie [is] the "undisputed queen of the doll aisle," [though] Barbie's growth has slowed.

Young girls have left Barbie and other dolls for computer-based games and social media sites, [but] the hope is that making dolls taller will help them appear like pre-teen and early teen dolls, instead of babies and adults.

Yes, NPR is keeping hope alive.

12/9/10, 12:48 PM
Anonymous said...

Former NPR Ombot Jeff Dvorkian has called Assange "childish" and "irresponsible" for the way he has released documents, contrasting that to how the "responsible" journalists (like himself) behave.

But the reality is quite different from the way Dvorkian is spinning it.

AS Glenn Greenwald notes about this very same issue
"the Time article then refers to "a distinction between WikiLeaks' indiscriminate posting of the cables -- which [Nicholas] Burns called 'nihilistic' -- and the more careful vetting evidenced by The New York Times." This is a "distinction" that exists only in the minds of establishment-serving, falsehood-spewing "journalists."

Obviously, releasing 1/2 of 1% of the documents one possesses [the reality of what wikileaks has done] is not "indiscriminate" under any recognized meaning of that word. More to the point, the overwhelming majority of cables posted thus far by WikiLeaks were first published by one of its partner newspapers, and contains the redactions applied by those papers."

12/9/10, 12:59 PM
informedveteran said...

Now there is yet another (3rd at least) story posted on the exact same web page, this one with the title- Protests, Cyber-Skirmishes Rage Over WikiLeaks. They don’t move the comments when they put a new AP story on this page so the comments make less and less sense every time they do it. I don’t get it. This latest story is dated 12/9, but the comments go back to 10/22.

12/9/10, 1:30 PM
Anonymous said...

informedveteran:

They don’t move the comments when they put a new AP story on this page so the comments make less and less sense every time they do it.

I beg to differ.

If you ask me, the comments are the ONLY thing that make any sense on NPR's website.

12/9/10, 1:35 PM
gDog said...

In Battle-Over-WikiLeaks-Hits-Turning-Point we learn that

Over the past few days, more radical elements within the [Wikileaks] movement have carried out cyberattacks on companies that have cut ties with WikiLeaks, exposing the movement to charges that it advocates anarchy and lawlessness.

Interesting turn of Newspeak here, since it's Wikileaks that has exposed the lawlessness of the USG. It is precisely the tendency of governments to become authoritarian, secretive and to perpetrate lawless conspiracies to bully the many in favor a few insiders, that we need the "Fourth Estate" and first amendment freedoms to protect us from. Thankyou leakers and Wikileaks!

12/9/10, 6:13 PM
informedveteran said...

"Battle-Over-WikiLeaks-Hits-Turning-Point" is now named "Silencing WikiLeaks A Free Speech Challenge For U.S." Maybe if these clowns didn't spend so much time reediting their stories they would have time for actual reporting.

12/10/10, 7:54 AM
GRUMPY DEMO said...

It's this type of reporting that makes me want to bang my head on the radio in my car.

How do you a story "Silencing WikiLeaks A Free Speech Challenge For U.S. by Tom Gjelten" and no mention once that the US Government has actively worked to silence Wikileaks by shutting down their internet access and threatening banks that process their donations?

Easy when you're National Propaganda Radio, as Glennzilla points out the dominate meme in the media is "It's OK/Legal/Ethical when the US government does it".

See prior comments by others about NPR's lack of concern about journalist who aren't cause celeb of Right Wing warmongers.

12/10/10, 9:26 AM
GRUMPY DEMO said...

Here's a nice take down by the CJR on NPR's Right wing slanted (my words not theirs) reporting on the deficit.

NPR Plays Ebenezer Scrooge: Another lopsided Social Security Story

Here's my NPR "Deficit Reporting" Check list:
1) Start with fear mongering: America just list like Spain, Greece, Iceland!
2)Misrepresent public opinion: "Everybody" is worried about the Deficit.
3)Only interview Right Wing economists: Almost always AEI, CATO, or Perterson.
4)Never mention cutting defense spending.
5)Close story with repackaged GOP talking points.

Rinse and repeat daily.

12/10/10, 9:49 AM
Anonymous said...

The folks at NPR actually give clowns a bad name.

As usual, the real comedians like Colbert (as opposed to the [fake] "journalists" at NPR and other news media outlets) are reporting the real issues in the wikileaks case

Very sad, but very true.

In the US, at least, many of those who call themselves "journalists" (especially at NPR) have become far too comfortable with the power elites -- and far too self-righteous.

Time and again, they have gotten major stories (eg, WMD in Iraq) completely wrong, but instead of admitting their massive screwups and making the changes so they don't repeat the screwups in the future, their response has simply been to circle the wagons and cry that "Journalism itself is under siege. These people are not real journalists. They are irresponsible and childish anarchists" (says the NPR "anal-yst".)

yes indeed, "journalism is under siege", by a rag tag group comprised of just a handful of individuals actually DOING what journalists are supposed to do.

Could this get ANY more pathetic?

12/10/10, 9:55 AM
gDog said...

Gramp's NPR "Deficit Reporting" Check list is perfect:

1) Start with fear mongering: America just list like Spain, Greece, Iceland!
2)Misrepresent public opinion: "Everybody" is worried about the Deficit [but nobody's got the guts to do something about it].
3)Only interview Right Wing economists: Almost always AEI, CATO, or Perterson [and Republican Senators bought by same]
4)Never [ever] mention cutting defense spending.
4.5) Offer slight encomium to slightly left of center right types before...
5)Closing story with [a hard twist of] repackaged GOP talking points as the bottom line.

Rinse and repeat [twice] daily.

12/10/10, 10:03 AM
GRUMPY DEMO said...

I'm over caffinated this morning, sooooo here's another post your resident typo king"

NPR's reporting on jailed Chinese pro-democracy activist Liu Xiabo seems a bit low key to me.

Take yesterday's China's Nobel Crackdown Echoes 1936
why it as an interesting history lesson about a anti-Nazi German dissident, I keep getting the feeling that NPR was changing the subject.

I wonder if NPR is embarrassed about this?

GD

12/10/10, 10:21 AM
Anonymous said...

The first title to that Gjelten story (still embedded in the link) "Battle Over WikiLeaks Hits Turning-Point" [toward "anarchy"] actually indicates the slant of the piece:

"Wikileaks is going to produce a strong backlash and therefore less press freedom in the end"[which, we can all agree is a bad thing]

It's little more than "concern trolling" -- and transparently so, at that.

12/10/10, 10:25 AM
informedveteran said...

Don't miss Glenn Greenwald's takedown of our state-run news media on FAIR's Counterspin Podcast!

12/10/10, 11:07 AM
informedveteran said...

As documented on NPR Check before, NPR’s history of Afghanistan leaves much to be desired. Now comes a Blast from the past BONANZA of misinformation at the same great price! In “For Invaders, A Well-Worn Path Out Of Afghanistan” a convenient timeline of propaganda is offered which includes “1978-1979: Pro-Soviet Afghan leaders face civil unrest; Soviet forces invade.” – followed directly by – “1986: U.S. begins supplying weapons, support to mujahedeen fighting the Soviets.”

When you are US state-run news it is crucial to leave out that the US desired to give the Soviets their own VIETNAM by aiding the mujahadeen BEFORE the Soviets invaded. Including this might lead your loyal citizens to conclude that their government has given them ANOTHER Vietnam!

“NPR: That’s the Government’s official story and we’re stickin’ to it.”

12/10/10, 12:00 PM
Anonymous said...

While NPR's changing titles of stories around may seem like "no big deal", it actually indicates a great deal about their journalistic ethics (or lack thereof).

They seem to have no problems changing things around and giving no acknowledgment that they did so -- which makes it hard to avoid the conclusion that they don't want anyone to KNOW that they changed it.

That shows a profound contempt for truth and honesty.

You really gotta wonder: How many times has NPR changed the actual content of stories after the fact?

How many times have they put out "new facts" (time-lines, etc) to please those who feed them?

Unfortunately for NPR, when they put the title in the link, they can't change that because others may already have linked to it (and if they DID change the link entirely, that would attract LOTS of attention to their change, which they certainly wish to avoid)

12/10/10, 12:14 PM
Porter Melmoth said...

A tiny but telling nuance from Inskreep's trophy Oval Office session with POTUS this morn:

<>

Note the 'I WANT'. No NPR-nik would EVER have spoken that way to Dubya. What Steve WANTS, Steve shall have, even though it be from a POTUS. Just a shade of the - uh - 'plantation owner' in the Inskreep, maybe? Oh, I suppose that's mean of me...

And Renaay & Hoarsely's little innuendos surrounding the interview were classics of NPR-Approved Condescension. As if, 'we're MUCH smarter than that Oval Office Occupant'. Again, such innuendos or notions or subtleties - whatever you want to call them, were never in play during NPR's reverential treatment of Bush2, no matter what dumb#@$! things he came up with.

Of course, the model was set by Blob Siegel & Maw-ra Liarsson's masterful 'handling' of sex fiend Bill Clinton in those days of yore.

Inskreep ends his showcase with a little witty flourish: 'After our interview, the President donned his coat and went out to light the White House Christmas tree.'

Why not conclude with a trivialization of a runaway Kenyan Muslim slave passing as an Uppity Negro?

Yes, this is all 'subliminable' (to use an endearing Dubya-ism), but to me it all hinged on that particular 'I want' demand. Tiny, but telling.

12/10/10, 12:59 PM
Porter Melmoth said...

Sorry, HTML hell-code blinked out the Inskreep quote. Here it is:

"This week, my colleague Scott Horsley asked you if there was a different possibility here. He asked if you were going to use this two-year window to push for a broader overhaul of the tax code. You said yes. I want you to expand on that "yes.""

12/10/10, 1:00 PM
Anonymous said...

Ron Paul tells it like it is on wikileaks.

He's several orders of magnitude above Obama in both the intelligence and truth departments.

12/10/10, 1:00 PM
Patrick Lynch said...

I thought about listening to the Obama interview this morning but the smarm factor from Inscreep combined with how I've now also developed the same reaction to Obama's voice as I did when Bush was on the air meant there was no way I was going to put up with that much garbage even for a short time.

I can only imagine what NPR is doing with Bernie Sanders and Mary Landrieu's filibustering of Obama's latest capitualation.

12/10/10, 1:16 PM
Porter Melmoth said...

Yes indeed, the double talk from all angles has morphed into triple and quadruple talk. They're all playing the same game, of course.

PS: I picked up Michael Moore's 'Capitalism: A Love Story' for 3 bucks and was duly impressed, especially the extra with Chris Hedges. 'Single' talk at its best, so to speak.

12/10/10, 2:47 PM
Anonymous said...

What I find sickening in recent Obama speeches is the way he talks to his base like we are a bunch of children who should just suck it up and shut up when he does the opposite of what he promised in his campaign.

Obama seems to have far more patience for the Republicans who are holding him captive (and ultimately out to destroy his Presidency) than he does for the people who put him in office (who would "dare" criticize his about-faces on the extension of tax cuts for the rich, government secrecy, civil liberties or anything else)

It's bizarre -- almost Stockholm syndrome like.

12/10/10, 4:18 PM
Anonymous said...

Obama: The second Black, moderate, Republican to be in the WH in 18 years! And NPR is doing its' part - send money!

12/11/10, 9:14 AM
The Boss of You said...

So Inskeep has interviewed Obama on the tax deal and the payroll tax holiday opens the way for a Social Security fight down the line. Ain't it grand?

12/11/10, 1:23 PM
Anonymous said...

The third, if you count Hillary. :)

12/11/10, 3:26 PM

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