Balanced and Favorable - Congratulations Sorya Sarhadi Nelson

Some of you may recall that - back in August of 2009 - Stars & Stripes broke the story of how the Pentagon was using the services of the Rendon Group to rate reporters who sought to embed in Afghanistan. NPR gave this story brief on-air coverage - two stories to be exact:

• On August 27, 2009 ATC JJ Sutherland reported the story from the perspective of two military spokespersons.
• On August 29, 2009 ATC Guy Raz did a decent interview with Charlie Reed the lead reporter on the story for Stars & Stripes.

At the time, I remember thinking that any truly public news organization would have reported on whether its own reporters had been subjects of the Rendon ratings. Given NPR's failure to seriously report on US/NATO atrocities in Afghanistan that was definitely something I was curious about. Instead of wasting my time with NPR apologist/ombudsman Alicia Shepard, I decided to file my own FOIA request (a first for me). After a bit of research into the process, I contacted USCENTCOM and included the following request:

"Pursuant to the federal Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, I request access to and copies of information contained in the reporter profiles provided to the US Department of Defense by The Rendon Group for profiling reporters seeking to embed with US forces in Afghanistan. I specifically am interested in profiles related to the following National Public Radio (NPR) reporters: Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, Tom Bowman, and Renee Montagne.

Through this request, I am gathering information on ratings provided to the US Department of Defense about reporters from National Public Radio who have embedded with US forces in Afghanistan. This information is of current interest to the public because the story of profiling reporters has recently broken and yet no mention of whether NPR reporters were profiled has been made public.

This information is being sought on behalf of the blog "NPR Check" for dissemination to the general public. My blog is a media critique of National Public Radio news. I post to it about 2-3 times per week and have been posting for over three years. The blog currently has about 250 readers per day."

Well, the wheels of government do turn slowly, but this Monday, September 27th, I finally received my FOIA documents and I'm posting them as Google Documents / PDF files that you can click on to read and then download if you like. The only alteration I made was in the letter to me; I removed my mailing address. The most striking comments come in the "Memorandum" from Rendon where it states:

• "Nelson's reports have largely been balanced and favorable."
• "She recently reported favorably on US military aid to victims injured in Taliban attacks as well as US military training of the Afghan police."
• "Based on her past reporting trends, you may expect Nelson to provide balanced or favorable coverage of her embed experience..."

Below are the documents I received (click on each to read):

1. Letter of response to my FOIA from USCENTOM.
2. Memorandum of "Media Analysis for Soraya Sarhadi Nelson" from Rendon to a Staff Sergeant in the Army.
3. Rendon Group profile of Soraya Sarhadi Nelson.

I will post another open thread in a couple of days - I've been enjoying the lively critiques and comments.

With Friends Like These - More Fair and Balanced from NPR

A reader of this blog earlier noted his letter to the OMBOTsman regarding NPR's habit of always having supposedly liberal Daniel Schorr balanced out on every show by a more rightwing voice (can you say Foxista Juan Williams?).

This morning featured Juan Williams (and Scott Simon) parroting the right wing talking points on the Sotomayor nomination:

(Williams) "But on the face of it Scott, you'd have to say that her language - and if you took it for what it was worth - was racist."

That was the view from the right, but what about the liberal views on the weeks news? Consider these statements from Schorr talking with Simon later in the program:

• "We have not witnessed a nuclear explosion in anger since 1945..."
• "Nuclear weapons going steadily into more and more hands and not very responsible hands..."
• "Probably the most immediate dangerous is what's called proliferation. Israel has already had to bomb an installation in Syria which apparently had North Korean help in getting a nuclear weapon."
• "And so for the civilized world right now the immediate thing is to prevent further proliferation which may mean having to board and search ships at sea."

Holy smokes! However - civilized, responsible Schorr wasn't done yet. With a prompt from Simon, he's off an running on Iran:

(Simon): "Does the policy of extending a hand in friendship look a little naive this week?"
(Schorr): "I don't know if it looks, if it is naive, but it looks as though it's not getting very far..."

I'm not sure what hand of friendship Simon and Schorr are fantasizing about. Maybe they mean one of the AIPAC enriched palms of Dennis Ross - chief of Obama's non-diplomacy policy toward Iran.

Are We Stimulated Yet?

There is a Santa Claus! NPR is in the gifting mode, handing out airtime to yackers from the Grand Old Party (Republicans that is) - and a reader of this blog, "Grumpy Demo" from Dallas, was so kind as to do a bit of analysis of NPR's big tilt toward Republican talking heads in it's economic coverage of late. Here's what Grumpy sent me:

In Reporting On White House Economic Stimulus Package, NPR Interviews Six GOP Congressmen For Every Democrat

Based on NPR’s own data, NPR demonstrated a preference for Republican members of Congress in its reporting on President Obama’s Economic Stimulus Package. A review of NPR’s “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered” broadcast records for the month ending February 3, 2008 indicates in the 50 stories on the stimulus, NPR interviewed and quoted 12 GOP Congresspersons, while only quoting 2 Democrats. Numerous polls show that a majority of Americas support the White House’s stimulus package.

When viewed in context - that NPR’s sole Washington news analyst is FOX News’ employee and O’Reilly Factor guest host, Juan Williams, combined with numerous interviews with Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, American Enterprise Institute, and National Review pundits, with no members of the progressive movement given equal time - NPR demonstrates a clear and unambiguous conservative bias in its reporting. Additionally, during this same period no White House spokesperson was interviewed or quoted by NPR.

Search Data listed below:

Month Ending February 3,2008

Total Stories: 50

Congressmen Interviewed, Quoted: 14

GOP Congressmen: 12

Democratic Congressmen: 2

White House Spokesmen: 0

Morning Edition

• 01/07/09 Oakley D-WI
• 01/19/09 Gingrich R-GAx
• 01/22/09 Roehmer R-TN
• 01/25/09 Cantor R-VA
• 01/20/09 Pence R-I

All Things Considered

• 01/06/09 Hoyer D-MD
• 01/15/09 Cantor R-VA
• 01/20/09 Pence R-IN
• 01/26/09 Grassley R-IW
• 01/27/09 Camp R-MI,Simpson R-ID01/29/09 Gerlach R-PA,Davis RNC,Camp R-MI

Search Links:

• http://www.npr.org/search.php?text=congressman+economic+stimulus&sort=DREDATE%3Anumberdecreasing&aggId=0&prgId=3&topicId=0&how_long_ago=30
• http://www.npr.org/search.php?text=senate+economic+stimulus&sort=DREDATE%3Anumberdecreasing&aggId=0&prgId=3&topicId=0&how_long_ago=30
• http://www.npr.org/search.php?text=congressman+economic+stimulus&sort=DREDATE%3Anumberdecreasing&aggId=0&prgId=2&topicId=0&how_long_ago=30
• http://www.npr.org/search.php?sort=DREDATE:numberdecreasing&start=20&topicId=0&prgId=2&how_long_ago=30&matchany=false&aggId=0&stopwords=false&soundex=false&text=senator economic stimulus

(Reporter: Grumpy Demo, please distribute as you see fit.)

BS Machine IDs Gaffe Machine

(Click picture for source)

Mara Liasson (a fox in sheep's clothing) was at it again on ATC Monday night. Liasson was doing a piece on McCain's stump speech. After airing former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson's remarks that "You're trying to take advantage of the themes of the moment, the gaffes of the last week, trying to get any traction you can" - Liasson chimes in with this:

"On this day the gaffe McCain uses was from the Democrat's gaffe machine and Vice Presidential candidate, Joe Biden."

I really thought I misheard, and had to replay it from the web. Yes, she really did call Biden the "Democrat's gaffe machine." This struck me as a bit unusual, and shall we say a wee bit unprofessional. I've heard journalists refer to Biden as having a reputation for making gaffes, but to call him a "gaffe machine." Hmmm, where could such a moniker come from?

Well, what do you know, if it isn't one of the talking points of the McCain campaign (including a video the McCain camp put out). It's also interesting to Google "gaffe machine" and notice that it's a favorite smear term against Obama used by the likes of the venomous Malkin.

Inskeep Squeaks

If you missed Steve Inskeep's interview with President Ahmadinejad of Iran on Wednesday morning, brace yourself.

First Inskeep (like the rest of the mainstream media - with the exception of, say, Larry King!) continues the the debunked allegation that Ahmadinejad wants to "wipe Israel off the map." He says, "You have spoken about wiping countries off the map...." and "As you know Mr. President, you are known in much of the world - and not only in the United States - as the man who wants to wipe Israel off the map. Are you?"

Ahmadinejad actually answers the question, and in doing so asserts the right of Palestinians to vote on how they want to be ruled - which he believes would lead to the dissolution of Israel as a Zionist state. This mention of elections prompts Inskeep to attack on Iran's presidential elections. He correctly and critically notes that Iranian candidates had to be approved by Iran's conservative Council of Guardians. From this critique he goes on to claim that in the US election for president "anyone may put his name on the ballot in the United States." That's pretty funny! He then mocks the eight choices for president that Iranians had, saying "...eight people and the political spectrum from about here to here - and I'm holding my fingers an inch apart..."

Inskeep obviously doesn't have a clue about who ran for Iranian president back in 2005. If he did, he would have noticed quite a diverse spectrum of ideology among the candidates. Ahmadinejad correctly notes that the US presidential election offers an even narrower range of ideological choices and he challenges Inskeep (fingers and all) by asking, "Why do you assume that your system is better than everybody else's?"

Caught red-handed (or red fingered in this case) Inskeep squawks, "I assume nothing Mr. President. I ask questions." The scariest part is that I think he actually believes this is true...

Sickening

Did corporate "down-sizing" ravage towns like Flint, Michigan and make CEOs filthy rich? Does our country have a culture of violence, a foreign policy of violence, and extremely lax gun laws that contribute to events like the Columbine shooting? Does the health insurance industry make money off depriving people of needed treatment and profit off of human suffering?

Instead of debating the core assertions of Michael Moore's body of work, NPR uses the upcoming release of his newest movie Sicko to quibble with the most irrelevant details of his movies and to basically savage him. Kim Masters is the snide hitwoman assigned the task this time. Last time it was the unctuous Scottie Simon.

Here's an examples: Moore: “The polls show it’s the number one domestic issue.” Masters: “Actually independent polls including ones by Gallup indicate that health care isn’t number one, but it’s up there.” Interesting because back in March 2007, health care WAS the number one domestic issue - with Iraq being the most crucial issue overall. Yes, there seems to be a slight shift in the latest Gallup poll - but it is irrelevant to Moore's overall argument.

Masters went out of her way to find every critical comment she could from reviewers: "a piece of Gonzo demagogery," "lowered the bar for documentaries," "appalled by his confrontation with Heston." Of Moore's first movie Roger and Me she states, "instantly critics attacked Moore for fudging his facts to strengthen his case." She fails to mention that many critics instantly raved about the movie too!

The piece ends with Moore noting that this attacking report shows that "This is the typical, you know NPR, afraid of being accused of having liberal bias — so, let's make sure we attack him enough in this piece." To which Masters snidely responds, "Did we, Kim Masters, NPR News."

Actually I think Moore was wrong. It's not that NPR is afraid of having a liberal bias; it's a reflection of the basic center-right, pro-business slant that is at the core of NPR's values.

Reagaphilia

Here's a little challenge to any die-hard believers in NPR's liberal (or even balanced) credentials: Find just one progressive, critical piece on the presidency of Ronald Reagan aired on NPR News in the last 5 years.

Tonight on ATC I had to fight the gag-reflex as NPR aired an adoring commentary on Reagan by Rich Lowry, editor of The National Review. The commentary focuses on Reagan's staged "tear down this wall" speech in Berlin. Michele Norris introduces it by noting that "Lowry says if those words don’t give you goosebumps..."

Then Lowry tells us that "beneath Reagan’s sunny exterior was a stern determination and a hatred of Marxism…conflicts with communist-infiltrated unions in his days in Hollywood." He might have also mentioned that beneath that "sunny exterior" was one of the the most dishonest, corrupt, death-squad loving presidents we've had until - well until now! Lowry is also out to conflate revolutionaries like Che Guevara with mass murderers like Stalin by lumping them all under the label of "communism." He tells us about the "tens of millions of dead bodies in the twentieth century" that Communism left in its wake, but nothing about the millions of corpses left by just the US alone.

Well, it's one thing to give airtime to a Reagaphile like Lowry so that he can pretend that Reagan was worthy of anything but disgust or prison, but one has to wonder where any countervailing opinion is? It clearly is not on NPR.

One interesting little exercise is to search "Richard Lowry" on NPR's site (16 hits) or "Rich Lowry" (25 hits) and then search Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation (what do you know, 1 hit!). Twenty-five to one - sounds like a liberal bias to me! Even add in the editor of The Progressive, Matthew Rothschild (3 hits) and you still get a 25 to 4 hit return. I think NPR is trying to make a Bonzo out of all of us...

Blah, Blah, Blair

Ok, were you brave enough for Inskeep and Blair?

Well trooper, the problems for Bush and Blair are all about confidence and a lack of patience! Blair tells us about "a fall in the confidence in your country and my country" about "what were doing in Iraq." Yes "we" are doing some amazing things in Iraq and Blair is all over it: "...that’s where you’ve got just very carefully to analyze what is actually happening there in order to see what you should be doing."

Blair concludes that "the reason why people in Britain, people in America have lost patience to an extent is because they see the carnage and the bloodshed...and that must mean the thing is wrong, and the truth of the matter is, it is being driven largely by al-Qaeda on the one hand, Iranian backed elements on the other hand who are linking up with a minority of extremists inside Iraq..."

Man, that is a wheelbarrow full, yet Inskeep says nothing to challenge this fantasy of al-Qaeda and Iran being the root of all problems in Iraq--and why should he? It's the standard line of NPR news anyway.

From Iraq, the interview moves on to Palestine and Israel (Be afraid.) Blair shows that he can match chutzpah with the best of the AIPACers: "You know, if you take the Palestinian issue, the reason why there’s not—you know the reason why there isn’t progress in Palestine in the way there should be is because the same forces are at work. Look there’s absolutely no doubt at all that you could get a Middle East peace process that would deliver an independent, viable Palestinian state and an Israel confident of its security living side by side in peace. The reason you can’t is that every time we get anywhere near progress, the same terrorism erupts—"

Same forces! He means al-Qaeda and Iran of course. And by terrorism he is only interested in the deaths of innocent Israelis (which is terrible). That Inskeep doesn't counter any of this is sad. Can you imagine him being so compliant if a Palestinian spokesperson made a nearly identical quote, but instead said, "you know if you take the Palestinian issue, the reason why there’s not—you know the reason why there isn’t progress in Palestine in the way there should be is because those in the US and Israel who thrive on war and conflict for power and profit are at work derailing it....every time we get anywhere near progress, the same Likud and neocon extremists assassinate some Palestinians or kill a bunch of civilians like the family on the beach last summer—

Oh that's right, in NPR world Palestinians and Iraqis count for three-fifths of a person...or maybe one fifth...or maybe nothing.

Show Me the Money

One of today's kind readers noted this great post from blogger Olvlzl. The money(!) quote:

• "This puts all three of these news readers at the falsely named National Public Radio firmly in the top 1%, personal income group. I don't remember who said it but it is a mighty rare person who isn't changed by an income over a quarter of a million dollars a year. A sort of aristocratic amnesia sets in, forgetting what it was like to get by on the less than a tenth of that amount, what most Americans have to live on."

Amen. Read it and weep...