NPR Check: Q Tips

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Q Tips

NPR related comments, critiques and observations are always welcomed.

85 comments:

John said...: A pertinent article by Glenn Greenwald:

"What NPR Means by Reporting"

http://tinyurl.com/bpacxnp

John Puma; 3/28/12, 7:52 AM
GRUMPY DEMO said...: Meet the new NPR Ethics code, same as the old NPR Ethics code:

NPR Updates Ethics Code; Allows Mara Liasson To Continue Fox News Association | Media Matters for America:

in other words, worthless.; 3/28/12, 5:04 PM
Patrick Lynch said...: I read the Greenwald article. He nails it as usual. A lot of the commenters at Salon sound like us. Some of them could be us, but it strikes me that between Salon and Firedoglake, more people who comment there have caught on to NPR's journalistic fraud.; 3/28/12, 5:55 PM
GRUMPY DEMO said...: Robert Siegel, on his own, admits that independent thinkers like Noam Chomsky are not welcome on NPR's news and discussion programs.<

" I approached Siegel and expressed concern over the lack of range in political commentary on NPR. I explained that I felt that the public interest was not very fully explored, and that an "inside the beltway"
mentality and bias prevails. Siegel made a token statement of agreement, saying that it would be worthwhile to find more voices, but quickly limited it by saying, "However, we wouldn't be interested in airing the views of such media and political critics as Noam Chomsky."

Why doesn't NPR consider all things? | The Chronicle; 3/29/12, 7:30 AM
Nate Bowman said...: Thanks for the link Grumps

Siegel is so out of it, he doesn't even know what he is saying. I found this part (which follows your quote) ludicrous:

"The example I cited stood in sharp contrast to the deferential treatment given to Newt Gingrich and company by NPR. Chomsky had stated that with our system of welfare for the rich and market discipline for the poor, a system supported by both major political parties, Gingrich can campaign against welfare, while his home district is the most heavily tax-subsidized district in the country (setting aside Cape Kennedy and the D.C. area). Siegel agreed that this was interesting, AND THAT HE HADN'T HEARD ANYONE MENTION IT ON NPR."

That's what a "journalist" at NPR knows.; 3/29/12, 8:18 AM
Anonymous said...: NPR continues their Official line of bull on Fukushima (March 10, 2012)

SIMON: What is the situation with the plant right now?

HARRIS: Well, I would say it's a stable mess. The nuclear fuel has been cooled down with water so it's not hot, hot, hot anymore - although it's still highly radioactive. Probably at least one of the three reactors have actually melted down - the cores have melted down through the bottom of its container. So this core is now sitting in an outer container made of steel and concrete. They're still pumping a huge amount of water through the plants to keep them cool, and then the water runs through multiple filters so they can remove the radioactive material from it. So right now, radioactive releases from the plant are minimal, and they're starting to turn the corner to clean up the mess - which is going to take decades.

/// end NPR quotes

No report from NPR on this:

From japan Times (March 28, 2012)
Reactor 2 radiation too high for access
73 sieverts laid to low water; dose too high even for robots

By MINORU MATSUTANI
Staff writer
Radiation inside the reactor 2 containment vessel at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has reached a lethal 73 sieverts per hour and any attempt to send robots in will require them to have greater resistance than currently available, experts said Wednesday.

Exposure to 73 sieverts for a minute would cause nausea and seven minutes would cause death within a month , Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.
The experts said the high radiation level is due to the shallow level of coolant water — 60 cm — in the containment vessel, which Tepco said in January was believed to be 4 meters deep.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120328x1.html

//end japan Times quote

So, harris says the fuel has been colled down with water and TEPCO says there IS no water covering the fuel to speak of.

And Harris says the radiation releases are minimal and TEPCO says radiation levels are so high even robots can't survive.

Who you gonna believe, eh?

I tell ya, I don't think it's any accident that NPR has not reported the above.

They have been severely lowballing the effects of Fukushima from the getgo.

I have become convinced that folks like Richard Harris and Scott Simon are simply dishonest hacks.; 3/30/12, 9:23 PM
Mytwords said...: ATC 4/2/12 Health Insurance Infomercial from Jeff Cohen. Lot's of love shown to AHIP's Karen Ignani and CIGNA's CEO Cordani. Of Cordani Cohen states: "The focus he says should be patient health. Improving the quality of care and driving down its cost" Unreal. No mention of gouging and obscene profits or of regal payouts for CIGNA CEOs.
I left a comment at site...ugh...; 4/2/12, 9:11 PM
gDog said...: Here's a typically "balanced" NPR report. First check out the LA Times article, All red meat is risky, a study finds.

I'm no fan of the LA Times, but the article is pretty good. We get good, specific info from the experts at the Harvard School of Public Health, balanced by a cautionary note from another expert:

Carol Koprowski, a professor of preventive medicine at USC's Keck School of Medicine who wasn't involved in the research, cautioned that it can be hard to draw specific conclusions from a study like this because there can be a lot of error in the way diet information is recorded in food frequency questionnaires, which ask subjects to remember past meals in sometimes grueling detail.

But in the NPR Report, Death by Bacon, the entire end of the story is dominated by a lobbyist for the American Meat Institute:

The American Meat Institute Foundation disputes the findings that red meats including processed meats elevate the risk of cancer.

"I don't think there are a lot of risks associated with those processes [used to produce hot dogs or bacon]," says Betsy Booren, director of scientific affairs for the AMI Foundation.

"They're made from meat, which is needed in the body," Booren says. And she argues it's unfair to single out meat, when there are many risk factors for cancer and heart disease.

"It's your genetics and obesity. And it's overconsuming all foods, not just meat products" says Booren.

That's where the story leaves you. What a Croc of crap.; 4/5/12, 7:09 PM
gDog said...: ...Er, I meant, what a Kroc of krap.

From Wikipedia:
Kroc defined salesmanship as “the gentle art of letting the customer have it your way.; 4/5/12, 9:45 PM
M Henri Day said...: It's cold comfort, I'm sure, Matthew, but I can report that our public radio here in Sweden is no better than yours in the United States. Not surprising, of course, given our status as a vassal to your government (and the MPAA and RIAA, etc, etc)....

Henri; 4/8/12, 6:29 AM
Anonymous said...: i can barely stand to listen to 1% radio these days. I wonder what Simon's draft status was when he "became" a Quaker (the Nixon sect of course).

If it ain't all-Syria "revolution" and the crimes against humanity (and from here that's calling the kettle black) it's all about feelin good. Segment on KSM was interesting.

He's the kind of guy that puts brown stains on Innskeep's drawers. No mention of the water-boarding he did (every four hours by my math) or the fact that he wants to plead guilty but only if he is sentenced to die. Wonder how much of his testimony NPR will report. My guess? Hours less than Lin flash in the pan basketball.

edk; 4/9/12, 8:17 AM
Anonymous said...: April 9

This afternoon during a segment on the Iranian nuclear program I'm pretty sure I heard an NPR correspondent claim that any Iranian enrichemnt of uranium was a violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution. Which is untrue.

NPR is glad to demonize Iran but apparently I've missed all the balancing segments giving Iran's side.

I wish NPR would voluntarily end their tax payer subsidies and stop reporting in deference to republicans and Israel.; 4/9/12, 9:41 PM
gDog said...: Check out this beautiful illustration of the Overton Window as manifest in the SCOTUS. There's old Federalist Ideologue Roberts smack dab in the middle with mere Corporatists to the left of him.; 4/10/12, 1:39 AM
Anonymous said...: Scott Simon is to "Quaker" what Erik Prince (Blackwater/Xe) is to "Evangelical Christian"; 4/10/12, 11:18 AM
Benoit Balz said...: Pampers = another Smash The Radio Moment

Dear Sir or Madam,

The "interview" with Kerri Walsh will surely live on, in infamy:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/04/11/150368756/beach-volleyball-star-walsh-has-sights-on-london-and-babies-in-diapers

What a blatant PR plant: forced, fake, cheesey and devoid of any real informational content.

Where did this "story idea" come from, and who on the NPR editorial staff greenlighted this mega-stinker?

This kind of garbage begs the question: is NPR a serious news outlet or a corporate schlock and propaganda outfit?

At least this is innocuous crap, and nobody's getting killed by Pampers.

Tom Bowman continues to peddle the Pentagon propaganda puff-piece poop on a continual basis, with dire consequences (and little context or analysis, as usual):

http://nepr.net/news/panetta-reassures-afghans-us-training-role-possibly-beyond-2014

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/09/150304927/us-to-step-aside-on-afghan-night-raids

Yikes! Get it together.

Read your comments pages --- your listeners are rolling their eyes and holding their noses at this stuff.

Sincerely,

Benoit Balz
New York, NY; 4/11/12, 6:56 PM
Anonymous said...: NPR STILL has not reported on the actual Fukushima situation (see above).

NPR is one VERY dishonest organization.

I disagree with Republicans on pretty much every issue but one: NPR should not get a single penny of Federal money -- not in the form of direct funding OR in the form of money "laundered" through member stations.

NPR member stations should be forbidden by law from using Federal funds to pay for NPR membership dues or to buy NPR programming.; 4/12/12, 7:53 PM
Maine Owl said...: http://www.npr.org/2012/04/12/150285635/an-online-shopping-passion-keeps-them-clicking

Jaw-droppingly banal.; 4/13/12, 6:51 AM
Nate Bowman said...: Charles Davis, one of three people filling in for Glenn Greenwald has a "Wow!" piece on his experience as a Washington reporter.

"In Washington, it doesn’t pay – literally – to question power. Even small non-profits like the one I worked for simply mimic the establishment venues. It’s not a story unless it makes The Washington Post and, even then, no one really cares for all that stuff about covert wars and dead foreigners. And if you depend on getting quotes from politicians for your 30-second new reports, making them look bad is simply bad for business."

http://www.salon.com/2012/04/13/making_politicians_look_bad_a_fireable_offense/singleton/; 4/13/12, 9:46 PM
Anonymous said...: Unfortunately, for anyone who has been paying any attention at all, the idea that "it doesn't pay to criticize those in power" is actually nothing new. A cliche, in fact.

Certainly nothing to say "Wow!" about.

Ron Schiller committed the Cardinal sin when he openly violated that cardinal rule (even though he was only saying what everyone already knew to be true).

NPR and other mainstream media are little more than whore houses running their "Get your 'massage' here" ads (for a pimping fee, of course)

Any REAL journalist left NPR long ago and those who remain are whores and pimps.

And the folks who donate (all those "liberals" and "progressives") are the Johns, of course.

National Public Radio has become "National Pubic radio" -- little more than legalized prostitution.; 4/14/12, 12:08 PM
gDog said...: Any REAL journalist left NPR long ago and those who remain are whores and pimps.

And the folks who donate (all those "liberals" and "progressives") are the Johns, of course.

Interesting analogy. So what the "liberals" are paying for is someone to maintain the illusion that there is an independent press actually looking into finding the truth about government machinations and exposing them. And NPR strokes the liberal fur with an expert touch: just enough mussing against the grain to create the illusion of agitation.

The hairy ball theorem proves that there's either a bald spot or a place where the hair must stand on end. This is the point of attack for NPRCheckers!; 4/14/12, 1:55 PM
Nate Bowman said...: Anonymous and gdog
Well said.

The story isn't wow because of my quote. It's worth reading for the story it tells behind my quote.; 4/14/12, 4:08 PM
Anonymous said...: Jeremy lin has knee surgery and not a peep from 1% Radio cause, you know, it's a buzz-kill. Whitney houston is nothing but a wealthy crack/coke head and nary a peep from 1% Radio after the semi-deification they ran prior to toxicology analysis. Cause you know, it's a buzz-kill. WHYY hires Tony Auth from collapsing Philly Inquirer but . . . he can't do "political cartooning" which he won a Pulitzer for. WHYY not? her's my take:

He can't poke fun at the "left" because the marketing arm of WHYY has that as a vital part of its "brand". And he can't poke fun at the right/conservative segment because that's where the majority of donations come from. So he'll do content-free cartoons; just like the 20 hours of Radio Times they run.

I wonder if 1% Radio will ever report on Clinton's acknowledgement that al-Queda was helpful in libya and I keep reading is now active in Syria through libyan connections. Of corse not because that is a MAJOR buzz-kill. After all Temple of Doom is always reporting on the terrorist threat as is ConeHead and Scottie Simon.

I guess we'll just have to keep reading other sources of news cause NPR seems to find 9 year old kids with cardboard "arcades" much more informative.

edk; 4/17/12, 9:08 AM
Anonymous said...: inskeep talking to "science reporter" and he asked if companies were deliberately making the privacy agreements incomprehensible. The science "reporter" said "I'm not gonna answer that, Steve" This is the true 1% Radio "journalist" at work. If he can't answer something like that . . .

Ambassador's wives make youtube video calling on Ms. Assad to get her to make her husband stop the killing? Wonder where the British and German UN Ambassador's wives were back when Mr. Laura Bush and Mr. Sheri Blair were killing 10's of thousands of Iraqi women and children.

ConeHead says we should discount the repeated assissination attempts on Castro because they were so long ago. He also said economic ties to China are more important than "freedom" for the Chinese but Castro needs to liberate Cuba NOW!!!

edk; 4/21/12, 9:08 AM
gDog said...: WhoWhatWhy on campaign ads in PBS/NPR:
Will Political Ads Destroy Public Broadcasting’s “Uniqueness”? Hardly, it seems.; 4/22/12, 8:54 PM
Anonymous said...: For those following the CISPA bill's slow roll through congress, NPR's record of NOT addressing the legislation will come as no surprise. They didn't much attend to SOPA or PIPA either until it became an easy-to-cover activism story. Same with CISPA.
Here's a brief exchange between a Tea Party member and Michele Martin on the so-called cybersecurity legislation: http://tinyurl.com/6n2v73z

Tea Party: "CISPA is basically SOPA copied and pasted under the guise of homeland security or cyber security, but it's a very vague bill. It's really just a horrible bill. It's another attempt for the government to control the Internet."

MARTIN: "OK. Well, we'll have to follow up on that."

Never did, no surprise. While every major foreign press outlet has been following CISPA's progress - and backlash - NPR has been silent. Seems that the "self-taught" journalist from the Tea Party can teach NPR's Martin a thing or two about matters of national concern.; 4/24/12, 11:05 AM
Anonymous said...: And let's not forget that we Johns turn to pimps like NPR because those pimps have run out of town respectable low-power broadcasters with their fierce opposition to true community radio several years ago: http://tinyurl.com/yk2ntqf; 4/24/12, 11:14 AM
Anonymous said...: "controversy" at (not an )Ombudsman page concerning diversity. I don't think you need to step out of that page over the years to see that diversity in presentation is no triumph. Diversity of opinion, that's a better story. Look at last 3 ombudsmen and tell mw where daylight is between all three. There is none and they are a diverse group.

San Pete(from Utah) is back plying their trade on ombutt page.

edk; 4/26/12, 10:31 AM
gDog said...: Noam Chomsky in History as a Weapon discusses Bernays and the birth of Madison Avenue style propaganda.

"I'm much more sympathetic to salespeople. A lot of salespeople I met said they are terrible buyers, and I think I may be falling into that trap. When you start to see salespeople coming out at you, you know what they are up to. They know what you are up to.
Then we have Scott shilling <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/04/28/150882787/the-art-of-the-sale-lifes-a-pitch>The Art of the Con - War's a Bitch</a>. How appropriate. Scott is nothing if not a smarmly snake oil salesman. "Hey, brother would you like to buy pointless dumb war? I got six on each arm...and tow more round my feet."

"You see very, very bad behavior in sales but I think the more you learn about it, the more you can see it as this advanced human game."; 4/28/12, 4:52 PM
Boulder Dude said...: The Ombot invites Charels Murray on to discuss diversity at NPR.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2012/04/30/151304276/six-national-leaders-and-experts-look-at-diversity-at-npr?; 5/1/12, 8:48 AM
Anonymous said...: Happy May day to my fellow workers of the world. Every where except NPR where it is the "world's" Labor Day. Even at WHYY (more later) where a native German referred to it as Labor Day. Not even a hint of that dreaded Socialist disease is allowed at NPR/WHYY.

They are fund raising there. WHYY has stopped fundraising "goals" and switched to "campaigns". I think that is because in campaigns they set no goals and so can not be accused of missing said goals. They haven't had a "successful" fund raising goal in 16 tries until they switched to "campaigns". This morning they started out with mini-goal of 90 calls in 1st hour. At 6:34 they had 4 calls and that was the last number(s) mentioned. Instead they babbled on about "pride of place" where you could give a shout out (are they so down with the kids or what?) if you pledged. Even the WHYY Queen Bee Terry Gross can not get to her mini-goals anymore.

Seth Jones been showing up a lot on NPR. He has book out about the war against al-Queda called Hunting in the Shadows. He said that al-Queda was active in the recent coup in Libya and al_queda in Iraq has migrated to Syria. Yet Temple of Doom has been all over warning us about al-Queda. That's dominant cuklture cultural hegomony at work. In Iraq they were murderous terrorists or insurgents but in Libya and Syria they are "opposition activists" or "rebels". I have no doubt that shortly al-Queda will suddenly become an "ally" of Western imperialists cause you know we have always been at war with Eurasia.

edk; 5/1/12, 10:37 AM
gDog said...: Thank goodness for traffic reports or I'd never know that the streets of LA are choked with protestors. NPR reports on (1) Heroic marines in Afghanistan saving hapless young ladies from their brutish families, (2) How it's time to get back into the the housing market because there are some real good deals and the Fed is being so kind as to keep the rates down just for you and rents are going up and...and (3) People who commit fraud in real estate and banking just have some deep psychological problems and need help.

Not a word on Mayday, except, of course, ample traffic reports.; 5/1/12, 7:08 PM
gDog said...: ...oh, I forgot the report on the "anarchists" who tried to use an FBI bomb to blow up a bridge. But relax, nobody was endangered by this law-enforcement action. No doubt these are the same anarchists who brought us the 40-hour week that May Day celebrates, but you'll have to hear between the words for that message.; 5/1/12, 8:34 PM
Boulder Dude said...: Oh, Goody! Inskeep uses another of his "dibs" picks to allow Jonah Goldberg to spew forth Republican talking points and slay strawmen for 7:00.

http://www.npr.org/2012/05/02/151711939/do-liberals-live-under-a-tyranny-of-cliches?; 5/2/12, 8:46 AM
gDog said...: Adam Davidson Parrots Disinformation as He Extols Rule by the Top 0.1%

"Adam Davidson is moving up in the world. He has gone from fellating the 1% to the top 0.1%."; 5/3/12, 10:43 AM
Anonymous said...: ah yes, whyy/npr where Capitalism is God's bounty showered upon , well, upon those that find favor with HIM! You don't think that uber-wealthy people wanted that. No, they just want to do "good" and provide the "highest standard of living the world has ever known". So God blessed them by pointing out what stocks to buy and when, what financial dealings they should enter into and which to avoid. But most importantly HE invented Adam to tell the 99.09% of us that things are just peachy keen. And coming up? A short bio of that basketball start Jeremy Lin.

One of the crack news team that doubles as fund raiser on air is so proud of the fact that she is a member of whyy but . . . she will not publicly disclose her pledge level. Is she ashamed OR embarrassed? You decide.

Waiting for the release of bin-Laden "basement tapes" by US Army. Temple of Doom will no doubt be all over them. Wonder when they will disclose this one:

FROM: The Real decider
SUBJECT: You win
TO: OB-L

O, my brother in Jihad. Greetings from my undisclosed location (which thanks to your construction company was built for next to nothing). I'm sending a courier with the $5 I lost when I bet you couldn't re-brand al-Queda. My friend, calling it the Syrian Free Army is masterful. I should have learned when you re-branded in Libya but . . . that's blood under the bridge my friend.

As always, take care and stay safe. Please welcome as only you can my courier Major Kuwaiti when he gets there at the end of Alril or the very beginning of May 2011.

Your BFF Mr. Vice President Richard Cheney

edk; 5/3/12, 11:07 AM
Anonymous said...: This is no joke! Last week a U.S. appeals court struck down a ban on political ads on public broadcasting. That means your local PBS or NPR station could start running nasty political attack ads right away. MoveOn.org

Hey, these guys follow you even beyond the grave (wxpn has ads running to be remembered in your will i might just take 'em up on it) so they will take money from just about anybody.; 5/3/12, 11:56 AM
Anonymous said...: http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/mitt-romneys-top-donor-wealth-inequality-we

did not know davidson was NYTimes "reporter"; 5/3/12, 12:27 PM
JayV said...: As is often the case, Dean Baker corrects NPR's misleading reporting.

"This is wrong. Spain's public sector was not overspending. In fact, Spain's government was running large budget surpluses. NPR should try to find Spanish eocnomists who are more familiar with Spain's economy."

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/npr-gets-it-wrong-overspending-did-not-get-spain-into-its-crisis#comments; 5/5/12, 9:41 AM
gDog said...: An interesting debate is developing between Yves Smith and PBS re FRONTLINE’s “Money, Power & Wall Street.”; 5/7/12, 10:31 AM
gDog said...: Yves responds to the Frontline producers.; 5/8/12, 5:15 PM
Anonymous said...: NPR should try to find Spanish eocnomists who are more familiar with Spain's economy."

NPR should try to find someone of any nationality who is familiar with reality, cuz Adumb Davidson, david Kestenbaum and the rest of the crew at Planet Monkey have no clue.

Kestenbaum was apparently too stupid to get a job in his own field [physics] so he went into radio and Davidson is just plain stupid -- and goofy looking to boot [and by that I mean he looks like the Disney character Goofy); 5/8/12, 5:57 PM
Anonymous said...: Mortgage Unit Troubles Ally Financial
http://tinyurl.com/6vxxvt5

Ally Financial, the sole corporate underwriter for NPRs Planet Monkey. I wonder they Adumb, et al. will report about this?

Isn't it grand? We are ALL NPR members now. Thank YOU!

Don Q. Public; 5/9/12, 8:59 AM
Nate Bowman said...: There's a new website that, on an hourly basis, saves the home pages of news sites. NPR is one of them.

I think it will be a good resource for us here.

http://www.pastpages.org/; 5/9/12, 12:16 PM
Anonymous said...: Gjelten has a gem of a story today on Morning Edition: how the US Government secretly (yes, with clearances and all) keeps the private sector informed of cybersecurity threats: http://tinyurl.com/7p7odl5

Excuse me? Seems like US agencies have been caught flat-footed by teenage hackers time and again. Academics and private-side security researchers have tracked these threats and proposed defenses - not the government.

Unless we want to cheerlead passage of CISPA (the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act) like NPR, we'd better tune in before it's too late to stop this privacy-busting legislation from reaching Obama's desk.

Yet CISPA is the acronym that dares not be spoken on NPR state radio airwaves. If you want to learn more, you'll have to look past State Radio to the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/cispa; 5/9/12, 1:15 PM
gDog said...: "Given the ties between ResCap and its parent company, Ally will almost certainly have to write a check to escape this mess. The only question is how big that check will have to be. "

Somewhat larger than what they pay to underwrite NPR, I'd guess, and without all the perks.; 5/9/12, 5:54 PM
gDog said...: Scott Horsley gives Obama the same gush treatment he used to give Bush.

"Folks with money, people that normally wouldn't be involved in a congressional race on the South Side of Chicago," she says. "And he cultivated those relationships and took them with him all the way to the White House."

No mention of the role that Obama played in the redevelopment of the near South Side of Chicago, and how he and other middle class blacks, including Valerie Jarrett and his wife Michelle, advanced at the expense of poor blacks by aligning themselves with what Fitch calls “friendly FIRE”: powerful real estate players like the Pritzkers and the Crown family, major banks, the University of Chicago, as well as non-profit community developers and real estate reverends.

By contrast, check out the speech Robert Fitch gave in Harlem during November of 2008.; 5/9/12, 6:28 PM
Anonymous said...: Yves Smith continues to shred Adumb Davidson.

My apologies if someone already posted these.

Trophy Nannies
http://tinyurl.com/6ug5tvl

Fellating the 0.1%
http://tinyurl.com/7h8p8pc

Don Q. Public; 5/9/12, 7:25 PM
Anonymous said...: I realize that this isn't PBS check, but NakedCapitalism did a nice critique of PBSs Frontline series Money, Power and Wall Street. I watched a few minutes of Part 1, and I had to turn it off. Classic, he/she said, among many other problems.

NC Critique #1
http://tinyurl.com/7evegum

Frontline Rebuttal
http://tinyurl.com/6teus2p

NC Critique #2
http://tinyurl.com/cmw9q4t

Enjoy,

NPRCheckers,

Don Q. Public; 5/9/12, 7:47 PM
Anonymous said...: "There's a new website that, on an hourly basis, saves the home pages of news sites. NPR is one of them."

What we really need is a mirror site that saves all of NPRs pages,so folks can see how they change stuff (all the time) with no indication that they did it.; 5/12/12, 10:21 PM
gDog said...: Vague Temple of Mara mixing about Mittens donning the latex gloves to interrogate the underwear bombing double agent with classical spycraft about his ability to distinguish differing religions at Liberty.; 5/13/12, 3:03 PM
Nate Bowman said...: I'd like help from anyone who might know more about this. This appeared on "A Live of Sight" a website for "conservative activists", but as far as I know, it is on point.
Thanks

"Will the Last Frontier of Freedom Fall Prey to the United Nations?

On December 3rd, a global battle will commence in the United Arab Emirates. By December 14th -- without a single shot fired -- the last frontier of freedom could fall prey to the United Nations...

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is the United Nation's official agency for information and communication technologies...

The 1988 ITR global treaty adopted by the ITU (pre-dating what is now called the Internet) allowed for the rapid development and growth of the Internet by exempting computer-to-computer communications from traditional telecom regulation.

Since 1998, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has governed the Internet. According to ICANN, it operates as a "not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable."

The goal of the WCIT this December is to re-negotiate and re-draft the 1988 ITR global treaty in order to give the ITU jurisdiction over the Internet. While the draft proposals will seem "innocuous and small at first, there's going to be a big line crossed and that will be from the UN not regulating the Internet, to it having jurisdiction over the Internet…that would be just the first stage of an incremental" UN takeover of the Internet."

http://alineofsight.com/policy/will-the-last-frontier-of-freedom-fall-prey-to-the-united-nations

(h/t Robert Ellis Smith of Privacy Journal)
http://www.privacyjournal.net/index.htm; 5/13/12, 10:53 PM
Boulder Dude said...: The Goldwaterite Ombot hears a dog whistle and decides to abandon NPR's short lived commitment to reporting facts and go back to "He Said/She Said" reporting.

Bonus points for giving air to any and all right wing hate groups.; 5/15/12, 9:30 AM
Boulder Dude said...: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2012/05/14/152532150/eight-days-of-same-sex-marriage-the-coverage?

der, forgot the link to the ombot post in question.; 5/15/12, 9:31 AM
miranda said...: Infuriating installment of "The Political Junkie" yesterday on TON, with a history prof who wrote an op-ed arguing that the use of election recall should be reserved solely for high crimes. Consensus at Stands-4-0 seems to be that the fury over Scott Walker's Koch-funded war on labor is a minor "policy disagreement" and the recall effort, in the words of Ken Rudin, "spurious." Do you suppose the Stands 4-0ers ever read things like this?

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/05/16/bilingualism-scott-walker-style/; 5/17/12, 8:58 AM
Nate Bowman said...: You know you are an NPRchecker when you keep a mental note of the previous comment tally at Q Tips.

Thank you for all you do MyT.; 5/19/12, 12:41 PM
gDog said...: Ha ha, Nate, that's for sure.

Dean Baker takes NPR/WaPo shill Matt Miller down a notch.; 5/19/12, 2:46 PM
JayV said...: Juan Cole "Congress Wants the Department of Defense to Propagandize Americans"

http://www.juancole.com/2012/05/congress-wants-the-department-of-defense-to-propagandize-americans.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+juancole%2Fymbn+%28Informed+Comment%29

Why would they? They've already got NPR to do that for them, as the propaganda arm of the DoD. Ha!; 5/20/12, 8:24 AM
gDog said...: Juan Cole is utterly clueless, I think - either that, or he's with the company protests to oppose. How could anyone with an objective sense listen to NPR's coverage of overseas adventures (three stories on Afghanistan, one on Zimbabwe and one on Sudan, just this morning) and not realize that this is a Pentagon mouthpiece speaking Pentagonal words directly into the heart of trusting Americans. To suggest that this is something to be prevented is to imply that it hasn't already happened.; 5/20/12, 11:52 AM
gDog said...: Temple of Doom broached the possibility of surgically implanted explosive devices this morning. She is a terror pornographer of worst kind.; 5/22/12, 9:52 PM
miranda said...: "Tantalizing," "taunting," "penetrating." Yep, fake terrorism turns her on.; 5/23/12, 6:45 AM
bpfb said...: ^ & ^^ - And no doubt in that scary "big bad wolf" bedtime story affected delivery of hers.

edsharp ormilt (i think...); 5/23/12, 10:34 AM
NateBowman said...: "...the study concludes that media sources have a significant impact on the number of questions that people were able to answer correctly. The largest effect is that of Fox News: all else being equal, someone who watched only Fox News would be expected to answer just 1.04 domestic questions correctly — a figure which is significantly worse than if they had reported watching no media at all. On the other hand, if they listened only to NPR, they would be expected to answer 1.51 questions correctly; viewers of Sunday morning talk shows fare similarly well. And people watching only The Daily Show with Jon Stewart could answer about 1.42 questions correctly."

http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2012/confirmed/final.pdf

I don't think it's a stretch to say that NPRcheckers would rate even higher.

h/t poynter.org; 5/23/12, 10:40 AM
Anonymous said...: Don't often tune into NPR News these days -- the BBC feed is far superior -- much more interesting and much less parochial.
However, happened to tune in yesterday and was regaled by Tom Bowman reporting on how much better things are in a town in Afghanistan two years after our brave heroes drove out the Taliban. So thanks to the US it's gherkins not gunfire in the town square.
It struck me as propaganda even cheaper than usual. Who are NPR kidding with this crap? Come home Tom and stop wasting everyone's time and money.; 5/23/12, 8:23 PM
Nate Bowman said...: Follow up to post about study:

It shows the sad state of journalism in the US that people who listen to NPR end up ranking as being the most well-informed.

It shows what a poor job most media are doing at fulfilling their mission to enable people to make informed decisions.

And, how few people are well-informed at all.

And, of course, what a good job the Fawning Corporate Media are doing of protecting the powerful and privileged.

For me, this is the root of our problems. When people are not well-informed, the powerful and privileged get to do what they want.

My hope lies in Occupy and other truly populist movements (not the Faux Tea Party). And more other movements worldwide. Most recently, the historic civil disobedience occurring in Montreal. I hope that these become so large that it will become increasingly difficult to ignore them.

Montreal
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/05/23-5

Similarly in Mexico, demonstrations against media bias
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/05/24-3; 5/24/12, 11:48 AM
gDog said...: Listening to the horrific reports coming out of Honduras, I searched NPR to see how they're covering this. Uh-huh. Aside from a few AP stories (see here and here) that didn't get broadcast, nada.; 5/26/12, 4:58 PM
Anonymous said...: It doesn't surprise me that Americans don't no diddly-squat about anything other than who wins on American Idol. Yet NPR continues to tell its listeners they are all "above average", to coin a phrase. But . . .

The American Dream is being examined by npr. Wonder if we will hear about Marx's contention that a person's financial situation is NOT determined by God but by intervention and manipulation(FaceBook IPO???)by humans.

We are about to undergo a 13 year remembrance of that other war founded on lies. I'll bet by the time it's over we will have statements from N. Vietnamese PT boat commanders that they actually did attack the Maddox and the Turner Joy. My Lai? Never happened. And the best thing of all? WE WON!!!!; 5/29/12, 8:59 AM
gDog said...: Just noticing this "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine that was largely supported by the Joan Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies:

Väyrynen, Raimo et al. Inventive and Preventive Diplomacy. Notre Dame: Joan B. Kroc Institute for
International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame, 1999.

Uh huh. That's got that NPR doublespeak New World Order/New American Century goop dripping all over it.; 5/30/12, 6:04 PM
Anonymous said...: What do you suppose the chance is that any of the former Mubarack apologists at NPR will admit they were wrong now that Mubarack has been convicted and sentenced to life in prison for killing protesters?

I'd say zero.

The folks at NPR will just do what they usually do: "disappear" (without a trace) the previous stories from their web site and act like they never said any of the stuff they did.; 6/2/12, 10:32 AM
miranda said...: NPR Checkers, please do not miss this takedown of the Moist Flushable Quaker.

"However, Simon – as much of a Quaker in his commitment to peace as fellow Quaker Richard M. Nixon was – prefers war as the method of solving international crises."

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/06/04/scott-simon-npr-the-empire/; 6/5/12, 8:38 AM
gDog said...: Ha ha, "Moist flushable wipe." Yeah, I'm starting to develop nostalgia for the old days of exposing SS. Remember the the morph? Good times...not.so.much. Swell that Counterpunch is taking up the mantel.; 6/5/12, 10:39 PM
miranda said...: MFW looks more like bin Laden than bin Laden -- not a difficult feat, since the latter-day OBL hardly looked like himself.; 6/6/12, 5:05 PM
JayV said...: That American Dream series from Ari Shapiro. All I could think of was American Exceptionalism. Those "experts" he's had on have no clue about how global changes, especially with the climate, are effecting permanently everyone, not just Americans. The series seems to say because we are Americans we have a right to consume, consume and grow, grow no matter what.; 6/7/12, 5:00 AM
Anonymous said...: Scott Simon is about as much of a real Quaker as George Bush and Dick Cheney are real Methodists, or as Osama bin Laden was a real Muslim, for that matter.

None of these religions countenances violence.

What these folks all have in common is that they are all fakes who use their professed religions to gain "credibility" among the gullible masses.

I don't happen to believe in God and Heaven and Hell, but I'm pretty sure that if there is a God and she is just, Simon, Bush and the rest will be spending a lot of time in a hot place together (and it won't be Bermuda).

And if by chance there is a God who is NOT just and ends up welcoming folks like Simon and Bush and Cheney and bin Laden to Heaven, then all I can say is I hope I go to the other place cuz i could not stand to spend eternity with people like Simon.

Simon is one of the best reasons going for pulling the plug on NPR.

The irony is that even his colleagues at NPR are too stupid to see what damage he has done to NPR's credibility over the years.; 6/8/12, 11:28 AM
Anonymous said...: The car Talk guys are retiring.

Thank god for small favors.

What a couple of stupid clowns.

How anyone could listen for more than about five minutes to those guys laugh at their own stupid jokes -- which nearly always involved putting down the callers -- is beyond comprehension.

And as far as providing useful information, you can get more of that from a real mechanic in 2 minutes than you could get from those clowns in 2 years.

I think the thing that bugged me most about them is what bugs me most about NPR announcers in general: their "I'm smarter (and better) than you" are attitude.; 6/8/12, 12:02 PM
Anonymous said...: oh, my.

Flushable Scotty is starting to get it from all directions.

Lots of folks are calling him on his -- and NPR's -- flushable crap.

Following is from
Hold That "Hot" Fukushima Sushi
by Harvey Wasserman
We all knew it was coming.
Pacific Bluefin Tuna
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/06/08-5

Radioactive tuna has been caught off the coast of California. The fingerprint of cesium 137 is unmistakably from the exploded reactors at Fukushima.

"National Public Radio has assured us all that the radioactive tuna are perfectly safe to eat. This is the same network whose Scott Simon glibly told us that there were no injuries at Three Mile Island, "not even a sprained ankle."

"But as long-time radiation expert Robert Alavarez warns, "it's not harmless." Fukushima released far more cesium-137 than the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many decades ago lesser fallout from nuclear testing forced the confiscation of more than 4 million pounds of fish.; 6/8/12, 8:23 PM
Anonymous said...: Maybe we could have a contest to see the two people picked to replace the Car Guys (Kharzi Talk is NOT in the running!!!).

We could have Simon and Innskeep (Quack and Flack) or perhaps Siegel and Norris (Sad and Sack.

edk; 6/9/12, 8:49 AM
Anonymous said...: Given NPR's whoring for ANGA, "Frick 'n Frack" would probably also be apropos.; 6/9/12, 7:55 PM
gDog said...: Or, given NPR's pro-war obsessions, "Seek and Sack."; 6/10/12, 12:35 PM
gDog said...: Of course, Click and Clack always characterized themselves as being odd bedfellows with the NPR crowd, presumably because they attempted to appeal to the blue collar types. "Don't make the mistake of just governing for the people in the capitol - take into account those in the close-in suburbs, too." - the Karzai Bros.; 6/10/12, 12:44 PM
Anonymous said...: Click and Clack always characterized themselves as being odd bedfellows with the NPR crowd,"

and never missed an opportunity to remind everyone that they both went to MIT.

The thing I always wondered (still do) is "If these guys are so smart why the hell did they spend their 'careers' working in radio (with some of the dumbest people on the planet -- Glenn Beck, Steve Inskeep, Scott Simon, etc) and doing such a stupid program to boot"?; 6/11/12, 7:48 AM
Anonymous said...: Whyy is now taking money from the Marcellus Shale Coalition. And I "hear" that the word frack or fracking is somehow negative, at least to the MSC. I wonder when those terms will be eliminated from any reporting done by WHYY?

edk; 6/16/12, 9:14 AM
Anonymous said...: We started out hearing about "mysterious groups" (Mood head of UN observers), then we heard about "Islamist groups", and now we hear about Islamist groups "influenced by al-Queda". Eventually we will learn about US support for its former existential foe as long as it fights Syria and Iran. D. Amos couldn't find anything when she reports from damascus other than brave freedom fighters (operating in neighborhoods which is terrorism in Iraq). She never mentioned the suicide bombers but in Iraq NPR was able to pin the blame and even the size of the bomb before the shrapenal fell back to earth.

We've always been on the side of the Syrian Free Army so they can not be "terrorists.

I guess Carvin (what the heck is Director of Strategic planning at NPR anyway?) heard Bush yell about "helping the terrorists out" rather than the task of smoking them out. Hope there are no drone missle strikes on NPR headquarters or NPR West. And is there a need for NPR to get lawyered up?

edk; 6/19/12, 9:38 AM
GRUMPY DEMO said...: ""We don't normally fact check ‪#GOP‬ ‪#Romney‬ but when we do and they lie, we call it 'chutzpah' Stay cowardly my friend" ‪-NPR

Romney To Latino Voters: 'You Have An Alternative' : NPR; 6/22/12, 5:00 PM
bpfb!!!! said...: ^ (giggles); 6/28/12, 8:56 AM
JayV said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/2/12, 4:00 AM

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