NPR Check: Q Tips

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Q Tips

"Parting seas of misinformation since...well...um....okay...only since 2006."

NPR related comments, notes and observations welcomed.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...: NPR ombotswoman(?) about NPR's massive f...up that reported Giffords had died:

"While NPR made a significant mistake that dinged its credibility, it should be commended for quickly apologizing and being transparent. Rather than hurting NPR’s credibility, taking responsibility for the mistake should enhance it.

Unfortunately, however, many people will remember the mistake and not the correction.

So sad.

Poor NPR.

Poor Alicia.

Got their widdle credibility hurt, which is the important thing (of course), not the fact that NPR's mis-reporting may have caused grief for family members and friends of Giffords.

Just think of how bad NPR made Scott Simons feel.

The humanity.

What this shows is that NPR (and the American media in general) is just a massive clusterf..k.

This is precisely the same behavior that we saw on WMD.

If Alicia Shepard had any journalistic ethics she would have come right out an said as much.; 1/12/11, 9:00 AM
informedveteran said...: Max Blumenthal has a good article about the AZ situation My day in the courtroom of Judge John Roll, who lived and died in Arizona’s climate of hate
. I doubt this was covered on blame-both-sides NPR.; 1/12/11, 10:24 AM
Patrick Lynch said...: Dinged? Dinged? They can only wish. But then on the other hand, your average NPRbot probably never noticed.

My verification word is ovens. Appropriate since their excuse for screwing up is certainly half-baked.; 1/12/11, 12:26 PM
gDog said...: In Airports Consider Using Private Security Screeners labor scholar (not) Brian Naylor nails (not) the crux of the issue by opening with a quote from Kansas City International Airport director, Mark VanLoh:

Using private contractors does make a difference. "In my opinion, these contract employees — they're not federal employees; they're not guaranteed a job for life. If they don't meet the performance goals or maybe they're consistently rude, or maybe they miss objects that go through the machine, they are terminated. I can't remember how easy that would be to do with a federal employee. I don't think it is.

Well, that surely nails national labor relations to a board! But our Mr. Naylor is a thorough investigator, so he gets a second opinion: Republican Rep. John Mica of Florida, the new chairman of the House Transportation Committee, on whose authority we have it that

The private screening under federal supervision works and performs statistically significantly better, so our main purpose here is in getting better screening and better performance, not to mention that we can get better cost for the taxpayers.

Hallelujah! It's about time Haliburton felt safe enough to bring some of its Cayman Islands money on shore! And kudos to Naylor for the well sourced statistics: Mica's pancreass.

And to be sure the NLRB is fully on board with the newthink and newspeak, the word, "union" does not appear once in the entire piece. In fact, googling "tsa unionization" brings up a Redstate.com article as the first hit: TSA Unionization an [sic] 32 Million Annual Gift to Union Bosses - AFGE, the object of their wrath, comes up second.

My verification word is "engra" which, I take it is an anagram for "anger." "NPR: we put the grrrrr in "anger!"; 1/12/11, 1:22 PM
Anonymous said...: Could we PLEASE, PLEASE stop hearing the reflexive NPRism "Both sides do it! The left does it too!" every time someone mentions that inflammatory gun-related rhetoric is corrosive. I hardly think, as Kneel Conan the Barbarian constantly insists, that a person posting on Daily Kos that Cong. Giffords is "dead to me" over a legislative vote (a figure of speech not related to violent murder) is the same as a politician posting cross-hairs on a target map. Give us a break with your false equivalencies.

I'm sure all this talk about inflammatory rhetoric will blow over as quickly as it arose, because the case, however tragic, isn't necessarily about that issue. No gun laws are going to change in the lock-and-load United States, and Fox News, the Koch Brothers, Murdoch and their covert allies like NPR are not going to give up their lucrative propaganda. But Neal and the rest of the crew really burn me up.; 1/12/11, 1:45 PM
Anonymous said...: "In my opinion, these contract employees — they're not federal employees; they're not guaranteed a job for life. If they don't meet the performance goals or maybe they're consistently rude, or maybe they miss objects that go through the machine, they are terminated."

Oh, the irony, given that those at NPR are effectively Federal employees, given that a part of their salary comes from Federal dollars.

But NPR is right.

It IS hard indeed to "terminate" NPR employees, even they completely screw up,as they did when they reported Giffords had died -- and when they reported that Saddam had WMD's.; 1/12/11, 2:09 PM
Anonymous said...: The private screening under federal supervision works and performs statistically significantly better,"

Anything is better than nothing, but that does not mean it's good.

If "private" (ie, corporate) screening at airports is anything like security for officials in Iraq (Blackwater), a major "screwup" (read: murder of civilians) need only be followed by a company name change and it's back to business as usual.

And the ones who benefit most are not the airline passengers (since the underwear and shoe bombers still get through), but the former government officials who greased the wheels for the billion dollar contracts.; 1/12/11, 2:21 PM
informedveteran said...: Court Rules Against Banks In Pivotal Mortgage (FORECLOSURE?!?!?) Case

Planet Monkey won’t touch this one with a 10 foot totebag, gee I wonder why. (the Ally AD is back now again, too). Note the zero comments on this banished-to-the-back page story.

This has the potential to be HUGE. If the mortgages were never properly documented that means the mortgage backed securities products were never properly created. This fraud would cause the investors who bought all the mortgage backed securities products (that sank the world economy) to basically be eligible for a refund. This would cause the big banks to owe hundreds of $Billions AT LEAST to those investors – therefore giant economic collapse 2.0.; 1/12/11, 4:18 PM
larry, dfh said...: My wife's uncle either worked as a TSA screener, or was going to, when he got another gig. He said the pay sucked, but the health insurance benefits were outstanding. So we know what changes they have in mind. That, and the porn videos will be under a pay-portal.; 1/12/11, 9:21 PM
larry, dfh said...: Of course, for standsfornothing radio, covering all sides of a story means covering all of the sides germane to the corporate perspective.; 1/12/11, 9:24 PM
Anonymous said...: The problem with airport security is that has nothing to do with whether it's run by the government or not.

The problem is that it's fundamentally flawed.

Screening of every passenger with machines and screeners operating them that have been shown time and again NOT to stop bombs and weapons is never going to work.

"Profiling" may not be politically correct, but it is the only way to have an effective system.

Let's face it, not all passengers pose an equivalent threat.

The woman who flies every week as part of her business and has been doing so for years hardly poses the same threat as the guy who just bought a one way ticket with cash for the first time in years.

The problem is not "government run" vs "corporate run", it's that the people who came up with the screening system were either 1) idiots or 2) had a vested (monetary) interest in the way it was configured.; 1/13/11, 8:27 AM
Anonymous said...: Ombot is 'splaining another NPR mistake.; 1/13/11, 12:08 PM
Porter Melmoth said...: An outstanding interview with Tavis Smiley on DN!:

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/1/13/tavis_smiley_on_obamas_
arizona_memorial

Always edifying to compare valid input to waste-of-time NPR.; 1/13/11, 1:24 PM
gDog said...: On KCRW (Santa Monica) the last ten minutes of the hour on ME are devoted to MarketPlace. This morning there was yet another analysis of the economics of Barbie sales. Searching for "dolls" at Marketplace yields hundreds of hits. Searching for SAIC "Science Applications International Corporation," produces only a few hits, and those for a company with the same acronym that produces cars in China. If you search CorpWatch for SAIC you get 1610 hits, and it's not about Chinese cars. Like Booz/Allen, Kroll Associates, Stratesec, etc. - the various successful privatization efforts of the CIA, just aren't of as much interest to most Americans as Toys 'Я' Us. Wirt Three and Gerome Hauer make better underwriters than people to be written about.; 1/13/11, 2:05 PM
Patrick Lynch said...: WEKU also runs Marketplace in the last ten minutes of the hour. I find them to be almost as vile as Planet Money. The host style is painfully similar in the cool kids hipster wannabe department.

I don't know why they have an obsession wit Barbie doll sales as a barometer of the economy but otherwise I find them to be a mind numbing fountain of conventional wisdom.; 1/13/11, 2:11 PM
Porter Melmoth said...: Patrick,

I think the Barbie linkage is a predictable hook for their (aging) Boomer audience, always a reliable gimmick. They assume that sensitive women listeners 'need' something familiar to grasp onto amidst all the 'depressing' stories. However, America's Storyteller is making 'depressing' stories more and more token in the daily shows. Barbie can always be called upon to save a typical ratings day. Unbelievably cynical and manipulative, but comfortably Corporate and indeed, Neocon.

Conversely, Tavis on DN! was electrifying. MLK's OTHER speech was reviewed, the '67 anti-Vietnam speech - utterly timely and heroic. Current hypocrisy of mourning the Tucson dead while AfPakIraq rages is dealt with full face.

As NPR goes more commercial - as it becomes just another MSM outlet - its relevance will continue to wither.; 1/13/11, 2:36 PM
gDog said...: Port,

I must say that Tavis is not MLK. MLK's voice was electrifying on DN this morning, but Tavis...milquetoast, in my not so humble opinion. Where was his outrage at Obama's drone attacks? Where is the outrage that MLK's assassins have been allowed to get away with murder? Why is he afraid of the internets:

But worse yet, the American people. I believe, Amy, that hate is spreading fastest in this country on the internet. And there are no civility police. There are no fact checkers. You can say anything. You can put anything out there. You can do it anonymously; you can be cowardly about it.

The implicit message here is that MSM does have fact checkers, or civility, for that matter. If he has a conscience, he seems to keep it somewhat muzzled, lest his CPB minders get miffed.

While I'm criticizing my favorite news outlet, why does DN turn so often to the Southern Poverty Law Center? This group is essentially an establishment organization that, in some ways, epitomizes the "third way" nonsense of equating extremism on the right with extremism on the left...always hewing closely to the center of the Overton Window as it continues its rightward slide.

Btw, about 7am this ME, I was thinking to myself, well hell, at least I don't have to hear about DADT anymore when, I'm not making this up, the very next story was about how, now that DADT has allowed gays to officially commit atrocities on my behalf, the next issue is going to be a push to allow women in combat.; 1/13/11, 3:09 PM
larry, dfh said...: Jeebus gDog; Information Overload! I hope there's no quiz on that material!
Thursday 13Jan atc: we had a flat tax discussion, and a discussion about how expensive deductions like mortgage interest are, and we learned how Social Security is what people expect of govt. But all the talk-around was for the false equivalence of taxes and FICA, no mention whatsoever that Social Security is self funded. It was a very sly and dishonest plug for impoverishing the masses, brought to us by that loveable liberal thinktank brookings. Absolute puke-factory!
And Porter, that DN segment was great. DN used to go through WBAI-Pacifica New York. Interesting seeing Tavis so edgy. His npr/pbs gig leaves alot to be desired, imho. Like his coziness with ward connerly. But npr/pbs will do that to a person. WPFW Pacifica D.C. has a commentator Askia Muhammad, who can breathe political fire (WPFW is a little too rhythm-and-blues, and not enough fire, imho); yet when I heard him on standfornothing radio it was to recite his mothers Egg Nog recipe (I kid you not). We should count among our blessings that there is a Pacifica network, flawed as it may be.; 1/13/11, 7:03 PM
GRUMPY DEMO said...: My local NPR Station, KERA in Dallas didn't broadcast Omba's Tucson speech last night.

Not sure why, they went with a repeat of Fresh Air.; 1/13/11, 7:32 PM
Porter Melmoth said...: Good stuff, guys, and points taken. gDog, indeed, it was MLK who was the highest voltage. Hearing the speech selections, I just plain got choked up. He was transcendent, to say the least.

Indeed, Tavis is a media guy, and operates within its bounds. Nevertheless, to paraphrase Doc 'Bones' McCoy, I'm just a country boy, grateful that there are those out there who are at least hinting at progressive efforts, or whatever we may call them.

As for DN's sources, again I take the minimalist stance: their budget is obviously restrictive. It's amazing that they do what they do at all. As for criticism, they're not so precious that they can't be worthy of well-placed words.

Survival as an alternative media person is no doubt a day-to-day activity of 'interesting' proportions.

Speaking of Tavis, he hosted a forum ('America's Next Chapter') that he plugged on DN! and it was fairly worthwhile, though not earthshaking. David 'Axis/Evil' Frum (erstwhile Dean of the Neocon Publicists) was actually on it (predictably intractable, but on best behavior), but Cornel West, whom I met once, had the best and most substantive contributions. He's got more soul than he can con-trol, and I really like his poetics.

Again, all this makes NPR stand out starkly as the stale white bread that it is. Tasteless cake, as my late Pappy would say.; 1/13/11, 11:51 PM
gDog said...: Larry and Port,

They say that the spleen is the organ where evil intentions are hatched and that one needs to keep it aired out so as keep anything from fully gestating. Thus my long winded diatribes which accompany my reading of Family of Secrets. It seems that NPR is instrumental in keeping these secrets, which are available to intrepid investigators wuch as Russ Baker.

Watching DN this morning, I think maybe Tavis had a good point yesterday about Americans and the internets - the interplay between Faux Snooze and their lobotomized viewers kindles the flames of demonology. The vitriol Beck inspires in people with irrational violence in their hearts is pretty scary. Here this CUNY prof Frances Fox Piven advocates for poor people and for voting and GB makes her out to be in league with devils such as Woodrow Wilson...and, what, people take this effluent seriously? Wow.

NPR's take on violence today is to note the attempted assassination attempt on Reagan (which, had it succeeded, would have made Poppy president...) and reach way down deep into the history books to find an instance where a right wing leader (Adolph Coors III) was actually killed by an assassin...in 1961. Not a mention of MLK, JFK, RFK, Malcolm X, etc., or of Byron Williams, who was inspired by Beck to try to shoot activists at the ACLU and the Tides Foundation.

Instead we are treated to a treatise by Robert Fein and Secret Service agent Bryan Vossekuil who "undertook the most extensive study of assassins and would-be assassins ever done."

Laughably, despite the omissions mentioned above, they dig up an attempt to assassinate the master assassin himself: Poppycock Bushwhacker. I tremble at the course history might have taken if such a fanciful attempt had succeeded. They claim that assassins are apolitical and just want attention for themselves...like, there's never been a conspiracy to commit assassination. That just doesn't happen.; 1/14/11, 12:00 PM
Anonymous said...: About the internet: "there are no civility police. There are no fact checkers. You can say anything. You can put anything out there."

Isn't that what the first amendment is ALL about?

The idea that people should only be bale to say things that are "civil" (according to whose standard) or that are "true" (which would bar about 99% what is said ANYWHERE) is just absurd.

The person who said it (Tavis) is just an idiot.

How's that for civil?; 1/15/11, 10:41 AM
larry, dfh said...: Although a new and very interesting post is up, I wanted to mention a couple of things about the weekend m.e. on 15Jan
It was refreshing to hear Eleanore Beardsley complaining about being jacked-up by the police in Tunisia. She flat-out stated that the police are trying to spread fear and uncertainty in Tunisia, something I thought I'd never hear from the authoritarians at npr. And then little snottie had someone, from brookings of all places, emphatically state that regardless of political party, the U.S. government has always favored brutal dictators in the muslim world. Snottie got rid of him pretty quickly. But nestled cosily between these two bits was a 'report' on Lebanon. Now that was classic standsfornothing bullshit, where the political representation of over 60% of the population is totally ignored or assumed to be responsible for the assassination of
Rafik Hariri.; 1/15/11, 2:15 PM