Thursday, October 20, 2011

Show Your Support for Your Enemies

Irony is Dead
(Update below)

The latest spam in my inbox from my misguided friends at Free Press wants me to get a sticker (see graphic on the left) so I can show people how devoted I am to the hippy-bashing, Fox loving, war worshiping stooges working for NPR.  Well, looks like Free Press isn't the only organization that knows how to "take action."  David Swanson at War is a Crime has an excellent piece up on how NPR rushes to harshly punish a non-employee who dares to exercise her 1st Amendment rights in a way that presents no conflict of interest - unlike NPR's highly paid rogues gallery of Mara Liasson, Cokie Roberts, Scott Simon, etc.

I keep wondering when and if those progressives who keep coming to the defense of NPR will ever wake up and realize NPR just aint that into you...

Update, 10-21-11 8pm EDT - Looks like Fox Radio NPR (S40) is showing what a big, brave suck up to the right wing it really is...  Here's the news from WDAV and Poynter. Readers of this blog have long known which percent NPR stands for (hint: it's not the 99).  It's pledge time for most NPR stations and you can let them know that you'll give elsewhere until they stop sending your dollars to NPR news (remind them that there is Pacifica, Free Speech Radio News, and  DemocracyNow!)

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

NPR Gets Radio Host Fired for Occupying

http://warisacrime.org/content/npr-gets-producer-fired-occupying

a.m. said...

Guess who made an issue of Simeone's participation in Occupy Washington events in the first place? Right-wing media outlets/provocateurs call the shots; NPR falls quickly in line.

Patrick Lynch said...

Swanson's piece was also posted at Firedoglake. I left some comments with links back to here. There were some comments on that diary that were very much the kind of things we've said here.

The Boss of You said...

The Simeone situation was TOP OF HOUR NEWS on NPR at 10 AM Pacific. It came on right after the Qaddafi story. I find that completely bizarre.

Anonymous said...

Flip the Defend Public Media logo and it's oddly reminiscent of the Soviet Hammer and Sickle

No wonder they are defending Nationalist Pravda Radio

Anonymous said...

stinideThe Simeone situation was TOP OF HOUR NEWS on NPR at 10 AM Pacific. It came on right after the Qaddafi story. I find that completely bizarre.

My guess is someone at NPR has realized they made an eentsy weentsy boo-boo.

This could be entertaining.

I wonder, will Knell resign before he even starts?

He says he wants to 'Depoliticize' Public Radio .

Hahaha!

The clown show continues.

Pass the popcorn.

a.m. said...

WDAV now says that Simeone will remain host of NPR World of Opera.

Anonymous said...

NPR seems to have a very "convenient" code of ethics.

It's not OK for an "opera host" (who doesn't even work for NPR!) to exercise her first amendment rights and attend a peaceful gathering that has nothing whatsoever to do with her job, but it's just fine and dandy for NPR to run ads (I'm sorry, "underwriter announcements") for ANGA opposite their stories about the wonders of natural gas mining (including fracking).

It's not simply that NPR is catering to/accpeting underwriting money from corporations with no ethics.

It's that NPR has actually BECOME a corporation with no ethics.

beegpeenkfuhhzybuhhny said...

Yikerz! It would appear that even the Loyal Stepford Fans are circlin' those wagons too over the Simeone kerfluffle.

This could be the one...(?)

"selept"

Life As I Know It Now said...

I immediately delete the emails from otherwise well intentioned liberal groups asking me to defend NPR. NPR and PBS have a lot of corporate sponsorship so they don't my few dollars anyway.

Anonymous said...

in her own words (and let me warn you: For an npr connected person they are oh sooo radical:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/npr-host-fired-supporting-occupy-dc

edk

Allah Wishes said...

NPR is Fox News in drag. Okay they don't carry their guns on their sleeves but they do worship at the altar of Power. If the people who want to 'imagine Peace' would open their eyes they would see quite clearly that NPR has led them into a 'Dead End'.

Anonymous said...

More censorship at NPR:

http://my.firedoglake.com/duanawelch/2011/10/20/npr-they-are-the-1/

Anonymous said...

This just gets worse. NPR drops world of opera beacause she won't be fired:

http://warisacrime.org/content/unable-get-simeone-fired-npr-drops-world-opera

Patrick Lynch said...

The comment sections of the links I've read so far seem very much in support of Simeone and against NPR. It seems to be waking up people in a way their earlier atrocities have not. I'm probably wrong, but I have to think that this fiasco has to start affecting their pledge money intake even just a little.

JayV said...

So, I went to the link Anonymous provided about, about NPR's dropping distribution of World of Opera. And I linked to the NPR blog.



Here's what I commented:

'"Classical public radio station WDAV says Lisa Simeone will continue to host World of Opera." Not so fast, NPR COMMUNICATIONS, whoever you are. That little bit of information is apparently true, but as Jim Bales notes below, you've not let listeners know that NPR has dropped distribution of the World of Opera. [Jim Bales had to go to WDAV's site to find out about that.] Major communicatons fail from a spineless NPR. You guys just pass the buck on everything, don't you? Let's hope that NPR-affiliated public radio stations will pass their hard earned bucks to support WDAV, a public radio station with cajones."'

Will NPR's comment police allow that?

Anonymous said...

support your local public library by giving them your money rather than 1% radio.

I did notice that through the week at whyy funder there was a drop after this (simeone's whatever it is/becomes) came out.

They had to go into Monday afternoon to "sucessfully" conclude the drive. And "Dollar Bill Marazzo claims they have a "posiitive net income" level. A non-profit with a positive net income?

But as a treat (or a dreck alert) you can listen to Inskeep have an hour to sell his book when he goes on Radio Crimes with Mommy Most-Inane. Wonder what ever happened to Joe mcGinnis (sp) And did inskeep get the advance and the subsequent financial arrangement or did 1% Radio get it?

Occupy NPR!

edk

Comrade Rutherford said...

NPRstands for

National Propaganda Radio

whose hosts are fired for exercising their 1st Amendment rights and rewarded for going on Fox 'News'.

* * * * * * *

"Knell ... says he wants to 'Depoliticize' Public Radio"

Which is TeaBircher for turn NPR into a far-right wing propaganda outlet, rather than the moderate Republican propaganda outlet that it is today.

* * * * * * *

I remember back in the '90s when NPR publicly abandoned standard unbiased journalistic practices (called 'liberal bias' by the far-right anti-American Republicans).

I would listen to Pacifica, a moderate, left-of-center radio network, and then visit my dad who could only get NPR. I was shocked at how right-wing they were even back then, and how they studiously avoided giving the full history and context of news stories so as to lead the listener to the right-wing biased view that NPR wants you to adopt.

I can not in good conscience give money to

National Propaganda Radio

Barry Brenesal said...

Had an NPR supporter (who actually produced a few news pieces for them) come on my FB wall and get very condescending about how NPR was all about such things as Reporting 101, which of course I wouldn't understand. After shooting this line of tripe down, she resorted to Orwell-Speak, making a series of statements that reflected the opposite of reality. After those were corrected, she ceased posting, for which was grateful. There is something extremely unpleasant in dealing with people who realize NPR--here, as elsewhere--is simply, completely wrong in its behavior, and that lies have to be used to cover the facts over.

We really need public radio in this country. Many others manage it without having politically compromised entities, but we apparently can't.