Nervous about Muslims? Shhh...Follow

No. I'm pretty sure that whole bit was just red meat for conservatives who already view public media as a pretext for using taxpayer money to spread liberal propaganda by showing an example of extreme anti-conservative bias at another publicly funded media outlet. You know. Show a pattern of behavior and all of that.

Varus just got it wrong is all. There are dozens of examples of NPR analysts expressing political opinions. This example is about something else entirely.



Not if your point is to show a pattern of publicly funded media having an anti-conservative slant.



As examples of just how biased publicly funded media outlets are, it seems very very valid Joph. William's firing is just one in a long history of this sort of thing. It's getting attention because it's happening right now and because his connection to the "right wing" is tenuous at best. He appears on Fox news to argue *against* the conservative viewpoint, and arguably does it quite well.

There's a broader aspect to this Joph, which I think you either don't see, or are trying hard to ignore. The liberal rant about Fox news is that it's just full of crazy conservatives spouting nutty conservatives ideas and it can be dismissed as horribly biased and nutty and whatever. However, that perception doesn't really survive actually watching Fox News for any length of time. Someone who's only knowledge about it comes from such assumptions might be quite surprised to watch it and see a panel, thinking "Ah hah! This is where they just stack the panel with conservatives". Then they might be confused as the panelists are introduced by name and publication. "Huh! That person writes for the New York Times? And that one works for NPR? Hey! I even listen to his/her show. He/she isn't a conservative! What's going on here?". And then when the realize that these people are actually expressing differing opinions and they aren't just reading some conservative script, they realize that most of the BS they've been told is just that: BS.


One might even suspect that this is the reason why, despite all the assumptions tossed around on liberal blogs and even forums like this one, Fox News has massively more viewers than any other cable news network. And it might even explain why it consistently polls with a more politically mixed viewer list than any other news outlet (massively more "balanced" in fact).

But what happens if the other media outlets (the ones that are massively off balanced towards liberal view points) start firing any of their people who express opinions on Fox New? What happens? Think it through Joph. That's the real concern here. All the rest is kind of a smoke screen. The real issue is the polarization of our media/news coverage. What NPR is basically telling us is that if you work for them you better be really careful if you ever appear on Fox News. Don't you dare express an opinion, or you might just lose your job!


That's the chilling aspect to this. And if you don't see this in the broader context of media manipulation in order to dismiss and diminish one point of view in favor of another (by a publicly funded organization no less!), then you are freaking blind as a bat. If they can make liberal analysts and commentators afraid to appear on Fox News because they might lose their jobs, then the BS they say about Fox News becomes true. And if it just takes a bit of control of the media to do this and a little fear on the part of the journalist community, well... that's a small price to pay to get rid of anyone who dares to say things that "we" don't agree with. And there goes free speech...


It's not just about Williams Joph, and it's somewhat insulting to insist that that's all we should even think much less talk about.

Edited, Oct 22nd 2010 7:02pm by gbaji

A franchise is a privately owned and independently operated business which is licensed to sell a given set of products under a given brand name. In return, it must conform to certain rules and restrictions based on said franchise agreement

A public radio station is a independently operated radio station which is licensed to broadcast publicly generated radio programs (specifically NPR). In return for that license, it must conform to certain rules and restrictions based on that licensing agreement.


While there are some minor differences (and certainly some significant differences specific to the agreements in question), the two are broadly analogous. Maybe it's that you actually don't understand how a franchise works?


I worked for a franchise convenience store for awhile. What that meant was that we got to put the logo and trademarks on our store. We were required to sell specific sets of products as mandated by the agreement, and had some restrictions as to what we could sell and what vendors we could buy through. Outside of that though, we were free to do anything else we wanted to do. We could put whatever magazines we wanted on the racks. We could sell any papers we wanted to. Even the local indie ones. We could put video games in the store (or not) as we wished. We could put any other products we wanted in the store as long as we provided the goods we were required to and weren't selling "competing" products. Outside that area, we were free to do anything.


That's very very similar to a radio station which in return for its license agreement broadcasts X hours of NPR feed, perhaps puts certain sets of public information commercials and whatnot on it's air, and has to maintain certain content conditions, but is otherwise free to use the rest of its airtime as it wishes. There's functionally no difference between the two.


The more relevant point is that NPR and the station are really parallel components instead of serial ones. But that's really more of a structural thing. It doesn't change the analogy much at all.

Summary goes more like this:

1. A post about William's firing from NPR is made
2. People, even hard core liberals agree that NPRs actions were wrong.
3. Despite this a debate about whether this is consistent behavior on NPRs part starts
4. Varus uses a poor example to make the case that NPRs actions are inconsistent.
5. People make fun of Varus.
6. I point out that Varus example is a bad one but not for the exact reasons people are making fun of it
7. Argument ensues.


I have repeatedly stated that the example Varus gave does provide an example of NPR being inconsistent in this case.

I have repeatedly stated that there are other good examples of this. So many that there's no point in me bothering to list them.


I'm not sure how I can be any more clear that the only point I'm making here is that while Varus clearly misunderstood the meaning of the story about the radio station producer, it still does have meaning in the contest of this issue. Sheesh! Thick skulls around here...

Edited, Oct 22nd 2010 7:23pm by gbaji

Yes. And did you notice the half dozen times that I've said that it doesn't matter? I thought my initial point that it was "splitting hairs" should have clued you in on this.



Then why, later in the same article, did the GM of the radio station send an email to NPR apologizing for the behavior of her employee? If NPR has no discretionary control over who gets to be an "NPR affiliate", and there's no expectation of image that needs to be upheld, then why the apology?


That she doesn't "work for NPR" is splitting hairs because the people she does work for receive their bread and butter from NPR. NPR can't fire her, but it can presumably "have her fired" if they want, and her actions can be construed as reflective on NPR as well. That she doesn't work directly for NPR really is a minor point.



It was good and I wasn't wrong Joph.

And why the hell are you arguing with me? Shouldn't you be like yelling "push push!" or something? Or maybe basking in the glow of fatherhood? Smoking a cigar?

I'm bored on a Friday evening right before heading home while waiting for some jobs to finish up. What the hell are you doing posting?

Oh. Grats btw! :)

Gee, maybe because the Daily Caller was busy saying "NPR Producer Wants Limbaugh Dead!!" and it was getting picked up and carried by numerous other conservative outlets? Ya think that maybe when your employee helped some other organization catch a bunch of shit (rightfully or wrongfully) then maaaaaaaaybe saying "Sorry about that" is just the right thing to do?

No of course not! It must have been the iron fist of NPR threatning to crush KRCW! Heh...


No, they're not. Obviously there's agreements in the broadcast of their material but you're imposing some ridiculous and imaginary onus that just doesn't exist.


Right. Because my informed statements regarding public broadcasting don't match the ones you formed while selling beef jerky sticks, I'm obviously wrong and was only a "gofer".


Hahahahahahaha... No. But thanks again for the laugh.

gbaji had been a tad more lucid over the last few weeks. But now I see he's off his meds again.

Shame.

This becomes problematic when your method of determining what is "real" and "true" is based on whether or not it helps a particular political ideology.

Surprisingly, the most even-handed reaction to this that I've read came from Gregg Easterbrook, super-smart author and weekly football columnist for ESPN:



Edited, Oct 27th 2010 4:17am by Demea

Actually, the nickname it has among liberals these days is 'National Republican Radio.'

Unlike Fox, they're not doing it on purpose. They're trying so hard to escape the "liberal biased media" label that they always present both sides of the story, even when one side (liberal or conservative) is clearly full of rubbish. Unfortunately, these days the conservative twist to stories has been very rubbishy.

For example, why the **** do we give a **** what Sarah Palin thinks any more? Why do we care about her rallies? She holds no office, she has no power. She is, at best, a pundit these days. And yet even NPR will breathlessly devote a 5 minute segment to her latest tweets.

She's number 2 on my list of People-Who-Are-Ostensibly-Conservative-That-I-Wish-Would-Shut-The-Fuck-Up, right behind Newt Gingrich, and barely edging out Karl Rove.