Sunday, April 17, 2011

Tea & Sympathy: NPR Newsbaggers

The post below shows the disproportionate and favorable coverage that a puny rally of 100-200 Tea Party rightwingers generates on NPR. So what happened when, this past March, hundreds of anti-war protesters showed up at the White House and over 100 were arrested - including Daniel Ellsberg? On NPR, the public news outlet for the Ministry of Truth, it never happened. And what about when 27 anti-SOA protesters are arrested after a march of 100-200. Want to guess where that one goes on NPR? Memory hole again. All right, so maybe hundreds just doesn't show up on the radar when you're busy bootlicking the far right; how about thousands marching against war? Are you ready? Yep, NPR goes 0 for 3 when it comes to antiwar activism, even when it includes very large numbers, committed civil disobedience and large arrests.

FAIR has just done a great job pointing this out and suggests that you sign their petition. I have to add that NPR takes the general media's blackout of antiwar activism to a truly perverse level - not only do they newsbag the important stories of antiwar activism - they have the gall to take their own erased-news as evidence of a dead antiwar movement and pass it off as journalism.

13 comments:

geoff said...

What was that thing I never heard about again?

A new NPR spiritual:

I’m going to lay down my journal book
Here in the capital
Here in the capital
Here in the capital
Here in the capital
Ain’t gonna protest war no more
Ain’t gonna protest war no more
Ain’t gonna protest war no more
Ain’t gonna protest war no more

I’m gonna to put out and blind my eyes
Here in the capital
Here in the capital
Here on the village mall
I’m gonna to put out and blind my eyes
Here on the the village mall
Ain’t gonna notice war protests

I’m gonna talk with the villagers
Talk with the villagers
Think tanks and senators
Ain't gonna protest war no mo'
(Praise the lawd!)
Ain't gonna protest war no mo'

Patrick Lynch said...

I signed the petition and left a comment. I haven't had a chance to read the news article yet in the paper but I saw that WEKU is launching a local talk show. It will be interesting see if it echoes all of the other mindnumbing hate filled AM radio crap or if they step up and do the kind of stuff that NPR used to do well a very long long time ago.

As for the tea party, NPR doesn't even hide their pro TP stance anymore. They seem to be obviously catering to these people and I can't decide if it's out of fear or if it's really because they actually agree with them. I'm leaning towards fear myself.

Anonymous said...

Covering the Tea Party is like a condom for NPR: it gives them protection from claims that all their stories have a liberal bias.

That's it. No more, no less.

If Ron Schiller's secretly taped comments to the front group told us anything, it is that NPR management does not actually believe their own official line but merely repeats it because it is good business (or more precisely, that not repeating it would very likely put them OUT of business)

Every policy at NPR these days has to be viewed through one lens: survival and maintaining the salaries and benefits of the folks at the top)

Patrick Lynch said...

@Anonymous:

In other words: fear. These days fear seems to equal "good business".

Anonymous said...

I was in DC on the 19th of March though i did not take an arrest this time and was struck by the difference between that and the tea party meet-up. I also remember Informed being there a few months earlier and there was nothing. And i did comment on their "story" about the end of the anti-war movement.

NPR is at best Scoop Jackson "Democrats" which have morphed into the Clinton/Obama wing of the Republican Party and at worst? Just another cog in the dominant culture's cultural/social hegemony. Either way spells trouble here at home and abroad. I think Obama "Democrats" are simply negotiating the terms of surrender to the banksters, fraudsters, corporate/military/security they are allied (or hope to be lol) with.

edk

Anonymous said...

Yeah, "fear" for their job.

They know that if NPR gets defunded (or more precisely, if NPR member stations do -- or at least are prevented from using public money to pay for NPR programming), they basically have nowhere to go.

There is no "next" pasture for the already pasturized.

Once they over-graze their current pasture, that's it.

No greener one on the next hill.

larry, dfh said...

Yesterday S-F-0 had a 50th commemoration of the Boy of Pigs boondoggle. While they mentioned that the c.i.a. launched the invasion, the whole story was replete with boilerplate 'fear the commies' nonsense, to the point of ultra scary nuclear weapons stationed in Cuba. They didn't use the newer fear-inducing mantra of 'WMD', they preferred the classic fear-mongering. In a word: nauseatin. And typically unoriginal. One really needs to wonder: who's buying that shit anymore?

Anonymous said...

More BS From NPR:
"Pentagon Clears McCrystal Of Any Wrongdoing Described In Magazine Article"

"A Pentagon inquiry into the magazine profile that led to the retirement of Gen. Stanley McChrystal could find no evidence that would confirm what was written in the Rolling Stone article."

end of NPR quotes

Do the nitwits at NPR (in this case Eyder Peralta) actually expect the sources within the Pentagon who provided information to Rolling Stone to admit that they were indeed the sources?

Seriously?

This is dumb even by NPR standards (and that's pretty dumb).

geoff said...

Wait - is this picture of the NPR building doctored or is there really a branch of BofA that occupies the first floor?

I spent a couple of hours picketing a BofA today. That was fun. We went in and demanded to cash a check for 1.5 billion dollars.

Mytwords said...

I'm glad you saw that exquisite little detail of the photo - Bank of America as the foundation and cornerstone of NPR - ha! And no, I didn't doctor the picture at all - it comes right from NPR's "Visit" page.

Anonymous said...

They don't call it National Profiteering Radio for nothing.

Anonymous said...

Never realized there was a bank under the NPR flagship building (wonder what bankster/fraudster organizations bankrolled that building?). Color me completely surprised. No, really that surprises me.

edk

GRUMPY DEMO said...

Friday, NPR All Things Right Wing considered, did another wet kiss to the Tea Party.

Somewhere MYW is grinding his teeth, I know I was.