NPR essay on losing "America's trust"

NPR reporter and editor believes the organization has leaned much too far left.

I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.

 

Posted this on "unpopular opinion thread"

Probably won't be popular in NPR office. But its pretty darn spot-on. They really need to even out their tone. Too many stories seem framed as "this will make you feel sad" and that is the only point of them. I'll ask myself after a story airs, what was the point of that? This sounds very harsh - but do we need to hear another interview with a Gazan going through the rubble of their home after an Israeli missile strike? Another story of someone talking about their struggles with mental health and grief. Tell me a story I haven't heard before, or tell me a story I have heard before in a new way. And I'm not saying these stories aren't newsworthy, but I'd much rather them spend 5-10 minutes on where things stand with the hostage negotiations, how much longer Israel expects to be doing this, plans for reconstruction etc.

I don't know if what they are doing is "biased" or "liberal" - mostly it seems like pandering to generate an emotion rather than give the listener value and actually tell them something they don't know or weren't aware of. Racism sucks? Really? We're all gonna die from global warming? Hmmm. Grief is terrible to go through? Wars are tragic? I get it. What are people who can do something about it - doing about it? Too often this last part isn't even mentioned.

 

Indeed, the truth has a well-known liberal bias.

 

Are there two legitimate sides to everything? Are the allegations that the 2020 election was stolen worth serious and even-handed coverage? Are the alternative narratives for J6 or that the summer of 2020 riots are just as bad worthy of discussion?
Does every single murder need national wall-to-wall coverage for days on end? A white cop kills a black man who’s led a less-than-perfect life and the local authorities drag their feet when holding him accountable. That’s a national story, while when a black person or illegal immigrant kills a young white person whose led a squeaky-clean life It gets local coverage but no national attention until some redneck bellyaches about it not being a big story nationally. Never mind that the killer was quickly arrested and charged, will in all likelihood be convicted and die in prison. In other words, the system worked, so what larger, non-racist issue is there to talk about for days on end?
I think if anything, the”liberal “ media goes out of its way to cover the conservative side of things

 

They had a Dominion-style lawsuit?

 

NPR?

 

As written I agree with this. Liberalism, to me, is fundamentally a marketplace of ideas, conservative and progressive, Luddite and technocratic, pious and utterly irreverent.

 

David Gerrold

 

https://x.com/mehdirhasan/status/1777904623484883129?s=46&t=f1bCJ9Ncf7mPQzqE8-YWxQ

 

www.npr.org/2024/04/09/1243755769/npr-journalist-uri-berliner-trust-diversity


NPR's top news executive defended its journalism and its commitment to reflecting a diverse array of views on Tuesday after a senior NPR editor wrote a broad critique of how the network has covered some of the most important stories of the age.

"An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don't have an audience that reflects America," writes Uri Berliner.

A strategic emphasis on diversity and inclusion on the basis of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, promoted by NPR's former CEO, John Lansing, has fed "the absence of viewpoint diversity," Berliner writes.

NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday afternoon that she and the news leadership team strongly reject Berliner's assessment.

 

They reject his "assessment," but what about the specific examples he pointed out?

 

I think the polarization of the NPR audience reflects the larger society where everything is polarized. For example, what is the political bias of a report on grief? I also wonder if the tone of NPR is affected by conservatives refusing to go on their shows, even though NPR, for all its faults, will let an interviewee say his/her piece. often to a fault.