Sunday, February 20, 2011

If it Talks Like a Fox

(disclaimer - graphic is slightly altered from the actual screenshot from NPR)

His name is Larry Abramson and he counts like a FOX:
On Saturday's ATC,. Referring to the thousands of anti-union protesters who came to Madison - and were massively outnumbered by pro-union activists - Abramson said, "But today, as you mention, there were thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of Tea Party supporters and other supporters of the governor's plan,..." Talk about just making crap up.
On Sunday's Weekend Edition he crowed that "supporters of Governor Walker...brought in some Tea Party firepower." He said, "One local remarked he'd never seen so many conservatives gathered at one time in notoriously progressive Madison." And according to Abramson, the Capitol building in Madison isn't an important symbol or platform for getting labor's message across any longer; it "has turned into what amounts to a giant performance space."
Well dang, if it counts like a FOX, talks like a FOX, and scoffs like a FOX - it must be...an NPR reporter!

15 comments:

gDog said...

Tami Stewart, 26, of the Stevens Point area, carried a "Teacher for Walker" sign. She said Walker's proposals are "not outrageous," and that she knows "a lot" of her colleagues in public schools back Walker but "are too scared to say anything." - The WI State Journal

My take on this is that it is a failure of the teachers. If people weren't so friggin dumb as to, say, elect this Walker idiot then they wouldn't fall for this "blame the unions for the Wall St. rip off" ruse. I know many teachers (most of my family, for instance) and I would like to fire a lot of them (not my family, who are all marvelous teachers - with the exception of yours truly, who has proven incapable of teaching how to complete a square). History teachers, in particular, are falling down on the job, it seems. Who learns about the Ludlow Massacre in school? Or the Homestead Strike? No, school children, if anything, are taught the Carnegie was a kind and gentle philanthropist. Ha.

Unknown said...

on the news today, a teacher from wisconsin was complaining about the propose additional contribution by governor scott to the union's health insurance & to their retirement worthed $500.00. calif. peace officer lost 3 day furlough equivalent to $1300 a month and this has been going on for more than a year!! public union has to make some sacrifices. there is no money in the coffers. got that???

Anonymous said...

Most of NPR staff (and i suspect listeners/financial supporters) are at best Scoop Jackson/Bill Clinton "liberals" and at worst propagandists for the rich, powerful. and well-known. But when people like Seabrook call a Congresstional Representative a "colleague" and Simon referred to the same person as a "friend" one thing IS clear: There is no "free press"; as a rule it is friends talking to and about their friends and colleagues. And when you spend "drive time" with NPR the only thing that really matters is TRAFFIC and I ain't talking the band here. That's why we always have to "be reminded" or "brought up to speed" or whatever on matters that were discussed 72 hours before. It is white noise coming out of the speakers.

edk

gDog said...

Here's an interesting exchange at FDL:

OT, I actually hope that the Republicans are successful in defunding PBS and NPR. They are both a mere shadow of what they once were after being neutered by the Republicans over the last 20 years. The “public” by and large still have the delusion that NPR and PBS are objective and the gold standard of the media. It’s the fools gold standard.

In response to Bluetoe2:
Without those children’s educational programs, there will be a big gap in what’s available to needy families, tho. Sad to say.


Holding the children hostage is typical, craven NPR tactics.

Porter Melmoth said...

Does anyone know, is NPR itself a union house?

Two of my brothers are in broadcasting and are union members. They are fairly conservative, but I've never, ever heard them say anything negative about unions. Probably because their union has been very good to them.

I think it was Sat morn, and there was a segment on the Wisc. situation. If I'm not mistaken, the only 'expert' called in was a HERITAGE FOUNDATION member. NPR is reaching new heights of shamelessness. No doubt Richard Perle is a shadow 'consultant' to help guide NPR through our modern world.

Also, it's official: NPR is ANTI-INTELLECTUAL. Inskreep was asking some sex-voiced chick about her DVD choices, and she chose 'Chinatown', which to Inskr. was too complicated to follow. He plainly doesn't like the film, and maybe he wanted to get a dig at Roman Polanski in. She quickly agreed and said she didn't like to 'think' while watching a movie, but then went on to 'deconstruct' other films. Proof that interviewees conform to NPR doctrines, even while on the air.

Of course, they're doing responsible broadcasting here, as always.

Gjelten’s got the easy Moroccan beat to cover now. Like CBS and NBC, NPR doesn’t want the Islamaniacs to ‘do an Anderson Cooper’ on their valuable personnel. So Gjelten’s getting a little ‘I’m on the scene, in action, doing heroic things’ edge to his dreary voice to sex things up a little.

When NPR goes down, I just don't think there'll be enough room at Fox to accommodate them.

gDog said...

If Abramson is a fox, then the American middle class is a hen house.

Anonymous said...

NPR has union employees: AFTRA, NABET
CWA, etc.

Anonymous said...

NPR, like a lot of other corporate media outlets, uses temps. Some people on the NPR newscast unit have been temping for years. NPR is about as pro-union as they are pro-news. Unions are a "legacy" problem for NPR.

larry, dfh said...

Funny, just pulled this off the comments @ Glenn Greenwald's place:
hilarious. here in dallas, the CIA run ads on the local sportsradio station looking for recruits. its just natural to assume certain people are cia. i suspect a few media types are cia, too. looking at you, tom gjelten and scott simon.
—Archtype

No prior discussion of npr, just an out-of-the-blue observation.
And Severinababy, nobody's saying the coffers aren't empty. The governor emptied them personally. The issue is that collective bargaining should not be removed because the legislature/governor broke the budget.
So while we're at griping about standsfornothing radio, Sunday ME had auntie Leanne give a perfectly dismal review of the Raymond Davis situation, intentionally configured to keep the listening public ignorant, while encouraging the audience to hope for Davis' safe return home. My prediction: if Davis walks, Zardare will fall.
And while I'm at predicting, I wouldn't be surprised if upper mgt. @ npr/pbs is trying to close up shop and sell off the frequencies. They're in the financial club money-wise, where it is considered that the only prudent path is to maximize personal enrichment. I'm positive they're cooking up deals right now; they should have no trouble getting the FCC to bend to their wishes. That's why they're paid the big bucks, to intimidate anyone opposing their plans.

gDog said...

Larry,

You speak convincingly of NPR's days being numbered like a North Africa puppet potentate's. I may end up eating my pocket protector after all. I may regret it too, if those FM frequencies and the transmitters associated with them are not recovered by the public for true public service. Honest, hard-working journalists with expertise need to be allowed to come in - regardless of their political stripes. I'd like to see Justin Raimundo and Chris Hedges be given time. These folks are out there. Pacific has been training young people and there are plenty of solid older journalists who've been pushed to the fringes by the cancer that is Cokie Roberts, et al. Look at Hedge's lastest, Huffington's Plunder where he writes

I see myself in the older bloggers, many of whom worked for newspapers until they took buyouts or were laid off, as well as in the aspiring reporters. These men and women love the trade. They want to make a difference. They have the integrity not to sell themselves to public relations firms or corporate-funded propaganda outlets. And they keep at it, the way true artists, musicians or actors do, although there are dimmer and dimmer hopes of compensation. They are victims of a dying culture, one that no longer values the talents that would keep it healthy and humane. The corporate state remunerates corporate management and public relations. It lavishes money on the celebrities who provide the fodder for our national mini-dramas. But those who deal with the bedrock virtues of truth, justice and beauty, who seek not to entertain but to transform, are discarded. They must struggle on their own.

Those people would be glad for a voice on the low FM dial with media penetration of the NPR member stations.

larry, dfh said...

Geoff-san, As I understand it, that's exactly what MaryFrancesBerry tried to do w/Pacifica a number of years ago. Maybe she was ahead of her time, maybe she was right with the times in trying to cash in. At present, as long as the internet-as-we-know-it remains intact, I'm sure it won't be long before word spreads on where to find what. Like we found our way here.

Anonymous said...

I was telling my wife on a car sunday that 75,000 or so anti Walker protesters were out in force. When low and behold NPR Sunday comes on the radio with a report not about 75,000 or so folk but 500 or 100 folks in protest? What is going on here?

Anonymous said...

The unions have sacrificed and there was money in the coffers until Walker gave it away to business and the rich. Come on severinamayberry it was not the unions! Do some reading first:

http://blogs.forbes.com/leesheppard/2011/02/15/wisconsins-cheesy-tax-cuts/

bipifubu said...

^ It's my lupine inclination to believe that the heretofore unknown "Sev" was just a drive-by shooting-of-the-mouth; all stoked up on incoherence and manufactured outrage. And probably by now amnesiac to even having "de/posited" here.

But hey, my whiskers have tingled wrongly before... (Ha! like wayyyy back when I thought $-4-0 radio was the bee's knees)

Anonymous said...

listened to NPR today. What a disappointment. Your host had a guest speaker on talking about Governor Walker in Wisconsin. Daniel DiSalvo, a political science professor from City College, New York was spurting out a lot of untruths about public sector unions. Where was the guest speaker in support of unions? Oh! I guess equal time wouldn't have pleased your sponsors. When did National Public Radio become so biased? Or maybe NPR really stands for Newly Powered Republicans!! I guess they have another "Contract With America". Too bad the unions will no longer have contracts. God help us!