I couldn't agree more.

My husband got me listening to NPR when we got married over three years ago. I've never gone back. I won't get my new anywhere else anymore and now the other sources seem like sideshows to me.
Give me the facts. Calmly give me the various opinions and let ME decide what's worth getting upset over. From here on out I'll provide my own emotion.

I too love NPR's slew of programing. It has always seemed very well produced and shows a balanced view of society as a whole. My favorite program is Planet Money, which has taught me more about today's economic problems than any modern mass media outlet could hope to explain.

I am shocked to learn that someone actually introduced a bill to stop funding for NPR. Do these Congressmen think that NPR is such a threat to society and their way of life that it needs to be eliminated? Do they feel that NPR doesn't provide a balanced and/or reasoned outlook on society? Do they feel that the federal government shouldn't provide the public as a whole a media resource that is independent of the political landscape?

Any one of those reasonings should justify exactly why we need NPR in the first place.

I appreciate that you wrote the piece just as I see NPR: meaningful-, rational- and calm-yet-poignant.

It is a resource to our nation and it's a shame that, instead of giving it Congressional kudos--hell, Presidential kudos--it's seen as a potential threat and bills can be presented to eliminate its support.

Sadly, maybe that is more our America now.

I just want to say that I learned about jazz from NPR. And Terry Gross is the best interviewer I've ever listened to. To this foreigner, she, along with the rest of NPR, has been invaluable to my American education.

Thanks for saying so eloquently what so many of us already know: NPR is a godsend.

If only more media followed NPR's lead. So much is lost in the endless bickering between Left and Right. Regardless of my political leanings, I just want the pure, unvarnished truth, and I feel NPR is one of the few sources for that these days.

Whenever I have moved to a new State, the local NPR station will often be all I listen to as I unpack my house. They always have several excellent local programs on where I can learn about the politics of my new home. This was amazingly helpful when I moved to SLC and moving to San Francisco I learned of Michael Krasney's fantastic morning show.

Thanks for your words. I feel the same as you.

Great post. I agree completely, and I wish you had also mentioned one of the last great journalists in America, Warren Olney and his show "To The Point." He has been a terrific force for balance for many decades on the air in Southern California, and I was so glad, and not the least bit surprised, when he got a nationally-syndicated slot. I have learned so much listening to his thoughtful, delving questions over years.

Hopefully, when the "Post-Reason" era of politics succumbs to the Neo-Rational Movement (of which NPR listeners should all be charter members, and can start pushing any time now) NPR will still be on the air and will have stiffer competition in the market. Please, may it be soon!

Though I don't believe it's officially NPR (it might be PRI, but the sow airs on NPR affiliate stations), a show that I have gotten around to listening to is This American Life. There is a story there Mr. Ebert about a tea party chapter that just broke my heart. The specific title of that episode was entitled This Party Sucks and showcases the frustration of party politics in America. Another episode entitled Toxie, showcased the stories that make up what the so-called toxic assets that are part of the financial collapse.

You're right Mr. Ebert, those on the right don't care for NPR because partly because it might lead to a conclusion about how a belief of theirs is really not validated.

Throughout my childhood, Boston's WGBH-FM had a fellow Robert J. Lurtsema with "Morning Pro Musica," a program that started with just 10 minutes of bird sounds. Then, onto a wonderfully slow, deep-voiced news summary, and then "serious" classical music, sometimes of significant length. It was "slow" in the best sense, as with slowness in moments of meditation/ reflection. I agree with you regarding the NPR news division and Garrison Keillor for having similar, progressive characteristics. As with people I care about, I feel blessed that it's been in my life at all, even if it will not be here to stay.

Absolutely, Roger. When I'm stateside my car radio stays tuned to NPR constantly. Never has driving been so educational. It prevents road rage too!

After completing my undergrad, I returned to my hometown, Washington, D.C. and got a temp job working for the National Endowment for the Arts. The individuals who ran the design program were extraordinary. Actively engaged in how the arts was an integral way to keep the minority safe from the majority. It was democracy at its best. I learned to use a turret phone to field calls ranging from supportive "how can we help advocate on your behalf" to those psycho "haven't you guys been Gingriched yet?" I proudly wore my button 'two postage stamp' button to demonstrate what it cost an average taxpayer to support the arts in America.

I've seen a lot as a temp. Certainly a full range of offices claiming a full range of benefits to humanity. The major health insurance company I tempted at might well have been the most hipocrytical and corrupt of the bunch. Not only did their employees seem irreverent regarding their organization's (technically, it was a non-profit) fiscal irresponsibility but it almost nurtured a passive acceptance of corruption is concerned.

The fact that our NPR --and organization that, like the NEA, is dedicated to protecting, nurturing and supporting our intellectual, creative, analytical, interpersonal and national identity should have to justify its existence while American consumers are continuing to be gang raped by the health insurance industry is beyond me.

And Roger, I don't agree with everything you're saying about NPR. I do think it has a bias towards the left. Its coverage of Israel, I find particularly disappointing (at best) and unreliable (at worst). As with any good news source, I can always turn the dial.

I'm also not sure that I believe that the changing attention span necessarily means loss of neuro-capacity. Nick Bilton, for example, writes about how our brain will adapt so we can better integrate myriad information streams.

I try and customize my media diet responsibly. Some Daily Beast some Charlie Rose some New Yorker New York Times and of course, my beloved Scientific American (still indulge in the hard copy version of that one). NPR, however, holds a special place. Its what colonizes the in between times. Making breakfast, driving to work or walking to the subway. This is a sacred space. A kind of one-on-one communication that is not possible to get any other way.

With Andy Carvin at the helm of their social media program, it is now a regular part of our Facebook, Twitter lives and is blazing a trail that other media outlets look to as a model to emulate.

NPR is the best of us. How dare they and take that away!

I am an Indian technologist who once lived in the US. Many of my good friends still live there. We all loved NPR, and those who live there have this as their favorite radio channel. Some get into minor fights with their wives because they are addicted to it like some are to baseball. :)

NPR is literally food for thought. It engages the mind, presents a debate in terms which are human and civilized, and enlightens you with a thoughtful appreciation of the opposite side.

I wish every country had its NPR.

In India we used to have All India Radio (AIR) present interesting lectures, audio-plays, and debates. It has been all but submerged by the crop of FM channels indulging in gossip, movie trivia and hit-of-the-day.

Beause AIR presented current events, nuggets of village life and those of the urban poor, and a potpourri of the local culture, I think the prosperous people and the next generation think it is not hep to listen to such radio channels. It can get depressing, while all that most people are looking for (or so I think) is distraction and something to hum.

I think the Australian equivalent is called "Radio national", publicly funded and run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and it ranges from dry to dry-but-fascinating. I used to consume more news, media student that I was, but not so much anymore. I heard a lot about McLuhan in my communication degree but didn't realise how wonderful he was until I sat down and read "Understanding media".

I have good memories of listening to obscure radio programs deep into the night. I remember a wonderful radio-play about the Devil, where the devil "began to dance". I will never find it again. I remember a composer quoted as saying that he would indeed close the window to block out some noise, but that the sounds of the outside world in no way detracted from the performance. I will never find out who that was.

At Amnesty International I spend seven hours each day reading about human rights in other countries, and this is a discipline that acts as an antidote to the world we live in. I've never been so happy; Amnesty is my spiritual homeland. I've never had something I wanted so much that I feared it would be taken from me.

You are the voice I hear from America.

I couldn't agree with you more about the value and importance of NPR. It is an oasis of sanity in the vast desert of cable's screaming heads and the media’s sandstorm of celebrity voyeurism.

In reflection, I believe there two facets to these claims of bias. The first facet stems from an honest difference in the moral compass of liberals and conservatives. Liberals tend to be more open to experience and diversity, while conservatives tend to place a higher value on familiarity and dependability. In that light, to a conservative, NPR’s diverse programming and more worldly view could appear as a liberal bias since those traits tend to be more attributed with the left. In his very interesting TED talk, Jonathan Haidt discusses some of the political affects of these moral differences: (http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html).

The second facet stems from those who are actively trying to manipulate the national political discussion. These are the people who are exploiting the differences in moral tendencies between liberals and conservatives to incite fear and mistrust of alternative sources of information. This mistrust allows them to be the only ‘trusted’ source for information and there is a lot of power in that.

My "Red Beard" has been gaining dust for some months due to it's forbidding length--I'll probably see it soon now.

Fantastic post, thank you for your clear-headed writing.

First comment!

I usually listen to the classical (or whatever else is on; I haven't listened to APHC in awhile and last time I did I felt like it was making fun of me somehow; but like "The Simpsons" they have that rare quality of not offending you even when they're offending you).

Sometimes I'll watch basketball and I like how it's not political either; I used to spend hours and hours shooting basketball as a kid and I can still shoot now.

I am a certified NPR addict. I find I listen to it nearly all the time. Other than differing in taste with Garrison Keillor's show (it's not my thing), I agree with your article.

Here's my take on the "leftist" thing: I have noticed that NPR doesn't slant the facts or the tone of the story like truly biased broadcast organizations do, but it does steer the discussion to the left through story selection and the decision on which side gets more air-time representation.

I don't have a concrete examples to post at this moment, but you will hear this if you listen for it. A story on joblessness, for example, will focus more on the jobless folks themselves, their hardships, their difficulties, the trauma that happens when government assistance fades away. Tragic, sure, but the focus of the story tends to be "the government isn't helping people, this is tragic."

What they will miss in a story like this is the right-wing viewpoint that a perpetual system of government help leads to dependency and is actually bad for the country (and those individuals who have that dependency), or a discussion on why businesses either don't need to or don't want to hire people right now. NPR won't dig into the business side of things (except on their excellent Marketplace show).

Now is this bias? Well, in my view "bias" is skewing the facts & opinion towards a particular conclusion. I don't think NPR does that.

But story selection and viewpoint selection does tilt their coverage to events as they pertain to the left. IMO that's "bias" in the same way that Cat Fancy magazine biases it's coverage to cats.

These are interesting observations. NPR is the default channel on my drive to work, so regardless of any criticism I may have, clearly I find it the best alternative on terrestrial radio.

I find the national news journalism basically bias-free, especially Renee Montagne and Steve Innskeep. I love All Things Considered, Car Talk, and I usually like Fresh Air. What I love most is their questions of people on the right or left, they are usually very deep and show tremendous breadth of understanding.

The local NPR (I'm in Northern California), while still not too biased, is rather liberal in the selection of their topics if not necessarily their commentary. The upside is that they will air conservative views, and there is always in-depth discussion, but the bias is there.

My worry is not that they will lose their government funding (which is about 5% of their total revenue, I think they would get along just fine). Instead, if they ever shed the non-profit status and started collecting real advertising revenue, then it would go downhill. Right now the three senior hosts (Robert Siegel, Renee Montagne, and Steve Innskeep) make a little more than 300K a year (go to www.guidestar.gov). That's a lot of money, but a pittance compared to the salaries and compensation of mainstream media. What if they decided they deserved more?

Even worse, what if they change leadership, and someone decides to use the NPR brand to their ends? There once was a subscription paper with advertising that was considered the bastion of unbiased journalism, but then was purchased and it's name exploited for political gain. That paper was the Wall Street Journal. My only hope is that NPR never catches the attention of Rupert Murdoch, and turn it into another puppet for him.

While you may be able to say that NPR is not overtly "leftist", you cannot argue against the fact the it's audience is primarily democrats. Therefore, I still think that the station is colored a light shade of blue; how else can they get all those donations? And have you ever considered, Ebert, that the reason you consider NPR to be so level headed is because you yourself are leftist?

Ebert: I have no information that its audience is primarily Democrats. Do you? I am indeed a liberal. But listener-supported radio must draw from the while community. Or are you suggesting only liberals would support it?

Good times.

It's not just in recent years that NPR has been labeled "Leftist." My dad has been saying it for decades.

I don't have television. I can't watch the news. I don't have a radio. I only have the internet, on my phone, at work, or at home. My iPhone has an NPR app which I frequently listen to on the way to work and my Google landing page has an NPR hub. I didn't really listen to NPR until of could get internet on a phone.

Ebert: Aaron, you NEED this. Now!

http://j.mp/17L6DU

It's my opinion that the war against NPR is part of a larger war against language and thought. The right wing and corporations are redefining language and framing every debate in terms that allow them to easily stir up their followers while pushing a fascist agenda.

Education is elitist. Knowing things is elitist. Asking questions is elitist. The only thing they want to see is angry Americans rallying behind signs and slogans, easily manipulated into doing whatever benefits the elites.

Orwell and Huxley were clairvoyants.

I always scratch my head at charges that NPR is leftist (going on well before Palin). As a proud liberal I often come away from NPR feeling like I have a better understanding of the positive attributes of conservative (and liberal) ideology than anyone who exclusively watches FOX News.

I definitely skew left of center on domestic issues (although I like to think of myself as fiercely independent) and I also think NPR is a national treasure, for most of the reasons you cite, but to say that it doesn't skew left is a bit much. Perhaps its because you see the world through liberal/progressive tinted glasses that you see NPR as just middle of the road. Its 'your' middle of the road.

Its the overall tone, the basic assumptions of a specific world view, that pervades most of its programming. But thats OK - its just how the world works.

I think in the eyes of some conservatives *cough cough Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck*, any media outlet which doesn't strongly espouse conservatism is ipso facto leftist.

BTW, my favorite local radio station is a college music station which plays alternative and modern rock. They're an NPR station. Thumbs up!

Thank you for writing this.

I am politically neutral. I don't think politics will fix anything that is wrong with the world, not really, and even if I did, my "politics" wouldn't fit anywhere along the current spectrum. Most of my friends are either like me or liberal/left-leaning, and most members of my family are strongly conservative. The almost inescapable elevated pitch and screechy sound bites flung from both sides distress me and leave me with knots in my stomach and elsewhere.

Into this chaos I purposely insert NPR, which to me is an island of calm reason. NPR gives us facts, many many more than we can get from any other news outlet, and the entertainment is typically refreshing and quiets the psyche. It's the only station that will cause me to stop what I'm doing and make a note about something interesting to look up later. I love it for all the reasons you and the cab drivers do, and I've never understood where this charge of liberal bias comes from. Is it a "if you're not for us, you're against us" kind of thing? I don't know, and the only time I asked someone who leveled that charge, I got a non-answer. I just stopped asking ... but maybe that was the wrong approach.

What a week for NPR. Roger, have you seen the NPR rap making the rounds on the web this week?

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=vxRgNnue-zk&vq=medium

Ebert: Wonderful. I'm going to embed it.

I love NPR. I like it for all the reasons you outline and because it is "slower" than other news. It one time to chew on the news between bites.

One need only look to the BBC to see what strong, national broadcasting can do. Shameful that some would consider it a threat. A threat to what? Thoughtfulness?

I'm not saying NPR is not seen as leftist, or as a threat. I am saying only that the House Republicans here were mostly using NPR as a tool. If they could not use it as a political football/wedge, they would lost most if not all interest in it.

Wonderful reflection, Roger.

Kudos to Mr Ebert for expressing what most Americans, with an ounce of intelligence, agree. What a tragedy it would be to lose one of the last vestiges of civility in our media world. Think of what life would be like without "This American Life", "Morning Edition" "All Things Considered" and "The Diane Rehm Show". These nay-sayers will not be satisfied until this country is driven back to the Stone Age.
Thank you Roger for reflecting my thoughts much better than I could ever hope to do.

Great stuff as usual, Mr. Ebert.

In the spirit of learning about America, which is just about the clearest way I can describe my own life's work as a professor of American literature and Studies, I wanted to shamelessy self-promote for a second and mention my own new blog, americanstudier.blogspot.com. One American thing that I think we could better remember and include in our national narratives per day!

Thanks, keep up the great work,

Ben Railton

I like to listen to NPR in the car, and baseball. Currently I have satellite radio, up for renewal soon. May give it a pass as I find that I keep listening to the same things mostly. Not a commuter, listening running around town and on the road.

Two or three FM bands, same with AM, six disc cd player. We do not have a classical station broadcasting here. There was one in Cincinnati, multiple choices for NPR associated stations.

Satellite radio does have Bob Edwards with its own NPR something station. May have to give that some more thought.

I think Jon Stewart got it right. The country is drifting into two camps.

1. The group the favors truthful, fact-checked content. A group that values sanity.

2. A group that favors made-up nonsense. If it hurts the enemies in any way, it's good stuff.

I'm a mathematician, so you can guess which group I'm in. I'm one of those fuddy-duddies that gets peeved when a person lies to me.

NPR fact-checks, which puts it in the #1 camp.

There are times...when I look at the mass media, and think that they're part and parcel of a grand conspiracy to dumb the masses down, so that the "elites" can get on with the business of making money off us.

Conspiracy theory? You bet. But sometimes it seems the facts admit no other explanation.

Here in Canada we have the CBC, which endures its own quota of rants about how "leftist" it is, most often from the newspaper chain of the Asper family, extreme-right wing control freaks whose corporate office dictates the content of editorials in all its papers.

In Ontario, we also have TV Ontario, and its well-regarded current affairs show, The Agenda. If I have an issue with the Agenda, it's that the host doesn't call any of his guests on prima facie outlandish statements they might make - and it seems the rules of engagement prohibit other guests from doing the same.

Civil? Polite? Frightfully Canadian? Yes, but then I feel it only scratches the surface of the complexity of most questions. "Look, here's how complicate this is, but we're not going to do anything to get rid of any of the mis-information that contributes more complexity than there needs to be."

That is why I love NPR and have for over a decade. I started listening when I was much more conservative than now (I matured in my 20s, thankfully) but still liked it because it provided me news w/o the inane ramblings of partisans.

Plus, if you don't like "Car Talk" and "Wait, wait, don't tell me," then there's something wrong with you.

As you say, NPR deals in facts, and reflects reality--which is very troubling to the organized right, dependent as it is on distorting information to stir fear and discord among its base.

And, as you may remember, Stephen Colbert tells us that everyone knows that reality has a liberal bias (see his 2006 Correspondents Dinner speech).

There's a good article in The New York Review of Books about NPR by Bill McKibben. I had no idea, but apparently its signature morning and evening news programs are the most popular conveyors of news in any medium in the country. By many journalists it's considered the place to go if you want to do serious work, displacing the traditional lions of the print world.

But McKibben also makes the point that, perhaps because of its new status, NPR is playing it a bit safe these days, easing into a rut. I guess I agree -- though in the overheated mediasphere that Roger notes, this may not be as undesirable as it once would have been.

Personally, as a former journalist with national and international experience, I see many of the same failings in NPR that I see in the rest of the American media. Nationally, there's way too much coverage of political personality and contest and not enough routine substance to be of much use. Internationally, there's a kind of globalism that dwells on the exotic, cute and threatening at the expense of any attempt to deeply understand the 30-plus years of severe American decline relative to other advanced nations. That's THE key story.

On a perhaps more ominous note: I was overseas and away from NPR for a number of years. Returning to the U.S. and tuning in once again, I was alarmed by the growing corporate sponsorship of the service, which I suspect accounts for some of the blanding. (Locally, isn't one of WBEZ's big sponsors a law firm that helps company's with labor law? That doesn't sound good at all.)

You can argue that small, individual donations make up the bulk of NPR funding. But these mass, essentially anonymous sources of money are a given. I suspect that, as with nearly all political campaigns (including President Obama's), it's the big corporate funding that is indispensable and that exercises real influence.

All that said, NPR itself remains indispensable. I only wish we had a truly independent and intelligent source of news and analysis.

Ebert's article is a clear articulation of why we need NPR. Sadly, the ones who will read it, for the most part, are left of center and already agree with him. Most of the ones who will not, have already had their minds made up for them.

He makes a very good point about America's collective ADD in the last 15+ years. It's sad to think that people cannot just sit back and listen, but then if they did that would be to the detriment of those in power.

I hope people think about this article. The right in Congress tried to pass a bill not allowing funding to reach NPR. How about they fix the problems and help the majority of people in this country and not spend their time trying to punish organizations who don't think like them.

I couldn't agree more! I would argue the niche that public television filled is now being covered by a host of channels (Discovery, History, A&E, Bravo, etc.) - but radio remains a wasteland with the glowing exception of NPR.

Until commercial radio figures out that there is a market for intelligent, insightful programming, we need to support this incredible resource!

The one thing that Roger gets and so many of public radio critics don't is that if federal funding of public broadcasting is stopped, much of radio news in mid-to-smaller market communities will disappear, NOT, NPR but the local news programming. Many stations will opt to continue NPR because that is what helps to pay their ongoing bills and many could survive - albeit barely and many will go dark - without CPB money. It's one of the last bastions of civil discourse and it could go by the wayside because no one is challenging the conservatives who hate it to come up with pure evidence of bias.

As a freelance writer and a mom who spends most of my time at home, my local NPR station has been a lifeline. And I don't mind saying, I want to be Diane Rehm when I grow up!

NPR not only is patient, but requires patience to listen to it. They do not tell you how to think or what to feel about any story. We are so used to a tilt from commercial media that we accept the tilt without question, or if we do question, find a tilt that is in sync with what he feel. This way, we are not required to question our beliefs. We are not required to critically think.

I suppose since NPR presents facts and truths, that may seem left wing to some. Thanks for the thoughtful post.

It makes me sad that nobody is disagreeing with the commentary here.

I fear that the people who could differ with it saw the header and decided "This is not for me, I'm not going to read it."

People who are so isolated that they refuse to receive information that differs from what they already believe scare me.

I wish I knew how to reach them.

--t

My only complaint with NPR is that sometimes they are a bit too balanced because they fear being labeled. Edward R. Murrow would probably never be able to stay employed at NPR were he alive today, for example. Otherwise, I think it's normal for authoritarians to fear the free flow of information; look at China.

PS -- your review of RED BEARD is much appreciated. My own reached similar conclusions (http://tinyurl.com/2e2uymm). Mifune's restrained authority is palpable.

Hi Roger. Beautifully written article. Which I enjoyed like I do listening to NPR, and with which I will have to dissent on several points like I do when listening to NPR.

I've been a listener to NPR since 1980 when I was a soundboard operator at NRP member-station WILL at the University of Illinois. It was a college job, and a stressful one at that! Most operators wouldn't work the weekend shift, where I had classical music playing on the FM station and William Buckley style talk shows on the AM station simultaneously. Playing vinyl and carts and reel-to-reel tapes throughout my shift. Yikes!

There's no catering to prejudice. No agenda.

What I knew then, when I was a college liberal, and what I know now as a conservative man is that the station has a liberal agenda, clearly. I attribute that to the fact that most of their member-stations are attached to college campuses which are themselves liberal enclaves. (As you indirectly acknowledged in your recent post when you said that you went to college and became a liberal. I went to college and was a liberal, then joined the military and then the industrial world and became a conservative.)

Recently some have claimed it is leftist. That baffles me. No one ever seems to cite something they heard that offended them. They just believe in general that it's left wing.

I listened to NPR exclusively for a week recently, as an experiment during the Juan Williams firing. I Tweeted you several examples in that week of liberal bias. They are in my Twitterstream.

One example was a glowing setpiece ode to a Mexican muralist who, as we learned during the piece, was a revolutionary Marxist who had come to America and gotten several grants for his work. He is now know for having painted many "subversive" (their word, not mine) murals advocating revolutionary overthrow of the US throughout California. The correspondents couldn't have been more delighted, in their dulcet toned piece. Not a word of a contrary view of subversive murals. Why not?

The left-bias of NPR is of a kind described by Bernard Goldberg in his excellent book "Bias". Have you read it? It's not an overt Keith Oberlmann rant type. It's a sedate bias of likeness of thought. Everyone at NPR is of a liberal bent. Every correspondent, down to the lovable Garrison Keillor, is as liberal as the day is long. They choose stories that appeal to them, and they tell the stories the way that they think. No conservative viewpoint because none of them are conservatives. Simple as that. They don't tell a positive story about the pro-life viewpoint because not one single one of them is pro-life. There is the bias.

They are masters of editing at NPR. If you listen closely to any one setpiece, as I do, you will hear the agenda advanced through the editing. Here is what you should think. Here is an audio clip that reinforces that thought. Here is another thought to think. Here is an audio clip that reinforces that thought. On and on and on, all day long.

You mistake dulcet toned pleasant calmness for lack of an agenda. Not true.

I can, and do, listen to NPR. I recognize the bias when I do. I balance it with other sources.

Try an experiment today. Imagine that you are me. Conservative. Now, listen to any single setpiece and listen to hear if my viewpoint is represented fairly - or at all. No. Listen to the way the audio clips are selected to reinforce what the correspondent just told you as they build their agenda-driven left-bias story one clip at a time. It's masterful. It truly is. But, biased nonetheless.

I couldn't agree more and thank you for stating it so well.

It is scary that partisanship has become so entrenched that Republicans would gleefully champion the dumbing down of America because of the unprovable idea that NPR is left-wing Nazism.

Thank you NPR for all that you do for so many people.

I myself have been guilty of attacking PBS. It would have been "NPR," but that didn't rhyme.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9R4lbpwMWM

I don't know who put that up. It was my take-off on hootenanny music 30 years after it disappeared. It got a lot of airplay because people thought it was about marijuana, which, if I understand correctly, NPR supports.

...and brown-shoe Christian Radio does not. Nevertheless, I doubt they'd appreciate this particular allegory about the Garden of Eden.

For some months now, I've been switching back and forth between "leftist" NPR and "rightist" Christian radio. It's been a long brood on the mood of this country as I drive around on errands. Our traditional left-brain right-brain Puritan-Cavalier schizophrenia has been getting more pronounced in the last couple dozen years. For you unwashed, "Puritan" is yee-haw bible-thumpin' radio, while "Cavalier" is NPR. They're both sides of a coin of what this culture thinks goodness is supposed to be. One wears funnier-looking clothing. You decide which.

I honestly have yet to decide whether I like Garrison Keillor or Rev. Dr. J. Vernon McGee better. They're both story tellers with the god-damnedest speech affectations. Sometimes I have to quit on Keillor because his affectations have gone too far; whereas, when old Dr. McGee says "spee-cify" and all these other homespun cracker mispronunciations, my ear is glued to that radio and I find myself mouthing those pronunciations.

I left off on Keillor with his story about making conciliatory banana bread for a neighbor with whom he'd had a tiff. That's nice, but his breathiness can sound like he's trying to fondle you at the airport.

Now, ol' McGee. Dig THIS one: a boy fell in love with a wicked girl. Boy howdy a she-devil incarnate. She tole that boy that she'd love him only when he brought her his mother's heart!

So the boy snuck up on his mother, stabbed her in the chest, yanked out her heart with his bare hands and left his mother's corpse on the floor -- all for a foolish in-fatchy-ashun with this wicked girl!

Now on the way to that girl's house with his squishy, bloody prize in his hands, he tripped an' fell. His mother's heart spoke up: "Son, are you all right? Did ya hurt yourself, son?"

An' that's how God is. You c'n tear out yore mother's heart and she and God will both still love ya just as much.

Suppose I've got a signed check for five bucks (the dirt-cheap price of an annual subscription to Roger Ebert's Ebert Club e-zine) and I haven't filled in the "pay to" yet.

I've got two choices. Five bucks for a story about conciliatory banana bread or one about an infatuated young man who cuts out his own mother's heart.

I leave it to You, The Reader, to decide. Don't forget to spee-cify the name on the check.

Oh jeeze, I just learned that Dr. J. Vernon McGee has been dead for 23 years. I've been listening to a dead man on the radio for months now.

You'll hear no further jokes about Garrison Keillor from me. I don't think.

I don't believe attention deficit disorder is afflicting this nation. I think it is simply intellectual laziness. The reason I say this is because I grew up with adhd, and yet I have read all my life. Some of my favorite films are well over 3 hours long, and I prefer classical music and opera. There is some hope, though. Both of my girlfriends daughters love to read. The younger one just read great expectations, loved it so much, she reread it as soon as she was finished. I simply believe there must be other young people like them. By the way, you made my day by posting Red Beard as your latest great movie. Thank you for that!

Ebert: Great Expectations is just simply a terrific read.

Thanks, Roger. I agree that NPR plays a vital role in America by standing apart from nearly all other broadcast outlets in terms of its intelligence and independence. I would have trouble improving on all the wonderful things others have had to say in response to your article. Perhaps the only thing missed in the general shuffle is that the GOP's attack is actually on public broadcasting in general, which of course, includes television. They've just used - and distorted - the Juan Williams incident to renew a battle they've been fighting for decades. The GOP message: all messages should be controlled by corporate interests and any attempt to otherwise should be crushed.

You are all too conspiratorial concerning the lack of support for public radio. Sure, ideology plays some part, but it isnt really the content (ideology), its the fact that it is publicly-, not privately-,owned. The people you have been appointing for the past 30 years do not believe in publicly-owned assets (unless its to bail out failed privately-owned assets).

We are long time and avid NPR listeners. Most times the programs are intellectually stimulating and refreshing. It allows me to hope for the world. It keeps me sane. We live in a town of CPA's and MBA's and many of them have never heard of Garrison Keillor. Next time we move, we will check to make sure our nieghborhood has at least one NPR listener.

"...jazz, the only indigenous American music."

Jazz is the first indigenous American music, but not the only. The most obvious, and indisputable other being Rap.

I'll chalk up your omission to being a generational blindspot.

I like NPR okay but sometimes it's a little too calm for me. I think "The Onion" does a good job of illustrating some of the things that bother me about it. I'm glad NPR can laugh at themselves though of course they use the word "chuckle".

Thursday a bill was introduced in Congress to end funding for NPR. Actually, NPR doesn't receive a dime of federal money, but the bill would have forbidden member stations to use federal funds to pay for NPR programming. The measure failed, 239 to 171. In the next Congress, who knows how it will do?

Probably about the same as always--
The Right has had a frustrated Ahab obsession with personally destroying PBS dating all the way back to the Newt Gingrich era, and whenever they think "Coast is clear, guys!", and newspaper headlines tell them that a Republican-controlled House owns the world and space, it's always the first item on the agenda....ALWAYS. And when the plausible press-friendly reasons come out, eg. funding, etc., you sit there, wait, and count 3-2-1 for them to mention "Frontline". ("C'mon, just say it, say it, you know you want to...")
At least they're trying to start "small" this time, and have given up the old "Cable could take up the programming!...Nickelodeon could show Sesame Street!" arguments they used to fall back on in the 90's: No one's THAT naive anymore.

On a lighter note, even though SNL has forgotten how to be funny (at least outside of an election year) for the past twenty years since Phil Hartman, they did memorably manage to satirize the NPR Voice whose dulcet pleasantness will stick in your head:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/147961/saturday-night-live-npr

As a freelance writer and a mom who spends most of my time at home, my local NPR station has been a lifeline. And I don't mind saying, I want to be Diane Rehm when I grow up!

I would just like to point out that it's absolutely incredible, in this day and age, to see that some Americans continue to equate "liberal" with "leftist"... I understand that they juxtapose "liberal" against "conservative", but come on... really?

There's no real "left" in the U.S., no matter what the Tea Party people and rabid Bible-thumping Republicans would like you to think. The two parties alternating in power are both at the right of the political spectrum.... the only difference between them is the distance that separates them from a hypothetical "centre".

I think you have brought exceptional clarity to an issue that is constantly clouded by emotion, tension, and intense personal beliefs. Day by day, we hear conservatives railing against the liberal (or as former Governor Palin would say, the "librul") media, and vice versa, I would say from many liberals about outlets like Fox News.

The point is this: We exist in a society where the majority of news media outlets purport to think for us, not make us think for themselves. Many, many years ago, Dr. Murray Edelman theorized that the news media was designed to keep the public both anxious and hopeful, and so distract them from the ideological discourses that reporting in the news media take their cue from. It is no different today. NPR is a bastion of reason relatively free from corporate and government influence amidst a world of hopes and fears that are played upon and excacerbated by our other major news outlets.

To me it (seems) that Republicans and conservatives alike are more concerned and outspoken against a "liberal" media than liberals are about a "conservative" media. To this, my answer would be the following: You cannot ask for "balanced" coverage in a world that is not "balanced." If your party or those of like mind commit more faux paus, crimes... in general do things that are more "newsworthy," then those are the items that are going to be reported, especially if they are sensational. When I see a Sarah Palin supporter asking for the same amount of scrutiny about Barack Obama's personal life as has been over hers in recent publications, such as Vanity Fair. It's like comparing apples to oranges. You can't expect "balanced" coverage on two people that lead entirely different personal lives, have entirely different levels of education, experience, and credibility. I certainly don't see Obama's daughters getting in "facebook" fights and using words that are offensive to many, so why would their be reporting on his family on the same level?

On a semi-related note, since you are such a prolific writer and spend so much of your time mired in the "media," I highly suggest you pick up Edelman's books. He has since passed, but continues to be one of the staples of my academic influences. "Constructing the Political Spectacle" and "Symbolic Uses of Politics" are his more well known books, but I think you in particular would enjoy "From Art to Politics: How Artistic Creations Shape Political Conceptions."

I don't see an ideological motive behind the move to cut NPR funding. More like "We're trillions of dollars in debt. This is another thing we can't afford."

My dad likes to listen to NPR while he drives me to and from school. When I first heard it, I thought, "What is this? Talk radio? It's saying you have to pay for it, is it some kind of encrypted thing?" Over time, it's grown on me, to the point where of all the podcasts on my iPod, only two aren't related to NPR in some way. (In fact, only one is an actual podcast and not a radio show, but never mind.)

My first that really intrigued me was "This American Life." As my dad and I were driving around, an episode began with theme "Tough Rooms." The show opened with a hilarious story about a Thanksgiving dinner fight breaking out when the daughter told her Army father soon after 9/11 that she though Osama bin Laden was actually kind of hot. I'd wanted to listen to a later story about The Onion, but we got home; I found it later and loved the insight.

Later, while driving home from lunch and shopping one day, we heard a hilarious comedy sketch involving the Canadian mafia. It had infiltrated Hollywood, and if you double-crossed them, you'd wake up with a moose head in your bed. I looked it up and found that it was from "Wiretap," a Canadian show. Those two are the big ones on my iPod, and the first ones I started subscribing to.

I also like some of their comedy shows. (Yes, NPR has comedy. And it's funny, too.) I like "Car Talk" every once in a while, despite my utter lack of interest in cars; Tom and Ray are just too good not to listen to. I've also recently found "Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me!" to be pure gold, too. It's just so much fun to listen to people discussing the week's news, from major political news to "weird news," making jokes about it all the way.

Does NPR lean left? As far as I can tell, no. But if it does, I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Edward R. Murrow certainly wasn't balanced, but nobody's calling him a bad reporter. Besides, how many right-wing talk radio stations are out there? Whether they're left-wing or center, NPR brings balance to those stations and their empty discussions.

So you are saying the entire discussion on NPR, about having a political person running for something is not putting a negative light on the show/ politician, correct?

Was there this same questioning of a show when ABC ran 'The first female president'? This show was an obvious - or at least obvious to anyone who wanted to 'think' gentle nudge that a female president is more than ok, but is very plausible. I am sure Mrs Clinton found it helpful even though she did not ultimately receive the democratic nomination.

If NPR is so 'middle of the road', why have they not done a story on what the majority of Americans believe on Abortion, that it is wrong, and the killing of an innocent child?
What about reporting on the state Attorney Generals who do not enforce the parental notification for minors who go to receive an abortion?
These children can not go to school with an aspirin, they have to bring the medicine to the principal, and then the school nurse will distribute it to them at the appropriate time. Yet the same teachers can take them to a Planned Parenthood 'clinic' and not even let the parents know?
There are many state legislatures that realized this is wrong, and so wrote and passed such laws. Yet when Planned Parenthood, and other teachers blatantly disregard this child protection law, nothing is said, nothing is done.

Why not, if we are supposed to think and learn?

Here in Southern California, I listen to NPR at home and CBC 1 in the car through my Sirius satellite radio. I find both to be calming, informative, and thought-provoking in a world that seems to otherwise have gone mad.

Stuart MacLean's Vinyl Cafe on the CBC is my Friday evening commute godsend - it features music and stories from small-town Canada that serve to remind one that there is still niceness and gentleness left in the world.

CBC has an extensive library of podcasts available through its website. We could all do well to take a listen to them and learn more about our northern neighbors.

Thank goodness high-quality public radio is still alive and well in North America.

In our national family there is Glenn Beck, the crazy step-dad who won't ever shut up, Rachel Maddow, the sassy older sister who just came back from an amazing semester abroad, and Anderson Cooper, your well dressed, single uncle with moderatly interesting things to say.

NPR, on the other hand, is your sensible, scholarly uncle who sometimes annoys you for not getting into the fray. You wouldn't have it any other way, because without him, your family is just nuts.

I just wish I got more of the GeoQuizzes right on NPR's The World. I'm 5 for, I don't know, 200 by now.

Great read.

Roger, I'd just like to point out that PHC is actually an APM show, and what you're referencing throughout this piece is actually public media, not just NPR. Public Radio consists of many entities, including the amazing NPR news desk, but also stations like WHYY that produce Fresh Air, American Public Media, PRI (which produces This American Life). It's a distinction that's been lost as NPR is the prevalent brand in public radio. But it's an important distinction in a discussion where you're discussing funding and allegations of bias, etc.

Thank for sticking up for NPR.

I had to scroll down longer than usual to get to the first comment by a "What I Knew Then When I Was (A Stupid) Liberal As Opposed To What I Know Now That I'm (A Wiser) Conservative" Guy.

Maybe, at any given time, none of us really can claim to know the right thing for certain.

Truth is, media "bias" isn't an issue. Media "truthfulness" is. Of course, because we now have FOX News, we NEED directly-biased counter dishonesty. It's a shame, but it's true. Without the other hand on the rudder, the ship will flip. The thing about Liberals seems to be, we're too-darned fair-minded to actually support media outwardly biased in our favor. It isn't that we're ashamed of our views - we just don't want to get in the ring with the bully because we feel it diminishes us. Or, we're late to a book-signing and afraid we might not get a parking spot.

I don't listen to npr. I have a prejudice against folksiness, and, correctly or incorrectly, I associate "Lake Woebegone" with the same sort of backward-glancing mythology I associate with Conservatism. But, that's just me, and, since I admitted I don't listen to it, I'm certainly in no position to criticize it.

Still, I find it disgusting that elected officials continue to whip at npr as if it is something it isn't - Leftist Dogma. They have better things to concern themselves with. They've promised to fix the economy. Get to it, you posers.

Besides, more than half their constituency, given a vote, would see them put stronger content laws into effect to stream the hate-and-fear-mongering of The Right. Newt, Paul Rand, Limbaugh, Beck, Palin, you dopes really don't want to open that can. You really, really don't.

Ebert: I don't want to misquote him, but I believe Randy has argued here that Fox is fair and balanced.

My only gripe with NPR is purely aesthetic- I don't think they do nearly enough radio theater. That's one of the forms that really, really got hurt when television came along, because networks shunted resources and talent to TV. I think part of the problem is that NPR and PBS were specifically geared towards information and education, whereas, say, the BBC's mission with radio remains as general as it is for television. (Decentralization may also play a role, though I can appreciate it as an inherent property of both organizations and not necessarily a flaw.)

They still play some audio theater off and on, but oddly enough Christian radio actually does more (as well as stations that just play recordings of the Golden Age stuff.)

Has anyone tried recording NPR and listening to it backwards? =)

Thanks to my grandparents I have long been a listener of Prairie Home Companion. It is appointment radio. But I never made a habit of listening to other shows until recently. I moved a couple of weeks ago and have not yet chosen a cable provider, and I may not get around to it. There's too much great programming on the radio! My latest "discovery" is Wiretap. Now that's comedy. I try having NPR on while I'm doing other things around the house, but invariably have to stop what I'm doing and just sit down and listen. I was recently mesmerized by "The Rivalry" - a play about the Lincoln/Douglas debates starring Paul Giamatti. If you didn't have the fortune of hearing it, please check it out on the website.

For years, its listeners have defended NPR as "not boring." And in my opinion, they are absolutely right.

But now it has come to the point where it must be defended as "not agenda-laden." While anyone who actually bothers to listen can easily dismiss the notion as ridiculous. That's the problem these days. Everyone has an opinion whether they know or even care what they're talking about. It's the same point you list at the outset about asking someone else to "make up our minds for us." So because of an agenda out there somewhere in the ether, people believe NPR has an agenda and therefore NPR defenders must battle people who have claims based on nothing. At least when they said it was boring, the discussion ended quickly.

Anita Peterson above makes an interesting point about the difference between "liberal" and "leftist" in America. Reminds me of something my Dad said recently: "The Democratic Party has become the new Republican Party, in terms of traditional conservatism, while the Republican Party has lost itself entirely to the lunatic fringe." We haven't had a true left in this country for a long time.

...We are not all snarling dogs of Left and Right, feasting on shreds torn from the Body Politic...

Roger, I just stumbled across an interesting blog entry at discover magazine. The URL is
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2010/11/19/mothers-fatty-diet-makes-baby-monkeys-afraid-of-mr-potato-head/#more-14239

The discovery is that when pregnant monkeys are fed a high-fat diet (defined as 35% calories from fat, which the article says is modelled on a typical American diet), the babies of these monkeys become much more agitated when threatened.

...The study, presented at the Society for Neuroscience annual conference, found that in stressful situations, the female offspring were more anxious and the males more aggressive...

The article goes on to report that there is apparently a potential cause-and-effect relationship, with the link in the chain being serotonin:

...When they examined the brains of the offspring, researchers found disruptions in serotonin signaling, which normally provides a feeling of well-being. The researchers think that placental inflammation brought on by the high-fat diet exposed the monkey fetuses to proteins called cytokines, which are known to cause serotonin disruptions...

Might it be plausible to suppose that, after 30-40 years of our societies promoting high-fat diets, we're now seeing the effects in a population at large in which the children of the people who ate those diets are now adults, and who are now reacting more strongly to the things that they feel threaten them?

This could be a contributing factor to the rise of the partisanship which many people have noted, everyone seems to decry, and yet no one seems to know how to get off the misery-go-round.

Just a thought.

Nice sentiment, except that technically almost all instances of NPR should be replaced with "public radio."

NPR is one of several organizations that produces and distributes programming (e.g. Terry Gross, "Radiolab," etc.) to affiliate stations. A lot of the programs mentioned in the article and comments are produced/distributed by other organizations, but are often attributed to NPR. ("This American Life" is PRI, "Marketplace" and "A Prairie Home Companion" are American Public Media.) Your local public radio station(s) may buy a mix of programming from a number of these organizations, as well as feature locally produced content. But there's no monolithic group of stations called "NPR" that everyone listens or that sound exactly the same at any given time.

Chances are, you may also have community stations or other independent non-commercial stations in your area that produce original and TRULY diverse programming--I'm talking multiple languages for immigrant communities or hyperlocal news that nobody else is covering.

Any of these may receive state and CPB funding, and this funding may be at risk for a number of reasons--political, financial, low listenership--whatever. If you really love public radio, find out how to help those sources in your area most in need. Practically all of these member stations ("[Insert location here] Public Radio") rely mainly on member support. So find out what you need to do to strengthen the public radio in your area, rather than waiting for Congress to support "NPR", which to most people is really a shorthand for dozens of other organizations.

Perhaps this is generational, but I do not get Garrison Keillor at all. The Prairie Home Companion is patently unfunny, I find its pithy poignancy artificial, and Keillor himself breathes/slobbers into the microphone like an out-of-shape phone sex operator. Disgusting.

On the whole though, I like NPR. I've listened to it for about 15 years. I've contributed for about the last 5. Maybe you should conduct one of your famous unscientific polls on how many NPR listeners actually contribute. I'd be interested in the results.

I'm afraid I don't listen to any radio programmes at all, with one glorious exception (Roger, as an anglophile I'm sure you can relate): the NewsQuiz, the BBC Radio 4 satirical news programme, available as a podcast on iTunes. Ruthless and hilarious! A short sample on child discipline:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQMZXWZGejo

In response to Randy Masters post 11/19 10:52 am
Masters wrote:
"I listened to NPR exclusively for a week recently... I Tweeted you several examples in that week of liberal bias.

One example was a glowing setpiece ode to a Mexican muralist who, as we learned during the piece, was a revolutionary Marxist who had come to America and gotten several grants for his work. He is now know for having painted many "subversive" (their word, not mine) murals advocating revolutionary overthrow of the US throughout California. The correspondents couldn't have been more delighted, in their dulcet toned piece. Not a word of a contrary view of subversive murals. Why not?"

Masters fails to include the information that the mural was painted in 1932, and then painted over soon after; so it may have been difficult to track down a centenarian to comment on its subversiveness.

Here is a link to that story:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130519329

Masters wrote:
They choose stories that appeal to them, and they tell the stories the way that they think. No conservative viewpoint because none of them are conservatives. Simple as that. They don't tell a positive story about the pro-life viewpoint because not one single one of them is pro-life. There is the bias.

I'll just post this information.
Here are two stories that aired on NPR in 2010 that specifically address the issue of abortion:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128212951

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131094218

Listen to them yourselves and decide if the reporting is biased.

Ebert: The story of that mural is famous. Nelson Rockefeller commissioned it, and had it covered over.

I'll wait for Randy's report on the bias in those linked stories.

To Randy Masters:

One example was a glowing setpiece ode to a Mexican muralist who, as we learned during the piece, was a revolutionary Marxist who had come to America and gotten several grants for his work. He is now know for having painted many "subversive" (their word, not mine) murals advocating revolutionary overthrow of the US throughout California. The correspondents couldn't have been more delighted, in their dulcet toned piece. Not a word of a contrary view of subversive murals. Why not?

I assume this piece was about Diego Rivera. You cannot talk about his art without talking about his politics, but you can emphasize the art. I haven't heard the piece, so there's really only so much I can comment on, but I really am inclined to doubt any of the correspondents advocate overthrow of the United States in favour of a Mexican or even just American revolutionary government. It's just that Rivera painted what he believed, so if you miss what he believed, you don't have a context for what he painted.

I must admit I don't much listen to NPR. This is largely because I don't much listen to the radio. There are several shows I wish I remembered to listen to every week, though I don't. However, I have a deep adoration for Says You, and I get the Car Talk puzzler in my inbox every Monday. If I'm in the mood for jazz, NPR is the way to go most of the time. I don't much listen to the news, because I miss a lot by listening and am better suited to reading.

Oh, and PBS's niche is not filled by the History Channel, etc. Those channels are going downhill fast, further with every show about ghosts or 2012.

I believe that the correct spelling of Garrison Keillor's "home town" is Lake Wobegon.
That's the way Keillor spells it in his books.
It's supposed to be a spoof of the American Indian names of many lakes, rivers, and mountains.
Also a play on the word woebegone.

We must face the fact, Roger:
You have many talents as a writer.
Retelling somebody else's joke is not one of them.

Ebert: Corrected.

I entirely agree. NPR is not just a national resourse, it is a national treasure!

Well, come on... NPR is 'liberal,' but that is by no means a bad thing. I really resent when people think both sides of an issue each have a valid point. Liberals believe climate change is real, Conservatives don't. As Bill Maher stated, ok, I only care what climate scientists have to say. Keith Olbermann is not the equivalent of Glenn Beck. In Maher's words again "one reports the facts, the other is very close to playing with his own poop." I'm sorry, but one side is a century behind, and there is no scientific law stating that two opposing politically parties are equally valid. NPR is liberally biased. Is that a problem? Well not if reality has a liberal bias, I'm sorry Roger.

I suspect that many conservatives loathe NPR not because it is liberal, but rather because it is thoughtful and intelligent. The personalities on NPR personify class and respect; by comparison, the Becks and the Limbaughs of conservative radio embody crass, stupid anger. If there were a conservative version of NPR, where conservative journalists conducted thoughtful interviews and presented interesting reports on a variety of issues, I would listen to it. A lot of people would. A serious, respectful engagement of ideas, whether liberal or conservative, is always compelling.

NPR brings sanity to a media culture otherwise saturated by big egos and small minds. Maybe it's "too intellectual" or "doesn't have enough catchy sound bites" or "takes too much time explaining the issues and not angrily yelling about them." In any case, I find it refreshing to be able to hear a whole story and form my own opinions on it. It makes me feel, oh I don't know, like an intelligent individual capable of understanding things on my own. Maybe that's not what people want these days. Maybe what people want is for real issues to be filtered through the angry and biased personalities that clutter TV and radio news, so that they don't have to fill their already-troubled minds with even more thought.

I mean, in a world gone mad with terrorism, socialism, natural disasters, obesity, greenhouse gases, partisan stubbornness, and general anarchy, who has the time or energy to listen to nuanced, complex stories narrated by calm hosts with British accents? And at that, ones who take more than 30 seconds to explain issues?? Come on, I just want to hear the general summary, how I should feel about, and then NEXT! You know, so I can get back to my personal life, which is enhanced by my idea of myself as an informed American. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to actually be informed, but it makes me feel good if I'm able to regurgitate opinions on important matters when I'm chatting with neighbors, or co-workers, or the clerk at the corner shop. My re-hashed opinion would be betrayed as such by my vacant eyes, which obviously show that I'm speaking only from memory, but it's ok because anyone I talk to will be in the same boat as me. I'm just trying to be socially acceptable; not engage in a debate that might end in embarrassment! NPR is just too.... boring.

Ebert: I don't want to misquote him, but I believe Randy has argued here that Fox is fair and balanced.

And he's also claimed that half of shows there are liberal, citing Shepard Smith, Van Susteran, and many others as running a liberal daily.

It seems likely that NPR's listeners are disproportionately liberal. It would seem difficult, however, for it to have a liberal bent, seeing as so much of its programming is only tangentially related to politics. Stamping NPR as liberal seems to come only from the fact that it has "Public" in its name, and the general fad these days of prefixing the word "media" with the word "liberal." Frankly, I can't think of a more preposterous implication tied to a simple noun phrase. The media have never been liberal. Not as a whole, anyway. Hollywood is largely liberal, fine, although you can't put a political slant on every movie. Various news outlets could be called liberal too, I suppose, but every such news outlet is balanced by at least one news outlet of which the opposite could be said. Americans are pretty free to pick their bias, all in all. Maybe NPR has a slant, maybe it hasn't, but it seems pretty darn neutral in comparison other channels, on either side of the fence.

I am a liberal Democrat. But even I must admit that NPR spends an inordinate amount of time covering environmental issues; what a conservative might call "tree-hugging."

The sheer AMOUNT of coverage to global warming is evidence of bias, no matter how fair the debate.

Nevertheless, as a liberal, I enjoy it.

On my comment about the Marxist Mexican muralist:

@ Edith Nelson on November 19, 2010 5:25 PM

I assume this piece was about Diego Rivera.

No. The piece was about David Alfaro Siqueiros and his mural on Olvera Street.

@ Phil Riley on November 19, 2010 5:20 PM

Yes. You linked to the article on the NPR website that the radio piece echoed.

Masters fails to include the information that the mural was painted in 1932, and then painted over soon after; so it may have been difficult to track down a centenarian to comment on its subversiveness.

Don't need a contemporary to "comment on its subversiveness". Again, "subversive" was their word, not mine.

The point of my comment was that the correspondents didn't have a problem with a Marxist revolutionary painting subversive murals on the government dime. They were quite gleeful about it. As is the article on the website.

Why? Do you think that there is an alternative viewpoint? Do you think that there might be someone doing a report today that might have a slightly less heroic portrayal of an "artist was jailed for his radical militancy." Who might ask how did he then get a visa for work in America to paint subversive murals?

Is there anyone in America that they might have interviewed for their piece who has a problem with the central image of the mural:

The central figure is an indigenous Indian peasant lashed to a double cross. Bearing down over him is the American eagle, which two Latin American warriors take aim at from the corner.

Siqueiros titled the mural America Tropical: Oprimida y Destrozada por los Imperialismos — or "Tropical America: Oppressed and Destroyed by Imperialism."

If so, they were not represented in the radio piece, and they are not represented in the website article.

I encourage you. Go read the article that Phil helpfully linked. Tell me that it is not a positive portrayal of a Marxist subversive with a completely negative view of America as an oppressor. A view, I might add, that the American political left is quite comfortable with but that conservatives would find alien.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130519329

But, there is no left-bias on NPR. Move along. :)

It's not that NPR is some threat - I enjoy its content - it's a question of force. I don't have a problem with Fox News, or MSNBC, or any private network, because I choose not to purchase cable, and thus am not funding their content. With publicly funded outlets, no matter what choices I make in life or what my political persuasion is, if I pay federal personal income taxes, a portion of my paycheck goes to fund NPR stations. I realize it's an incredibly small portion - perhaps a few dollars over the course of a lifetime, if that - but if I'd rather donate those few dollars to the local animal shelter, shouldn't I have the basic freedom to make that choice?

@ Vincent on November 19, 2010 4:19 PM

We haven't had a true left in this country for a long time.

This viewpoint, also stated by Anita Peterson, totally fascinates me. It matches my observations in contributing to primarily-liberal websites for a couple of years now:

The American political left does not acknowledge that there is a left.

It is a view echoed in the media, where you will not find references to "left-wing" anything. You'll find "right-wing" references all day long, but no labelling of the left. It's as if we're a one-winged political system. You'll find politicians labelled as "conservative" (read: scary and weird) constantly, but never a politican labelled as "liberal".

It is a classic "fish that does not know he's wet" syndrome. Liberals listen to NPR, find that every story syncs up with their worldview, and say "what bias?".

I've been noticing the phenomenon particularly on Twitter and Facebook. There I have friends and followers that I like and also completely disagree with politically. To a man (and a woman) these folks who routinely take a reflexively liberal position on every issue and link exclusively from Huffington Post and Salon etc will go to great lengths to tell me that they are not liberal. I'm non-partisan or I'm in the middle they will tell me. Middle, moderate, normal, sane, or non-partisan are all words that liberals prefer to describe themselves.

You're not middle. Neither is NPR. It's self-delusion. :)

Me: I'm a conservative. I'm a right-winger. I'm a Tea Partier. I'm currently a Republican. I have no problem identifying with any of those. Why do y'all have a problem identifying yourself as left? Puzzling...

Randy has said it a few times, I think, but here is a quote I found from the "Sign The Social Contract" blog, where he lists more liberals on Fox than conservatives (or "psychopathic success" self-help gurus, as I call them).

Randy Masters on November 12, 2009 12:14 PM

Two conservatives (let's say Krauthammer and Barnes) and two liberals (Easton, Liasson, Williams). The hosts are a mixed bag. Some liberal (Wallace, Rivera, Shep Smith, Greta), some conservative (Hume, maybe Baier). It's the closest thing to fair and balanced that I've seen on the air since Crossfire.

Man, am I going to enjoy this thread!

More thoughts on the subject to come...

"...jazz, the only indigenous American music."

Jazz is the first indigenous American music, but not the only. The most obvious, and indisputable other being Rap.

I'll chalk up your omission to being a generational blindspot.

Ebert: But listener-supported radio must draw from the while community.

Roger, was that a typo?

Ebert: I don't want to misquote him, but I believe Randy has argued here that Fox is fair and balanced.

I do argue that Fox is fair and balance. Balanced in two senses:

First, Fox is a balance to the rest of TV network and cable news programming. Before Fox News, authentic conservatives rarely had a chance to have their voices fairly heard. You can point to some instances, CNN's Crossfire for example. But, on balance, conservative voices were in the minority. Fox News gives conservatives a voice, which balances the airwaves against ABC, NBC, CBC, CNBC, MSNBC, CNN, PBS Frontline, etc.

Second, Fox News is balanced within itself. On balance throughout the broadcast day Fox News has a blend of liberal and conservative voices. Their panels on news shows showcase both liberal and conservative viewpoints better than network shows like Meet the Press do. I think that panel on the evening newscast "Special Report" is talented and balanced.

As for fair, I think that they are - across the news programs. Pundits are pundits. I happen to like Beck and Hannity and - to a lesser extent - O'Reilly. They are pundits. If you don't like them, change the channel and watch Olbermann and Maddow and Shultz and Matthews.

Speaking of them, midterm elections coverage on the channels demonstrated Fox News's fairness and balance. Fox kept their pundits off the air and lead their coverage with their news anchors, plus panels that included several authentic liberals including Joe Trippi and Geraldine Ferraro. (Go ahead liberals, tell me how not liberal those two are!). MSNBC had their five partisan pundits up. The networks had their share of Rino beltway Republicans who get their street cred bashing Sarah Palin. Fox News shone on election night, and cleaned up in the ratings.

Speaking of people who bash Sarah Palin, there is a video that was highly Tweeted this week of a "Fox News panel caught mocking Sarah Palin". Who was on the panel doing that? Liberals! Judith Miller for example. More proof that FNC is balanced - with snarky liberals on their panels.

http://j.mp/8XiEGl

Finally, in my week of exclusive NPR listening I heard them tout an interview with a "conservative" political operative. Imagine my surprise when it was Nicole Wallace. She's a conservative? No. She's a McCainiac. A beltway RINO who loves being loved by the liberal media. She is in fact the McCain staffer who badly mishandled Sarah Palin during the campaign by sucking up to Katie Couric and sabotaging Palin. If you've read Palin's book - and none of the liberals commenting here or on staff at NPR have - they would know that. There was nothing conservative about Wallace's interview on NPR.

As to the fair part, yes. I actually watch Fox News each day at length and believe that. If you only get your view of FNC second-hand through Soros-funded Fox-hating Media Matters - or worse yet, thirdhand through Huffington Post headlines linking to Media Matters, then I can see how you would think they are not fair. I believe that they are.

@ Mike on November 19, 2010 3:08 PM

I had to scroll down longer than usual to get to the first comment by a "What I Knew Then When I Was (A Stupid) Liberal As Opposed To What I Know Now That I'm (A Wiser) Conservative" Guy.

I'm guessing that was me.

Mike, it's a cliche for a reason. It's the true experience of a lot of people.

Ebert: No one ever seems to cite something they heard that offended them. They just believe in general that it's left wing.

I wouldn't say that anything on NPR offends me. I would just say that I have a realistic observation that it's left wing.

2nd example from my week of listening to NPR exclusively.

Story was about the rising rates of college costs. The correspondent then built a story, using carefully selected audio clips supporting her tale, about those rising costs. Fact: costs increased 7.8% last year. Clip supporting those increases. Assertion: this is hardship on students. Clip with a victim of the increasing costs. Assertion: we need more funding to offset those costs. Clip with a pitch for action from our elected officials to provide more funding to ease the suffering. Close. All in calm, reasonable, dulcet tones. :)

How is that left-wing? Left bias? How is that not the facts?

Well, it's not all of the facts that could have been addressed by a correspondent in that piece. Facts that a conservative correspondent would have addressed.

Unasked question: how did college costs rise 7.8% when there is virtually no inflation in other sectors of the economy?

Unasked question: what is the role of third party subsidies (governement grants) in the exorbitant rise in college costs? (Since conservatives would likely argue that it is a considerable factor)

Unasked question: If Congress listened and provided more funding for college, would costs go up or down? At what rate?

It was a fine, calm, reasonable, pleasant report that entirely missed the central points of the issue, because it was reported by a liberal who only addressed the liberal concerns of the issue (who were the victims, how can we get more funding from the government, etc.)

Listen to NPR with my ears for a day.

I again find myself in agreement with Randy Masters. I also find myself far beyond him. Would that I had his restraint.

So, before I wind up on a huge I Hate NPR jag, just a couple of things--

Almost all American radio is garbage. Anybody with any sense is listening to satellite radio, which mirrors the demo shift from broadcast TV to cable TV. NPR may look like a rose among many thorns, but the thorns are toxic, and NPR will merely make you FEEL like dying.

The reason many of your cabdriver friends are listening to NPR is because you can't get VOA in the confines of the US. In most markets you can't get the BBC either. I'm willing to wager the drivers would listen to either of those over the NPR affiliate.

I am in agreement with the Boston woman who bemoaned the loss of Robert J. Lurtsema. Now THERE'S what public radio should be about. But a few years ago, a national survey determined that public radio affiliates were losing market share by playing (1)classical morning music, and (2)classical music with horns and percussion. Apparently it made mommies anxious to hear all that dissonance as they drove the minivan to the private school. So, whoosh! away went a huge portion of the catalog and it was replaced with unending baroque and romantic pieces. Then that didn't draw them in like it used to, and so whoosh! away went the music to be replaced with Morning Edition for AM drive and ATC for afternoon drive. And Lurtsema? Too quirky. Too real. More Terry Gross, please. And let's not hear any more from Gene Simmons.

Funny how that mirrors the decline in commercial radio. Same reliance on consultants, same slavish devotion to the demo.

As far as the funding of the national goes, there is, I understand, a very small portion of their financing that comes from the fed--something less than or right at 1%. But more than that, the operating costs of the affiliates are borne by your local university, who donates space and support staff and services. If the stations pay the university at all, it's far, far less than what an average science lab has to pay for the same services, which was, last time I checked, 45% of all grants received from the federal government. Yeah, that's right--when your local university lab gets an NIH grant for $1 mil, there's an additional $450k over and above that figure that gets sent to the university for "indirect costs." The university doesn't have to account for that money. It just disappears into the lights and housekeeping and...who knows what. Most profs can't keep their labs going unless they generate enough indirect cost income to satisfy some arcane university requirement based on square footage. Lose some of your grants, there, Doc? Too bad. Now you're sharing your office.

The affiliates have an obscene amount of space on the university grounds compared to the science labs. Many offices, many machines, all the newest gear. Don't believe it? Go to a presser and watch your local AM newser still getting sound on minidisc, or even cassette, for god's sake, while some half-baked 45 year-old non-trad student stands in the corner with a massively expensive digital recorder and $1000 shotgun mic, taping the sound of the air conditioner for NPR "ambience."

Yeah, I listen to NPR -- for about 2 minutes at a time, punching angrily between the two heritage AORs, the CHR, the 2 AM newsers, the remnants of the left-wing AM talker, and the music-of-your-life AM coming out of somebody's closet in Beverly Hills. One of the NPR reports I heard recently was about the change in football rules in which spiking was being cut down on. They had call-ins to a neurologist. The opinion ran the gamut from whether helmet hits were bad or VERY VERY bad. No one from the football community was asked to speak, except the widow of a former lineman who was on for her first-person account of how slow her hubby used to talk as he got older. You want bias? The bias is that they slant their stories toward their demo, the same way they slanted their classical music selections until they phased them out entirely.

Radio is my favorite, favorite medium. I sure do miss it now that it's dead. I don't know about any new music anymore, I don't know what's happening in my community, and if I hear one more song from After the Gold Rush or Rumours I'm going to rip the radio right out of my car. If only VOA were here. Right now I'd settle for a good blast from Fidel, who's got over a million watts aimed at the eastern seaboard in retaliation for Radio Marti. When he cranks that flamethrower over, he'll operate every garage door from Miami to Newark. I say let's hear it, buddy. You got any rattly air conditioners down there in Havana that have decent ambient sound?

i'd like to point out that jazz is not the "only indigenous american music".ever heard of hip hop?started in the bronx 30-some years ago?...im just saying...another great article nonetheless

Good reflection, Roger. I wholeheartedly agree. Speaking as a voice from Canada, I can say that NPR reminds me of the CBC. Where we live, we get only CBC Radio 3, which is the "talk" version of CBC, and that kind of reflectiveness is what we hear all the time. True, CBC is definitely "leftist" and "liberal," but in Canada who or what isn't?

More thoughts on your article.

1. I've mentioned before that I cannot get into a taxi in Chicago where NPR is not either playing, or pre-tuned when the radio is turned on. The driver is invariably African or South Asian.

Perhaps they come from Marxist / statist countries, and recognize statist radio when they hear it. :)

2. on Praire Home Companion

I don't listen to it often enough, and enjoy it when I do. I did quite enjoy the movie "A Praire Home Companion", which you gave 4 stars. Keillor is a liberal, of course, but I don't think it matters much in the entertainment programs.

3. Actually, NPR doesn't receive a dime of federal money.

That's misleading. Last year's Congressional budget had somewhere around $450 Million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which then doles that money out to NPR and Public Television. They want more this year.

That's a significant chunk of money that we will have to borrow from China. WE ARE BROKE. Have they had a story on NPR about how broke we are, how in debt to China we are, and how we can't afford luxuries like NPR?

4. Why is NPR seen a threat and not a national resource?

It's not a threat. It's a luxury. Did I mention that we cannot afford luxuries because WE ARE BROKE. You want classical music and liberal talk? Pay for it yourself. Stop asking your neighbor to pay for it.

5. Just think it through, if you haven't lost the knack.

Ah, Roger. Really? Closing with the "if you disagree with me it's because you don't have the ability of critical thinking" argument that is put forth now and then in your comment threads? That's a Josh and Bill Hays argument. You're better than that. You really are.

Mike Doran: We must face the fact, Roger:
You have many talents as a writer.
Retelling somebody else's joke is not one of them.

Mike, you are wrong. It's spelling and not humor that Roger sometimes lack.

Please read the following...

blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/04/parrot_says_what_did_the_froze.html

Or for that matter, most of his reviews. He can retell jokes better than most.

Hi Roger,

What's missing from the discussion so far is any sense of justifying federal funding for NPR.

Okay, you're making the argument that you like it. That you think it is calm, reasonable, and sane. Excellent standards of journalism. I dissent, but okay.

You're making the negative argument against defunding it. Like it's an entitlement that it's unthinkable to take away.

Make a positive argument for federal funds for NPR. Justify that, in 2010. Maybe it made sense when it started and there were limited media choices. But that's no longer the case in 2010. How many commercial earth and satellite stations can you choose from now?

How many TV station choices are there now, that we still need public TV in 2010? When I grew up there were three plus public TV. Now there are hundreds of channels.

Make the case for taking tax dollars and funding a government radio station, or TV station, when we are $13,000,000,000,000 in debt. While we can barely service the interest payments to China on our debt. Make the case for that. Especially when it represents on political ideology (liberal) and limited musical tastes (classical & jazz).

Here's a little word picture of how I see it:

Imagine that there's a knock on your door one afternoon. You open the door to see the county sheriff standing there in uniform with a gunbelt. He informs you that your neighbor Jones likes opera, would like to attend the opera tonight with his wife, and doesn't particularly want to pay for the tickets. The sheriff is going door-to-door collecting $10 from each neighbor to buy the Jones' tickets.

But officer, you say. You don't particularly like opera yourself. You like country music. In fact, you were thinking of using that money to buy Rascal Flatts tickets for yourself and your wife tonight as well.

Well, that's nice, the officer says. Knock yourself out on the Rascall Flatts tickets out of what you have left over. But you're still paying for the Jones' opera tickets. They're entitled to the money because they are more cultured than you and it's important to have culture in America. So, shut up and pony up.

The sheriff doesn't point his gun at you or threaten you with jail, but you know there are punitive consequences to not paying up. It's not exactly voluntary. It's for the good of the neighborhood that we have culture.

That's how I think of NPR. You like liberal reporting in dulcet tones? Great. You like classical music and opera in the evening? Great. Pay for it yourself. Stop sending the sheriff (IRS & Congress) around to extort money from me to pay for your enjoyment.

I believe that if Prairie Home Companion were not on the air, my grandma's life would have no meaning. She listens to the show religiously. Frankly, I can't listen to Garrison Keillor without falling asleep.
I am a delivery driver with a route generally from Peoria to Rockford. My truck does not have satellite radio, so I listen to whatever station my radio can get. I usually start off my day listening to Mike & Mike in the Morning for about 15 minutes before I lose the signal. Then I listen to music until a few minutes north of Mendota. I then listen to (and laugh at) Mancow (which I belive is short for moron), who likes to take a big crap on everything. One of his main targets is NPR, which he thinks is liberal propaganda.

When I am on my way back to Peoria, if my day is short, I listen to Glenn Beck (to laugh at his incessant crap!). If my day is longer, and depending on my route, I try to listen to this show on an NPR station that is about movies. I don't know the name of the show, or the station, but what I like about the show is that they do not reduce everything to sound bites. Earlier this year they were taking to James Cameron about Avatar. What I liked is they did not ask the same old boring questions that most interviewers would have asked Cameron about Avatar. Also, they gave Cameron time to give a complete answer, rather than the usual 30 second response.

Tom Dark: "For you unwashed, "Puritan" is yee-haw bible-thumpin' radio, while "Cavalier" is NPR."

Tom, that's the 2nd time I've read you apparently conflating the Puritans with the Scotch-Irish. I refer you to the history book Albion's Seed.

I love NPR and PRI (public radio international) very much and alternate between listening to PR and audio books. Watching the news on Tv always makes me feel like there's no more real news anymore, and listening to NPR makes me feel like it still exists there.

I love Terry Gross' interviews and Garrison Kieler and most of the other shows, though Talk of the Nation usually pisses me off enough to avoid it because it's so shallow in its views. For instance, it once spoke for an hour to a father who lied about his son and got him arrested "for his own good" because his son didn't conform to his father's idea of sanity, basically taking away his son's rights as a citizen and getting him unfairly incarcerated. Instead of saying this Father should be put in jail or shot it praised him and consoled him and lamented with him. I hate Talk of the Nation with a passion when I think of it.

But most of the other shows are awesome.

As for people who cite an intelligent news and program entity like PRI and NPR as being biased because they don't paint crationists and "pro-lifers" in a good light, why should they? I don't see people complaining that they don't paint the Aztec religion in a positive life, or trying to convince people Santa Clause is real.

NPR/PRI are mostly rational. Sometimes they're wrong, but everyone's wrong sometimes.

As for their firing on Juan Williams, he was okay when he was on NPR, but once he made that immensely racist comment in which he expressed fear over people based on what they're meaning when they dress I lost my regard for Juan. They were right to fire him as now every time I see him I think, "That man is terrible." What if he had made a comment saying that punk rockers are scary or that black people in jump suits and necklaces are scary or whatnot? It's the same kind of racism, and it doesn't belong anywhere except with the groups that don't believe in evolution (such as most of Fox News).

What's up with that Madonna radio?

Ebert: That's a 1938 Emerson, nicknamed the "Mae West."

http://www.tuberadioland.com/emersonBD-197_main.html

Over the past ten years (I am now 33) there are a number of staples I've discovered and come to rely upon for keeping me sane, grounded, cleansed, and aware. In no particular order, they are: NPR, The New York Times, BBC, Charlie Rose, A Prairie Home Companion, The Daily Show, Malcolm Gladwell, The Moth, The Poetry Foundation, Radiolab, and you.

Thanks for being one aroma in my daily brew of cultural coffee.

Typo: You just have to sit there are watch the suckers.

Here was a story I thought I had nothing to comment about Roger as I’ve never listened to NPR. That is until Randy came along.
As nefarious as I've always found Rivera's politics, his murals are phenomenal. BTW, I think his wife’s depictions of uni-brow women are way, way overrated.

To Randy Masters:
I very much doubt that our common American, liberal friends would admire such extremist politics. Like you, I’m a conservative which doesn’t mean I admire right-wing extremists.
Best.

"More than once I've been told, "I want to learn.""

That's me in a nutshell. I entered political consciousness a devout Conservative, as the 2000 election was gearing up. My dad was never Conservative in the sense he told me who to vote for, though at that age I couldn't help sharing his ideals. When he picked me up from school, he often had NPR on the car radio. My interest in the news was minimal, but as I went through high school I gained a desire to learn, as NPR remained in my consciousness on car rides home. I wanted to know what people with different beliefs thought, I wanted to understand them. I wanted to find out if claims they made were true.

I started playing NPR on in my room during late afternoons. I'd lie back, and then, "This American Life" would start. I'd lie comfortably on my bed, boredom seldom possible. Listening to the best of NPR creates a state of mind in me, music composed of thought.

Now, I am neither Conservative nor Liberal. I'm reasonable. I hear my relatives express dissatisfaction with the Obama Administration, often with good-natured but half-informed reasons. I send them links to NPR, because I know I can trust them.

I could go on and on, but if someone asked me why I listen to NPR, I'd say this: they are about ideas, and they're not trying to scare me.

I was a Fox news junkie in its early days and hated NPR, but over time if one stays focussed on seeking the truth, one sees the true nature of Fox News as mostly propaganda and NPR as mostly factual. However, as a partial libertarian I cannot deny that NPR does favor an empathetic view over the more practical viewpoint. Nevertheless, NPR & PBS provide the most unbiased facts one can find in the country contrasted with the likes of Fox News & their in-your-face distortion of truths.

@ Phil Riley on November 19, 2010 5:20 PM

Here are two stories that aired on NPR in 2010 that specifically address the issue of abortion: Listen to them yourselves and decide if the reporting is biased.

Phil, thanks for the links. I'm starting with the first link, where I both read the article and listened to the audio link.

The article perfectly illustrates my argument for liberal bias in NPR pieces! I didn't say that they never report on abortion issues. I said that they don't reflect the pro-life position correctly, because none of them are pro-life and none of their friends are pro-life. I will assert that the author of this article not only built a carefully pro-abortion biased agenda-driven piece, but that she doesn't know much about the pro-life arguments.

Ebert: I'll wait for Randy's report on the bias in those linked stories.

I'm game, Roger. Here's my exhaustive report, quote by quote. (Bear with me.)

The article, titled "Reframing the Abortion Debate: Focus on the Fetus", is putatively about Right-to-Life (RTL) efforts to restrict abortion through providing information to mothers vs. abortion rights (AR) advocates resisting these laws. Fair enough.

Does the article take a side? Does the author steer a reader to a conclusion that one side is right and the other side is wrong? I believe that she does, using the selective use of sources and quotes to tell her story. She builds a case by a repetitive pattern of: asserted "fact", followed by a supportive quote - which are often opinion.

There are 10 quotes in the article. 6 of those quotes are AR. 4 quotes are RTL. Bias.

But, it's not just the number of quotes, it's the tone. The AR quotes are about the rightness/wrongness of the issue, whereas the RTL quotes are mainly about the status of the laws. Bias.

Some of the AR quotes used to establish an assertion by the author are just plain counterfactual. let's look at them.

1. Asserted Fact, AR source: "Some states want to go even further — getting doctors to describe the fetus to the mother. But Gloria Nesmith of the Feminist Women's Health Center in Atlanta says doing an ultrasound is already routine."

Quote to support, AR source: ""Historically, I have always offered the woman the opportunity to see — it's their process. It's their abortion procedure," Nesmith says.

My rebuttal: Perhaps, in her clinic. But not nationwide, where former clinic directors report that it was their practice to turn the ultrasound away from the patient, because they would leave if they saw it. Lots of quotes to support that online, including here:

http://clinicquotes.com/site/story.php?id=176

"They [the women] are never allowed to look at the ultrasound because we knew that if they so much as heard the heart beat, they wouldn't want to have an abortion."(8) -former abortionist Dr. Randall

2. Asserted fact: "Seeing the image and hearing the fetal heartbeat rarely make women change their minds, she adds."

Quote to support: "I would say the vast majority of the women, they don't want to see or hear anything," Nesmith says. "Maybe a small percentage of the women want to see — but they don't want to hear. Way less than 1 percent of the women are actually affected in any way."

My rebuttal: 1%? Nonsense. If this author knew anything at all about the RTL movement, she would have interviewed someone from a Crisis Pregnancy Center, where they put an intense effort into using ultrasound because it is effective in helping make an informed decision - often not to abort. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_pregnancy_center

About a quarter of CPCs conduct sonograms as a way to persuade women not to abort.[1][5][8] According to the Heidi Group, a Christian organization that advises crisis pregnancy centers, most women who visit CPCs and see their embryos or fetuses through the use of ultrasound technology decide against abortion.

Most. Not 1%.

Colorado-based Focus on the Family has a goal of equipping 800 CPCs with ultrasound machines by 2010, through its "Option Ultrasound" program.[10][11] As of November, 2007, they had donated ultrasound machines to 270 CPCs.

Focus is wasting a lot of money if it's only 1% swayed. I doubt that they are wasting money. The author's assertion is specious.

3. Asserted fact: "Elizabeth Nash is a public policy associate for the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights group that tracks state laws. She says that those who oppose abortion want to reframe the debate."

Quote to support, AR source: "What we're seeing now is more of an effort to take the woman out of the considerations of the law and really focus on the fetus," Nash says.

My rebuttal: That's not a fact. That's an unsupported opinion from a vested interest. The Guttmacher Institute is the polling arm of Planned Parenthood, which has a huge financial stake in performing abortions. Bias.

4. Asserted fact: "This year, Oklahoma passed what is considered the most far-reaching ultrasound law in the country."

Quote to support, RTL source: "It requires that there be a scientifically accurate description of what is being seen, yes,"

My rebuttal: That's a mild neutral status quote. How does it support the "most far-reaching" assertion, which was a negative statement about the law?

5. Asserted fact: "The Midwest, Balch says, has proved the most successful territory for abortion opponents this year."

Quote to support, RTL source: "I think that the people there see and recognize the life of the unborn child, and think that the state should protect that life," Balch says.

My rebuttal: Abortion opponents? How about life advocates. Why the negative labelling of the pro-life advocate? Also, this is a horse-race quote on the status of the laws.

6. Asserted fact: "The Guttmacher Institute's Nash argues that the ultrasound laws are invasive and unnecessary."

Quote to support, AR source: "Really, this has nothing to do with making sure a woman sees objective and appropriate information, and everything to do with trying to steer her away from abortion," Nash says.

My rebuttal: This is an argumentative opinion-steering quote that is not accurate. CPC's want to steer a woman away from an abortion PRECISELY by providing the information that an ultrasound provides. The Guttmacher Institute is trying to discredit that information with a slander on the motives of the law's advocates.

7. Asserted fact: "Nebraska is pressing the legal boundaries by focusing on what a new law describes as "fetal pain." The head of Nebraska Right to Life, Julie Schmit-Albin, walked the halls of the Capitol in Lincoln all year garnering support for a law that bans most abortions beyond 20 weeks after conception.

Quote to support, RTL source: "I call it the perfect storm, because our opponents in the abortion industry didn't see it coming," Schmit-Albin says.

My rebuttal: This is a horse-race quote. It doesn't allow the RTL source to make a case for the rightness of the fetal pain argument, just the status of the legislation.

8. Asserted fact: "Activists across the country are closely watching what happens, she adds."

Quote to support, RTL source: "The significance of the new law is that it creates another standard, a standard based on an unborn child at least 20 weeks, being able to feel pain," Schmit-Albin says.

My rebuttal: Again, a horse-race quote. It doesn't show the RTL side making the case of the rightness of the fetus feeling pain argument, just that there is a new standard.

9. Asserted fact: "States can ban abortion after viability...Abortion rights groups oppose the law and question the scientific evidence on fetal pain. Some, like Nebraska state Sen. Ken Haar, suggest that the law is really about something else."

Quote to support, AR source: "Pure emotion, yes," says Haar, a Democrat.

My rebuttal: Opinion. Agenda driven, to discredit the RTL side's motives.

10. Asserted fact: ""Now, trying to institute a new standard, you know, a new bright line for abortion, it doesn't make sense," says Haar.

Quote to support, AR source: "It's obvious to me that the Right to Life group in Nebraska is trying to outlaw abortion. Period."

My rebuttal: Opinion. Agenda driven, again to discredit the motives of the RTL side. It's a "fact" that is not obvious to me. RTL is not trying to "outlaw" abortion, but to influence women's decisions toward life by providing the information that an ultrasound provides.

Conclusion:

So, did the author of this NPR piece provide a fact-based but ideologically neutral piece about the new trend in abortion law? Or, did she carefully craft a series of facts / quotes to lead you to a definite conclusion favoring one side?

I would argue the latter. She crafted an article that favors the AR argument. She did this through the selective use of asserted facts that are accurate only from the AR perspective. She did it through the use of emotional agenda-driven quotes on the AR side, with only neutral horse-race questions on the RTL side.

The author wanted you to reach a conclusion. (I would argue a liberal conclusion). That is two points.

One: The RTL forces are pushing a new series of laws, pushing the "boundaries" of law, and are increasingly successful in parts of the country.

Two: The laws are unnecessary and specious, and the law advocates have bad motives.

Bias, through the selective use of asserted facts and agenda-driven quotes. Poorly reflecting the RTL (conservative) viewpoint.

That's my exhaustive report on liberal bias in this NPR piece. Roger, don't you see it?

Ebert: Yes, to a great extent I do. I especially see it through your eyes. NPR is middle-liberal. It is not "leftist."

You do not, by the way, have to be liberal to be pro-choice, because that is a religious issue, not a political one.

Now, then. Since a great many people believe Fox is much more biased and slanted than NPR, how does your favorite network stand up under your scrutiny?

"disintegration of journalism"

I cannot even begin to count the number of times over the past couple months I've been heard that This tends to be told to me by my journalism professors. Hmm. Odd. And now I hear it from you, whose thoughts I value. I sometimes wonder why the hell I'm in school for it.

"even a 10-minute video on YouTube can seem unendurable"

I'll just go ahead and admit that I turned on the top video and then scrolled down to read the comments, while trying to get some food in all at the same time. I didn't miss the Canada geese reference though, it made me smile. Canada geese are nothing, try the white ones, now those are pure evil. Anyways, my attention span has gotten shorter, but with a major caffeine-addiction and four hours of sleep a night, that's to be expected. Though the sheer number of tabs I've got open right now (25) is a tad excessive, I suppose.....

I don't remember much of Christmases, but one of my most memorable gifts was a walkman (radio and cassette player). I had to be maybe twelve or so.
I didn't own any music on cassette so that Christmas night I lay on my top bunk above my brother and listened to the soft classical music on Birmingham's local NPR station. I awoke the next morning, headphones, music still on. Since then NPR has always been on my dial, and solely first after I grew out of our Jamz station. Just my story.

One of my favorite lines from David Mamet's movie Spartan, "Is this Ro? Is this Ruffie? This One-sided Conversation?" For me that is cable news.

And would you mind a quick salute for the great work produced by the C-SPAN networks.

Thanks for reminding me that those things we believe in may disappear if we do not support them. I have listened to NPR since it started & supported it as I was able over the years. I live in the UK part of the year & have it on my PC .

It seems to me that part of the attempt to limit or remove NPR is based on fear. If conservatives or whoever is so worried about bias on NPR subjected Fox or Rush Limbaugh or other "conservative " shows to the same level of anti-bias criteria , then nobody would be on the air.

If the folks who are so adamant about limiting or removing NPR because of perceived liberal bias are convinced of the righteousness of their cause, it would seem that NPR should be no threat, because after all, the conservative viewpoint must be clearly correct. If it bothers you, don't listen.

Hi Gerardo,

Not Rivera. David Alfaro Siqueiros. See my comment above on his mural.

Thoughts on Siqueiros?

Best to you as well.

I think that Mr. Masters offers us a false dilemma--one that is often repeated when considering documentary film making. NPR is committed more than any news organization in this country to fact based reporting. They spend countless hours researching, interviewing, investigating (when major news organizations like Fox, CNN, the NY Times, even the AP! etc continue to cut their investigative budgets, if Fox ever had one).

But the fact of the matter is, when you have a finite amount of time, you must make decisions about the content in order to tell a story. I feel Mr. Masters' point is similar to complaints that a documentary can not be considered a documentary because it presents a point of view. It is an inevitable reality that certain things will be emphasized, others dropped altogether. If i record a 4 hour interview with someone, who is one of many subjects, for what is a 20 minute story, how can I include everything they say? If I record tens of hours of footage (and many documentarians record hundreds) how can I possibly include every single shot in a 2 hour film?

My point is that the simple act of recording sound, film, or even just the spoken word, immediately introduces a foreign point of view. To put this in the terms of Filmic Language--once you frame a shot, you are making discriminating choices about what you include. This can be expanded; once you turn a recorder on, you make discriminating choices about what you are trying to record. Likewise, once you compile a story, you must make discriminating choices about what is included. What we must hope for is that these choices have been made in the best interests of advancing the story, as accurately as can be done given the limitations of the media employed.

The only way we can grapple with this as an audience is to affiliate ourselves with a group of people who make those choices based on the facts present. Someone mentioned the "This party Sucks" story on This American LIfe, which is an amazing show (produced by your WBEZ local station, Mr. Ebert) discussing the Tea Party. This wasn't about the "right or wrong" of Tea Party politics, but about the facts of campaigning. It was a touching story--and while I have nothing but contempt for the political views of its subject--I can't help but feel sympathy for their struggle, and i learned something new about how politics work from the grass roots. This wasn't about advancing a liberal agenda. It was about reporting on local politics. At no point did I hear the condemnation of Tea Party Politics. (I also think that this pointing to examples is easily a slippery slope analogous to "he said she said").

At the end of the day, NPR makes editorial decisions like any other producer of Media. And their fanatical adherence to the facts is not something to be ashamed of.

And is there really something Leftist about Car Talk, and Splendid Table?

I had clicked away but had another thought. I am very much a liberal.

I get my news from the BBC and NPR.

I get my liberal opinion from folks like Jonathan Chait, Kevin Drum, etc. Surely anyone can see the difference between them.

The main difference between NPR and Fox is the lack of editorializing. If you want Liberal media, look at the Huffington Post, and TNR. Look at their total audience. Then look at the combined audience of Fox News, the WSJ, etc.

I never knew Lake Wobegone wasn't real. John Gardner would be proud.

That's how I think of NPR. You like liberal reporting in dulcet tones? Great. You like classical music and opera in the evening? Great. Pay for it yourself. Stop sending the sheriff (IRS & Congress) around to extort money from me to pay for your enjoyment.

In Britain, you pay a license fee just to watch your state-run TV or listen to your state-run radio networks, and if you don't, meter-readers roaming the streets in vans may confiscate your set. (They're not the sheriff, but they do knock on your door.)

...That's what we DON'T got over here. Much though the CPB-demonizing Right would like to portray it as being ickily so.
Quit the B-movie dramatics, you'd have to go fifty miles in cheap shoes to find someone who thinks CPB Is Evil.

I'll be honest, I haven't started listening to NPR until just a few weeks ago. One day, just out of sheer boredom on the ride home, I tuned in. I found it to be - in radio terms - a stranger in a strange land. Most of my radio dial is populated by juke boxes, by country stations, rock stations, R&B stations that just play the same nonsense over and over in a different order through and automated system. There aren't even D.J.s anymore.

NPR seems to be the last ray of hope in a dying industry. Terrestrial radio is dying in the age of CDs and IPods. I remember as a teenager having "my station", that station with my favorite D.J. who would go out on location and hand out bumper stickers, hats, and T-shirts. I see none of that anymore.

All media is biased, Roger, because it's produced by human beings, and we're wired for bias. (Ancestors who didn't have suspicions aren't ancestors, because they didn't live long enough to have descendants.)

Any media outlet that makes an effort to balance its biases should be applauded for the effort. But there will still be bias there.

I miss Uncle Walter, even though he retired long ago. I miss the "just the facts" era. Nowadays, even when a media outlet sticks to the facts, you have to wonder which facts. Can't include all the facts, there isn't time. So some facts get left out. Which ones?

OK i guess I will be the token "who needs NPR?" guy from the right to comment. All of you liberals jump to the ready to righteously attempt to swat me like a fly and brand my insights "stupid", "racist", "non-thinking" ... etc. etc. etc. Firstly when you say NPR shows no political bias I KNOW I am not going to be able to have a conversation with you. Like trying to describe the color red to a life long blind person, there is no common ground to be met. I do believe funding for this obviously biased enterprise should be ended. And before all you left wing "informed ones" jump on your high horse just think of ALL the times over the past year you've wanted exactly the same fate to befall FOX News. Aha...I thought so.

I think the reason so many immigrants listen to NPR is because that methodical way of speaking is better for learning the English language than the morning zoo team on the local commercial radio station.

Though I pity them if they're getting English lessons from someone as painfully unfunny and dull as Garrison Keillor.

As a liberal, NPR has probably made me more conservative over the years just because you get guests from every stripe of the political spectrum.

If you find bias in NPR, especially in any random clip (Randy), you are really trying to see something that isn't there. For instance, I think it's obvious fox news is biased, but I wouldn't say every single story all day long is biased.

I would just like to add that talking about NPR as a whole, as if it were one thing, is unfair. In my city there are several local programs which I simply can't believe are biased (I live in a serious "red state."), as well as many PRI (Public Radio International) programs which deal with... just everything, cooking, science, morality and several shows dealing exclusively with religious and philosophical issues with no discernible slant whatsoever. Unless you come in with your own bias searching for one.

That's the problem.

Master,

Not to defame your character or anything but you're a tool.

When it comes to what constitutes as fair and objective journalism what one means is the quality of the facts reported not simply hearing the arguments of someone who calls himself conservative and someone who calls himself liberal. Fox News openly lies and creates a narrative (yes even in its "fair" news show, if you would diversify your media source for even a second you would realize this) they care nothing for facts. As for reporters individual politics, their politics does not matter. That's why any idiot can see that David Frum is fair while Fox is bombast. Sure, Fox has liberals on their shows, and the parade them about like minstrels in order to conform to your belief of what liberal is. They are acting strawmen to be picked on, no different than when the Daily Show mocks some conservative blogger on air.

As for NPR's assumed bias, I can plainly see that you adhere to the political thought that if it isn't conservative than it is liberal. No matter what, the only way to remove tone from any reporting is to make the speaker speak in a monotone.

But, you don't care about facts, do you? After all, you watch Fox News. [insert smarmy little ;) here]

Ebert: Yes, that's a difference. Fox lies. NPR does not.

Thoughtfulness? I disagree: it's another intellectual ghetto, where people who think the same way circle around approving of each other.

NPR encourages a self-congratulatory but negative view of the world that, because it is inclined to guilt and pity, needs to feel morally superior to the rest of us.

I'm certainly not advocating paying attention to Fox, MSN, CBS, ABC or the other tripe, but to claim NPR is different is a fallacy. It's just another flavor of "entertainment."

Ebert: Now, then. Since a great many people believe Fox is much more biased and slanted than NPR, how does your favorite network stand up under your scrutiny?

I'll add to my comment above on Fox News being fair and balanced.

Fox News is a mixed bag throughout the day, and is certainly, IMHO, not the monolithic conservative bias that it's often portrayed as.

I don't get to see them during the workday, so just looking at the evening line up, here's what I see:

Neil Cavuto: Money man. Holding the Wall st. types and politicians to account for financial misdeeds.

Glen Beck: Crusader Libertarian. Glen is the "Don't Tread on Me" alarm raiser. From his studies - which you can believe or laugh at, knock yourself out - he truly believes that the country is in a lot worse shape than we're publicly admitting. That we are much more broke. That we've lost much more liberty. He's shouting into the wind of political correctness. He's either a visionary or crazy. I've made my pick.

Brett Baier - evening news: Standard evening news packages for 1/2 hour + balanced panel for 20 minutes. If you can tell Baier's political leanings, you're better than me.

Shepard Smith - One hour news show from a standard MSM liberal anchor. Shep wears his liberal heart on his sleeve, and clearly doesn't like to be associated with the conservative pundits coming later. He likes to end with "you've just heard the news from the news professionals at Fox" Shep is frequently scorned on the conservative forums.

Bill O'Reilly - not the conservative that he's portrayed as. He aggravates cons as often as he does libs. Just go read any Free Republic thread about O'Reilly. His shtick is "sticking up for the folks". He's like a consumer advocate for politics. If you stiff the folks, then you are a pinhead. He gives Obama the benefit of the doubt every single night.

Sean Hannity - a partisan doctrainaire Reagan Republican pundit. Sean builds his stories the way that I described NPR: assert a fact and then play a clip to support it. Conservative bias, absolutely.

Greta Van Sustern: legal eagle, on the case of the news stories with a legal aspect. Greta's hour is mostly non-partisan. Although, I think that she's on a personal journey from her CNN days until now - liberal to conservative. She's done the best reporting on the border crisis, and is getting to the "Oh, come on!" stage of conservative take on that.

Then there's a steady stream of contributors that run from the very liberal (Dr. Lamont Hill) to the very conservative (Dr. Monica Crowley). There are all of the power blondes, again from a cross section of the political spectrum. Some of them aggravate me regularly with RINO positions (Margaret Hoover).

I get aggravated on Fox News as often as I nod my head. Not so with other networks. That's balance.

Ebert: Readers, over to you.

Don't gimme no guff, stuff. And don't you go confusing "Wikipedia" with knowledge, either -- nor the highly opinionated conclusions of Mr. Fischer (even Wikipedia admits his stuff is seriously "under dispute.") And you're not getting off the hook by using the word "apparently."

Nobody rounds up a complex subject in a few succinct words as good as me, thou unwashed mind! Even my precisely selected choice of "yee-haw" would be deeply poignant for ye who have wisdom. Also I noticed you didn't even consider my choice of "Puritan" over "Roundhead." Maybe you'd better listen to more NPR like Roger wants you to.

Now where was I? Oh yes. I can't kick against NPR any more than I'd kick a messenger. They're not too bad that way. Interesting to know Exxon hires thugs to kill Liberian tribespeople claiming their oil property was stolen from them (Global Pacific).

Closer to home, it's interesting to have learned from NPR about the so-called Blue Revolution, which would at least be less hypocritical than the Green one, if just as problematical were Exxon involved.

Did a job for a Green Revolution Gov't-Stamped Eco Company once. We'd unload semi-trailers full of 400-pound barrels of spent toner from US offices, truck the toxic black powder across the Mexican border and dump it any old where. Next chore, thousands of gallons of used formaldehyde off to Buttermilk Valley, Arizona, where the poisonous stuff was craft hand-dumped and lightly bulldozed into the desert ground. THEN, a housing development built over that cancerous ooze. You retirees considering a bargain basement home in Buttermilk Valley, heed (unless you think you've lived long enough already).

I'm sorry that news wasn't on NPR or anywhere else, but neither was the one about the Waste Management boss I worked for who recycled hundreds of thousands of gallons of used motor oil by having it, too, poured gently into the desert. You can't cover ALL the news, can you? Must leave breathing space for Garrison Keillor.

So, stuff, don't believe everything you read, especially if it apparently gives you a verbal pea-shooter to play with.

Raaaannnnnnn-deee, what are you saying? A look at a mural Diego Rivera painted will turn you commie?

Siqueiros' "El Sollozo" is one of my favorite paintings of all time. I didn't have to wipe any communism off after I first viewed it, and I don't have to now. And mind you, you're a "Churchian." How many of your pious fellows have turned into child-molesters because somebody reading the Bible from a pulpit happened to be one?

Or don't you want to know about that, either? If you do, click on my name.

Incidentally, I've reconciled myself to your tendency to not want to know things. It's very literally an historic American religious tradition. I don't know if NPR's ever done a bit on it, but people really need to know about this stuff they used to teach in grade school, f'chrissakes.

NPR seems to be the last ray of hope in a dying industry. Terrestrial radio is dying in the age of CDs and IPods. I remember as a teenager having "my station", that station with my favorite D.J. who would go out on location and hand out bumper stickers, hats, and T-shirts. I see none of that anymore.

One of our local rock stations ran a series of ads with DJ's in paper-cutout rock-star masks doing imitations of Howard Stern, Glenn Beck, sports/psych/car talk, etc....The message being, ever notice how hit-radio just doesn't play any darn music anymore?
The whole industry that was set up to promote the hard-working rock singer for free (including MTV no longer showing music videos) seems to have balkanized itself away from its main purpose, and left only the scavengers as "kings" of their own little mountains.

When I was growing up in the 70's, CBS still had a radio network and still did radio drama on the weekends--Even our local classical station had a Saturday night show playing Stan Freberg and 50's-BBC comedy.
That got me hooked at an early age on a sentimental jealousy for the days when people could schedule their week around a radio program, and I've been an iPod old-radio nut for Jack Benny, Fibber McGee and Orson Welles ever since. (And yes, even 40's Amos & Andy, which is hysterically funny.)

I support cutting NPR loose from federal funding, and it's not because I think NPR is a threat. I think that public funding itself is a threat to NPR, given that it turns NPR into an endless political football. When media is funded by tax dollars, there will always be two undesirable pressures facing that media: politicians who want to exercise some level of control over its content or operation, and taxpayers who perceive the media as not reflecting their own values and who resent (with justification, in my opinion) being forced to pay for it. You don't see such pressures on the totally listener-supported (and much more reliably leftist) Pacifica Radio.

Public radio is supported in such a small way by federal dollars that I wonder why so many of its defenders cling to the idea that the government funding must continue. Clearly NPR can survive and thrive without such funding. Is it because on some level NPR's listeners enjoy knowing that their government approves of the radio they enjoy? Is it because they fear, without any justification, that completely exposing public radio to market forces would turn it into a Fox News clone? There is a clear market in this country for "highbrow" radio, just as similar markets exist for art, music, literature, food, websites, etc. NPR (or something very close to it) would continue to exist without the 1.5% of its revenue derived from federal coffers. The non-profit, consumer-supported organization of their business is a viable one, too.

As for NPR's biases, first let me reveal my own. I am a libertarian, which pits me against both the left and the right on many issues. I view Fox News as clearly right-wing, MSNBC as basically FOX's left-wing counterpart, and CNN as bland, status-quo centrism. My perception from listening to NPR is that it is biased to the left, but not as overtly as MSNBC. It is more like the New York Times front page, in that it sounds like a bunch of doctrinaire left-wing journalism school graduates trying earnestly to cover the world in a relatively objective way. The authors of the pieces bring certain biases to their reporting that they may not even recognize, and those biases usually reveal themselves through omission of certain relevant facts or viewpoints. As others have stated, this is most clear in the selection of which stories to run. Things that are remarkable or alarming to a left-wing journalism school graduate aren't always remarkable or alarming to a CEO, trucker, priest, or libertarian Ebert blog poster... or vice versa. This is probably an unavoidable bias, but we shouldn't go around pretending that it doesn't exist. I prefer reading and listening to people like Ebert who reveal their own biases rather than pretend total objectivity. The more information the news consumer has, the better.

In response to Randy Masters:

While Fox News might have a cadre of supposedly both liberal and conservative pundits and hosts, what is decidedly conservative is their framing of news stories. A news station can have all of the liberal pundits in the world, but if a news story is framed with a particular worldview in mind, it is more likely the viewer will take that story into consideration with that bias in mind.

Example: A news station could frame a story about a hate rally around two different frames. One might emphasize the rally around a frame of free speech, the other might emphasize the rally around a frame of public safety. Depending on how they market their headlines, that is the perception the audience will have going into the story, regardless of the political convictions of the news anchors.

Additionally, I constantly wonder why we think that "balance" is possible in a world that is anything but "balanced?" Complaining about a lack of balance in the news is just an excuse to not take the time to think about what really would work for a particular issue or problem outside of partisan politics.

I would describe myself as right-leaning on economic issues...and somewhat left-leaning on social issues. A pragmatic libertarian. Roger I read some of these blogs because you are a first-rate writer and I know I'll what you have to say will be very thoughtful. Reading through these comments, I note that many cannot resist presenting themselves as intellectually superior liberals. During my career 25 year career, I have worked almost exclusively with well-educated college graduates (these days, except for administrative positions most of the companies or institutions I work with require a college degree for employment). On a day-to-day basis, I have worked with countless numbers of MBAs, CPAs, and Engineers-some with doctorates. Based on my interactions with these people, I feel confident that at least 50% tend to be conservative and tend to vote republican--probably a higher number. Evidently, many of your liberal readers like to imagine that we're all stupid. That isn't a credible position, and it makes you look like you're simply drinking the liberal coolaide. There seems to be something in human nature that requires all-or-nothing, us vs. them thinking. Anyway, NPR is obviously liberal. So what. It doesn't bother me.

Roger,

I love NPR, APR and PRI and bought an HD radio so that I could listen to the extra programming that my local NPR outlet offers.
My favorite program is Bill McLaughlin`s "Exploring Music".
A recent installment of the program was titled "Distant Neighbors" and focused on the wonderful classical music of Mexico.
Mr. McLaughlin played excerpts of works by Sylverstre Revueltas and Carlos Chavez (among others) and what I heard was astonishing!
What treasures there are to be had simply bytuning in to Public Radio!!
Thank you for this essay.

I've been listening to news on Public Radio for thirty years. Cable news feels like an unfiltered spewing of unrelated bits of fact and supposition; with an in-depth "All Things Considered" story I feel like I've actually gained a little understanding of at least part of the world.

NPR is biased . It is liberal and leftwing. Their bias is mostly of omission. They give the liberal line but not the opposing conservative opinion. NO crime in being left/liberal except that they take federal tax money. As a right winger I don't want my money going to a liberal news organization. How creepy is it to have a news organization run with tax dollars?? Reminds me of Pravda during the USSR days. You all would be howling if Fox news or Drudgereport got federal money. How many registered Republicans work there I wonder?? There isn't a conservative in site at that place. Oh, they trot out the Canadian David Brooks as their laughably token conservative.
The way they treated Juan Williams was deplorable. Typical liberal PC nonsense. It bugs me that NPR seems exempt from all the racial/gender/politically correct rules everyone else has to abide by when you take federal money. Where are they handicapped gay sherpas?? Where are the transgender Native Americans??
Also NPR seems smarmy (?sp). Just because you talk in dulcet, muted tones doesn't make you right or INTERESTING. For the life of me I don't get Garrison Keillor. The guy is Ambien with legs.
In the end NPR will do better by cutting the cord and not take taxpayer money. They can be as liberal and "out of the closet" leftwing as they really are. It will liberate them.

What have we come to that congress is considering a bill which would shut down funding for NPR? First of all, what threat do they pose? They present facts and don't editorialize. Second of all, hasn't congress got better things to do than shut down a radio station?

I couldn’t disagree more, Rog.

I find NPR to be timid and wimpy, safe and corporate. It thinks itself to be more refined and intelligent than it really is. You need only compare its fare to the work of essayists like Lewis Lapham, Mark Slouka, or Marilynne Robinson to know what I mean.

Do you remember the healthcare debate these past few years? NPR rarely, if ever, gave equal time to the single-payer side of the issue.

Same with many other political issues: rarely do you find serious intellectuals and dissenters weighing in on NPR. No Chomsky or Eagleton, no Zizek or Zinn (now deceased). It prefers congeniality to conflict, the smiling, affable host to the incisive, unpredictable freethinker.

The other day Diane Rehm interviewed Kevin Spacey. She confessed that she “hated” the film “American Beauty.” “Why?” I asked myself. “Why am I not surprised that this masterpiece flew straight over her head?”

Here's a few comments with regards to Randy Masters' specific defense of Fox News talking heads.

Randy: Neil Cavuto: Money man....

Neil Cavuto's a good man. I like him; but isn't he Fox Business News in addition to Fox News? FBN has a lot of great people including Stossell, Judge Napolitano, Cody Willard and many other great anti-institutional analysts.

Randy: Glen Beck: Crusader Libertarian. Glen is the "Don't Tread on Me" alarm raiser....

Glenn Beck definitely gets a bad rap, but some of it is self inflicted. Glenn differs from the other FN people because he tries hard to argue his points and asks that listeners not take his word for it but do their own research to see if they agree. Glenn has flaws (such as believing in God), and sometimes his arguments have fallacies, but overall he does a great job. And he's not an evil man. He's anti-institutional, and that is good.

Randy: Brett Baier - evening news....

I suppose I don't know who that is. I know I've listened to NPR news and FN news, and FN news is not news at all. But I can't judge Brett.

Randy: Shepard Smith - One hour news show....

I'm sure I've seen him, but I don't know who he is. I have no judgement on him.

Randy: Bill O'Reilly - not the conservative that he's portrayed as....

I do consider Bill O'Reilly a danger to the human race. If he did not have the power of millions of listeners I would not mind him, but he's dangrous for several reasons:

a. He believes public opinion should set policy. Bill always accuses the President of the U.S. of doing things against public opinion. If Fox News polls should set public policy then why even have elections and legislators and presidents? Bill refuses to understand that people might disagree with him, and that makes him dangerous because other people fall into his bad logic and get corrupted by stupidity.

b. Bill judges people based on Pin Head or Patriot and then has polls on it. He also does not understand when people have a different langue than him. For instance, there was a time that the U.S. Vice President showed up in a news conference with a black dot on his head. The BBC news casters started speculating on whether the VP was okay or not and were trying to figure out from whence the dot came.

Bill called the BBC news casters Pin Heads for not knowing that the Christian religion has something called Ash Wednesday where believers have a dot put on their forehead by a priest. Why should non-christians know about this? I certainly didn't know about it. The british people didn't know about it. But instead of chuckling at our VP's oops for publically following some kind of silly ritual and then representing the country in a speech, Bill insulted the BBC.

It's bad enough that Bill O'Reily tries to sway public opinion to his flawed point of view, but he simultaneously tries to convince the public that a propensity of opinions one way over the other is enough to make something right. Public opinion doesn't make it right anymore than slavery is made right by the most voters thinking it's okay.

Randy: Sean Hannity - a partisan doctrainaire....

Sean's evil isn't his opinions. It's the fact that, like Bill, Sean thinks public opinion should should set every minutea of public policy and that polls should be performed on every little thing to see what is right and wrong. Set aside the fact that he skews polls to say what he wants (such as the time they had a poll on who the best 2006 Republican candidate should be, and more people voted Ron Paul on their show than all other candidates combined, and they discarded their own poll and Ron Paul). Sean is likewise a dangerous man for this point.

Randy: Greta Van Sustern: legal eagle....

Yeah, Greta's fine. She's an okay perosn.

Randy: Then there's a steady stream of contributors....

A LOT of the contributors are terribly evil, however. But they do have a couple (maybe 2 out of every ten) who are sane.

Ebert: Readers, over to you.

Please see above :)

Ebert response to Randy Masters: "Readers over to you."

Ira Flatow-NPR's SCIENCE FRIDAY-In a segment yesterday, he covered the story of the scientists at Cern who just captured 38 anti-hydrogen particles. Capturing anti-matter is the stuff of Arthur C. Clarke. Ira starts off with an audio clip on the subject from the movie, ANGELS AND DEMONS. Then he brings on a guest for a discussion not only intriguing, enlightening, but also great fun. I rarely miss the guy; his midday Friday timespot is an oasis for me. If you want to listen to someone sharp, who makes you feel good about our achievements, our capabilities, our future potential, listen to people like Ira Flatow. Then I heard once more his April 2, 2010 piece-"Large Hadron Collider Smashes Record." This only further brightened another day already marred by all the mind numbing political bullshit currently being flung about on the air and radio waves.

Glenn Beck- mind numbing political bullshitter nom du jour.

Michele Bachmann-belle du jour of mind numbing political bullshitters.

Fox News-a soup du jour of mind numbing political bullshit.

I'm also a great fan of NPR, if you happen to have an iPad (or other devices perhaps) it's possible to get the NPR APP and listen to NPR stations from all over the country. Each station has different programming. You can also follow the programs you've missed by building a playlist and listening on your own schedule. I enjoy On the Media, but my station plays it at 7:00 am on Saturday, too early for me. So like putting it on my playlist. Many shows are also available to download as podcasts. I just wanted to mention this in case people didn't know about how technology has advanced to allow NPR to reach an even wider range of listeners, besides just over the air radio.

Best wishes to Roger Ebert, I have been reading today his past reviews on films I have just watched on netflix, his reviews are a treasure trove, thanks for the archive, and thanks for your blog!

"Glenn has flaws (such as believing in God")

Really, Guillermo? You're certainly posting on the right site with that particular bias. But that also means that about 90% of the country is equally flawed.

I also was intrigued by your comment about O'Reilly- "He believes public opinion should set policy." Why is it that those who consider themselves smarter than anyone else because of their atheism also don't think their fellow citizens are smart enough to decide what is best for them? What colossal arrogance.

I have been a fan of Public Radio since college. I have learned so much from their programming. I appreciate Public Radio because it reports a worldwide view of news and human interest stories and the arts reporting is wonderful. It suits my world view, my temperament and I am a proud supporter.

I haven't read all the Randy M. comments yet, but I'm curious what he thinks of "Akahige"--"Red Beard" in English, about a doctor who runs a charity hospital. That's right: The guy's nicknamed Red, and he gives away health care. Commence dot-connecting, Randy!

Wait, Wait, Don't tell me is one of the funniest shows on tv OR radio, and I am constantly surprised by the things they discuss: from Hnery VIII taste in women to experimental Mexican media art I NEVER get bored, and no one ever talks down to you or assumes that you need to be preached to. If it is biased towards liberalism I say that is because the truth, art and intelligence is biased towards liberalism. Long live Public Radio!

A refresher is need in blogology 101. Don't feed the trolls.

"You never catch them being clever for the sake of being clever"? I guess you don't listen to Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me.

Ebert: OK, OK. I just heard it tonight, and caught them.

Funny, I feel the exact opposite. I am almost immediately repulsed by their pseudo-intellectual/self righteous tone. Commercial news radio is much more listenable to me. Even with the endless Sleep Country and Mortgage commercials. At least I don't feel like I'm being tut-tutted all the time. And I'm not talking about right wing radio. Just straight news.

I think quality public radio is both a benefit and a cause of a healthy and civilised society.

On another theme, I've always wished 'A Prairie Home Companion' was known as such in Britain. Here, where it's broadcast on BBC 7, it's retitled rather literally as 'Garrison Keillor's Radio Show'.

Re: Randy Masters,

You asked why NPR didn't provide an answer for why college costs were rising:

but they did, which, they said, was because of the budget cuts because of the economy...from the high oil prices of late (they didn't say that part); we're going to be paying 700$ billion dollars annually until we do something about this price-rigging (which is illegal).

Also, you mentioned the cost for it was 450$ million dollars. I'm not sure if that's true, but if that is, that's like .00001% of the debt, not to mention the fact that public radio has a few pledges a year to get private funding for its broadcasts: which are mostly supplied be just a handful of people. I think there was like 20 people that paid for tens of thousands of dollars in a matter of minutes when I was listening.

Basically, what I'm saying is, it seems like NPR isn't the issue, but oil is: 700$ billion annually every year (or maybe more; it was 1 trillion in 2008, which caused the financial crisis) for oil, which isn't coming back even in the form of taxes; it's just going to go Saudi Arabia to pay for terrorism and world domination and Iran to fund their nuclear program etc.

This oil problem is a world issue, as it caused a global recession. Smaller government isn't going to get us out of the recession (although it would probably help a little). This isn't a time for politics as usual: in fact, F.A. Hayek has said about conservatism, in this article by him titled:

"Why I Am Not a Conservative"
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/hayek1.html

"In this sense I doubt whether there can be such a thing as a conservative political philosophy. Conservatism may often be a useful practical maxim, but it does not give us any guiding principles which can influence long-range developments."

I don't really listen to the news portion of NPR that much because it's usually classical music, but from what I've heard of it, there's not really anything that I can say was about Sides at all.

This is a bit of a difference from CSPAN's "The Washington Journal" where, yes, the hosts are a model of being apolitical, but then they will sit back and just let someone who is political just kind of take over; NPR doesn't seem to let a partisan hold sway from what I've seen.

Great cultures through the ages have spent government money on the arts. In my opinion, it is one of the evidences of a great culture.

Now we say, spare us the facts and make up our minds for us.

I disagree with this.

I think this is closer to the truth: "I've already made up my mind. Now tell me what I want to hear."

We're not brainless. We're whiny, petty, and selfish.

Public radio is a great resource.

In bygone times, commercial broadcast radio was also a great resource.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 opened the door to behemoths like Clear Channel. With consolidation came homogenization.

Southern Californians once could listen to Lohman and Barkley, who were arguably the equal of Bob & Ray, on the morning commute. They could listen to rock music on KMET, country music on KFOX, classical music on KFAC, jazz, folk, and other formats on numerous local stations.

None of these assets is coming back any time soon.

The road to Potterville seems to be one way.

I'm paraphrasing here, so forgive me if I can't find the attribution right at the moment. But, reality is left-biased.

We deceive ourselves, or we are deceived, into perceiving objective reality as lying somewhere along a mathematical line, with human interpretation of reality distributed in a bell curve along this line, from radical to reactionary, socialist to fascist and everything in between. However, reality is not linear and these categories are human inventions only roughly corresponding to Truth.

The vast majority of what constitutes current "conservative" or "right-wing" opinion and news is not based on fact or reality. Therefore it can be stricken from the complex spectrum of acceptable views of reality. Without this distracting dead weight of falsehoods, what's leftover is thus skewed to the left. The Universe is biased towards life. There is matter but strangely no anti-matter. Truth does not lie precisely between rationality and bald-faced lies and agitprop. Reality is left-biased.

Ebert: It does seem to me that liberalism is more reality-based and conservatism more ideologically-based. Consider that conservatives want to encourage and extend the current catastrophic greed on Wall Street.

Roger, My all time favorite NPR program is Ira Glass's "This American Life", mostly heard on Sundays. I can't Imagine how such a program so skillful in the art of creating wonderful stories out of peoples everyday experiences could be anything but 'liberal' in its essence. As many of the other programs on NPR, This American Life is often comical, empathetic, heartwarming, enlightening. Its a celebration of the human spirit overcoming adversity in often humorous ways. Fox and Murdoch can't touch it, unless happiness really is a warm gun. As for Frank M, whoa, he writes way too much. He reminds me of a quote. Come to think of it, it sounds like something you'd hear on NPR.
"Lose yourself wholly; and the more you lose, the more you will find."
- Saint Catherine of Siena

I'm not a US citizen, but I lived in the US for nearly 20 years.

I discovered NPR shortly after I arrived in Ithaca, NY, when I went to do graduate work at Cornell U. This was 1987.

The first shows I listened to, circa 1988, were Car Talk and Keillor's show before it was named A Prairie Home Companion. *Every* *single* Saturday.

I remember listening to NPR's All Things Considered when Bush Sr. took the US into war. I became an avid listener of Morning Edition. I followed Clinton's election in 1992, through NPR.

Then, in 1993, I moved to Portugal for 2 years. In 1995, I moved back to the US, for another graduate program, this time at UC Irvine, in California.

I resumed listening to the same shows, through KPCC, plus Fresh Air and, later, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Also, Science Friday and This American Life.

In 1997, I moved to Denmark and last September I moved back to my native Brazil. Guess what? I kept listening (through iTunes) to some of the same shows, though not as regularly. However, I did and still do listen to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, every Sunday (because I have to wait until it's available online).

Oh, and I followed Obama's election through NPR, while living in Denmark.

Yeah, I think it's fair to say that NPR has been an active part of my life in the last 20+ years. I think I'm a better and more informed person for it.

Always a pleasure to read your essays.

Reply to Randy Masters:

What does it say about our local artists when one talks about an extremist-Marxist, Mexican Muralist and one ends up guessing the wrong one? Many mexican artist to this day still tend to believe in these ideas, don't ask me why.
The only real point with my comment is that I doubt American liberals admire these Marxist fanatics any more than Conservatives would feel the same way about extreme Facists.
One idea I disagree very much in this tread. I don't see how being pro-choice ore pro-life is mainly a religious issue but quiet simply an ethical one instead. "Don't do to others what you wouldn't want done to you" does not come from the Bible. At any rate, that's my opinion.
Regards.

Ebert: NPR is middle-liberal. It is not "leftist."

Okay. Fair enough. I don’t know why so many gradations, though. I see it as left, right, and apathetic.

@ Jon G on November 20, 2010 2:29 AM

I am very much a liberal. I get my news from the BBC and NPR.

Fish, meet water.

@ EricJ on November 20, 2010 3:17 AM

Quit the B-movie dramatics, you'd have to go fifty miles in cheap shoes to find someone who thinks CPB Is Evil.

I didn’t say that it was evil. I was disputing that it is neutrally fact-based without a left or right agenda. I’m also saying that it’s continued federal funding needs to be justified when we are so far in debt. As does every budget line item.

@ CarolCola on November 20, 2010 2:05 AM

If it bothers you, don't listen.

It’s not about listening. I listen. It’s about continued federal funding when we are so massively broke.

@ Tony on November 20, 2010 2:53 PM

What have we come to that congress is considering a bill which would shut down funding for NPR? …Hasn't congress got better things to do than shut down a radio station?

Congress funds organizations, like CPB. Congress can defund organizations. No one is talking about shutting down a radio station. Pay for it yourself.

@ xyz scholar on November 20, 2010 3:02 PM

Diane Rehm interviewed Kevin Spacey. She confessed that she “hated” the film “American Beauty.” “Why?” I asked myself. “Why am I not surprised that this masterpiece flew straight over her head?”

I’m with Rehm. I hated “American Beauty” too. It’s one of those movies, like “Easy A”, that has to defile every role model to earn it’s cred.

@ Mara on November 20, 2010 12:10 PM

While Fox News might have a cadre of supposedly both liberal and conservative pundits and hosts, what is decidedly conservative is their framing of news stories.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that Fox News has a conservative bent. Why does that chap liberals so much. Conservatives can’t have one network? Liberals own the 3 major networks, CNN, and MSNBC. You have Hollywood. You have the NYT and Washington Post. We can’t have one network to make our case in the public arena of ideas?

@ Eric G. on November 20, 2010 11:54 AM

I prefer reading and listening to people like Ebert who reveal their own biases rather than pretend total objectivity.

Exactly right.

@ Ebert: Yes, that's a difference. Fox lies. NPR does not.

Well, Soros-funded Media Matters lies about Fox lying. :)

But, lying is a loaded word. Was NPR lying when, as I pointed out in a comment above, they used selective quotes to misrepresent the effectiveness of ultrasound in clinics?

Anyone broadcasting 24/7 will make mistakes.

I had totally given up on broadcast radio for the last decade or so. I only discovered NPR recently while riding in someone elses car. And I am now hooked on it. It's the only station I will listen to in the car. It's either that or a music CD.

Randy Masters, in the same post:

"I don’t know why so many gradations, though. I see it as left, right, and apathetic."

"Let’s say for the sake of argument that Fox News has a conservative bent."

Just to let people know that the person going by the name "Sam" who earlier accused Mr. Ebert of being a "leftist" wasn't me. As for me, I often listen to the Diane Rehm show that airs in the late morning on WAMU. I do not find her to be biased in any way except for being well-informed, which makes her a threat to those who capitalize on ignorance.

Re: Randy Masters,

Also, when you said that Roger was trying to say that anyone who disagrees with him about NPR has lost all critical thinking when he said "Just think it through, if you haven't lost the knack", I think he meant just what he said. It's kind of the same as Fox's "We report; you decide." So, I think he meant is that they aren't telling you what to think but want you to think for yourself. Perhaps, if he used a semi-colon it would have been more clear rather than two separate sentences, like the following:

Its very existence is a rebuke to media outlets that depend on popularizing an ideological party line; just think it through, if you haven't lost the knack.

a semi-colon is kind of used to explain something in a different way.

I'm sure it's just my local station, but "The Whaddya Know Radio Hour" is, by magnitudes, the most God-awful show in the history of radio.

I only mention it because it's an extreme example of the dilemma I have with NPR. Most, or close to all, of the shows oscillate on a spectrum of pretty good to great, but the bad stuff is epic in its sheer, horrible, almost unbearable badness.

I’ve never listened to an NPR broadcast and walked away thinking, “Wow, that was brilliant!”

I’ve come close to feeling that way after reading a Harper’s essay, watching a David Lynch film, re-reading Camus, or listening to Revel. But NPR? Never.

Re: “American Beauty”

The best, most insightful critique of the film was penned by Professor David L. Smith in “The Journal of Religion and Film”:

http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/am.beauty.htm

As a Canadian, I have a particular affection for NPR. In fact, when I travel to the U.S. it is really the only thing I can bear to listen to on the radio. It is, as you say, an oasis.

Our own public broadcaster, the CBC, is under constant fire from our increasingly right-leaning government, with endless budget cuts that have decimated much of their classical music programming and forced their television wing to resort to cheap reality TV knock-offs and imports like Jeopardy (hey, at least the host is Canadian!).

Happily we still have our own version of PHC - 'The Vinyl Cafe' with Stuart McLean:

http://www.cbc.ca/vinylcafe/home.php

Randy-

You selectively quote me to be snarky and clever, which as I recall, is your complaint about NPR, selectively quoting to push a liberal agenda . My point was that I get my news from the BBC and NPR because they practice fact based, investigative journalism.

I get my liberal opinion through folks like Jonathan Chait. He is not a journalist, but someone who discusses current events through the prism of his liberal worldview.

Fox News does not have journalists. They have people like Jonathan Chait (but on the other end of the spectrum) working together, in close concert with the Republican party, to create a daily narrative that is unbending, regardless of what is actually happening. Nearly all economists agree that the Stimulus (part of which was the largest tax cut in history, something that conservatives generally agree on--unless they're advocated by a Democrat) staved off the next great depression. Fox News claims it was a total failure, and has every one of its pundits repeat this line, day in and day out. There is literally no disagreement in the scientific community (nor in the rest of the world) about the reality of global warming, and yet Fox News consistently claims it is very contentious. Reminds me of how the tobacco industry denied into the 90s that cigarettes were addictive and dangerous, and how advertising claimed for decades that cigarettes were healthy, long after it was known they were not. The list can go on and on.

As a liberal, I do not like opinion parading as news. NPR, the BBC, Reuters are all fact based reporting. They do not discuss opinions. As a liberal, I like to make my own mind up, thanks.

One thing I have never understood about the organized right in this country is that their narrative is that they are always under assault--from the left, from government, etc. WHy is it that every Christmas there is an uproar about "the War on Christmas"? Why is it that conservatives always insist that everyone insists they are stupid? What is this, the third grade? For what it's worth, conservatives are invariably quite smart. They advocate policies which are uniformly in their best interest--those that help the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.

Dear Mr. Ebert,

I love you. I am a 17-year-old from Frankfort, IL, and, because I have watched you on "At the Movies" and read your reviews, I want to be a journalist. I even submit reviews of my own to my local newspaper, the Frankfort Station. You are an inspiration to me, not only for your work, but also because of your strength and the fight against all that you have gone through.

Do you ever get writer's block? What advice would you give to someone if they ever get writer's block?

Have a great day, Mr. Ebert,
Thank you for your time,
Bobby

Ebert: The cure for writer's block that never fails: Start writing. The Muse visits while you are writing, never before.

Roger, Rogue Amoeba discontinued Radioshift for the iPhone and I don't have a Mac! If only I'd known about it in February :(

Randy Marsters, I think you know that Fox is very biased to the right. So I won't bother you with another list of examples. I just think you are even farther right than Fox. I think much of the mainstream television media lies, so I don't feel comfortable laying that at Fox's feet alone (but they do lie).

I have also always hated when anyone on the left or right considers the middle "apathetic." I am as forceful in my views as anyone but I don't believe either party ideology has it right. I am a centrist. Both sides have their positive and negative attributes. I'm basically saying, I sincerely hope you don't believe that statement you made.

Oh and Roger, Abortion is definitely a legal and political issue, and it should be. It's just that any law shouldn't be (and can't be) based on religious belief. http://j.mp/cAzrlJ

Ebert: NPR has an iPhone app.

I agree about abortion. Why did I say it's a religious issue? It's either a moral issue or a personal rights issue, depending on how you approach it. I am personally anti-abortion in my own life and pro-choice in those of others.

Here in Boston the venerable old WRKO(The home of the great Jerry Williams) is so right wing that No matter when you turn it on you hear right wing whining and screaming about Obama or Democrats. Even the all talk sports radio spouts ring wing talking points. So in our office we listen to NPR. Diane Raines has one of the best informative news shows in the morning. At lunchtime we are lucky to have Emily Rooney's(Andy Rooney's daughter) show which goes into dept about local news stories. And then there is wonderful Garrison Keilor a man close to my midwestern heart. Long live NPR. By the way Willa Cather is my favorite author and your picture of you and her listening to the radio in Nebraska touched my heart.

I too love NPR. It is America's best traditional media source. But let's not pretend it is perfect. I will never forgive NPR for refusing to call waterboarding 'torture' (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106215824).

What a shame.

Lots of talk of NPR because of the firing of Juan Williams. Here's a guy who has had to fight the 'left' fight on Fox News. It had to be a lonely feeling. I'm sure Juan did his Fox
commentary for financial reasons as much as anything.

I don't think the talk about NPR being dangerous is as much about NPR as it is about their idiot CEO. To suggest Juan needs to speak with his psychiatrist because certain dress, language, and religious cues cause him a small amount of distress is disusting.

Often we profile people because we need to. Back in the 1980's, if I saw a young black man wearing a Raiders jacket, with a red or blue bandana on his head - I avoided him as if he had plague rats on his person. Most of these people were either gang wannabees or real gang members.
There was a gang murder almost everyday in my city. It was prudent to fear such people. They would shoot you in the head just for grins.

Political correctness has caused this country to ignore reality and attribute bad behaviour equally across the entire spectrum of humanity. This is just dumb. You still make assumptions about Catholics you wouldn't make about Lutherans. Doesn't mean you're profiling Catholics. There are over 100 countries on this planet for a reason: we don't all get along.

Regarding NPR, I've always enjoyed some of their programming, Prairie Home Companion especially. A good story told by a "museum quality liberal" is a good story. He has a museum quality voice too.

You can't paint everyone with all brushes. You lose the information that's there, kind of like matter when it gets sucked into a black hole. The particle's information "may" still be there, but it's useless.

Liberalism has done some wonderful things in this country. But to fire a guy for being human is ignorant. Liberals want to be known for their tolerance. Probably because they don't have it anymore.

How about the Planet Money team on NPR? I've never seen in-depth reporting on WTO disputes, US agriculture subsidies and global markets on Fox News, CNN, or MSNBC.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/10/29/130917279/the-friday-podcast-cotton-wars

Also note this story on the firm Magnetar from This American Life a while back. These are why I think NPR and Public Radio in general are a national treasure.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/405/inside-job

Aside from the argument about liberal or bias or conservative or leftist or Marxist or dull or insightful or whatever- my problem with defunding NPR is that it's an empty gesture. If House Republicans were actually serious they'd be making actual cuts to actually overfunded programs like the military.

Instead they attack easy targets that won't offend their base but will make no actual impact on the deficit. Earmarks, NPR, NEA what have you.

I apologize for my abuse of the word actual.

Randy wrote--

Let’s say for the sake of argument that Fox News has a conservative bent. Why does that chap liberals so much. Conservatives can’t have one network?

sure you can. As long as theyre not being a dick about it;

when they do a story on prop 24 in california and interview a small business owner who belongs to a PAC opposed to prop 24 FUNDED BY NEWS CORP and doesnt disclose any of it////

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/business/media/01fox.html?src=busln

theyre being a dick

Whatever Roger!

The only radio you should be listening to is Howard Stern. He's more original than anyone in radio, funnier than anyone in radio, and can interview a piece of moss and make it interesting.

Bababooey to you for not writing about the king.

NPR, FOX, Larry King, Hanitty, CNN...they all suck!

Thanks for your time.

Ebert: Actually, I do listen to Howard Stern all the time on Sirius, in the car.

Ebert: It does seem to me that liberalism is more reality-based and conservatism more ideologically-based. Consider that conservatives want to encourage and extend the current catastrophic greed on Wall Street.

Roger, you are really incorrect about this. I was a raging liberal in college. I spent my time thinking of different scenarios into which I could pour the putty of humanity. I thought society evolved and that government should provide institutions to accommodate each advancement of our unlimited potential. I also thought government should play a large part in assisting our social evolution.

Society does not evolve. It's behaviour just changes to adapt to whatever is going on at the time, or to keep out of jail. Liberals have created theories through which they view humans and completely forget about our ape genetics.

We have not evolved any in 10 or 15 thousand years. Athiest men abuse women at about the same rate that Christian men do. Maybe more. What is their moral authority not to do so? A man (or woman) is no more "tame" than a chimpanzee who just goes nuts and rips someone's face off. Google the average number of humans slaughtered and raped each day for simple entertainment. We're tame? We're civilized? Those are just notions we've accepted because we have been told we're "human". You know - there are "humans" and everything else is animal. That's the most untrue notion we internalize.

We are mostly just savages, some of us simply don't want to do any jailtime or suffer guilt.

Liberalism is not reality based. Conservatives know (for whatever reason) that people want to kill us. Liberals, not knowing we're monkeys, believe we can just reason with our "intelligent"
neighbors. A Godless liberal can still be easily persuaded to believe we are special in spite of having accepted evolution. We can generally only reason with people who share similar core beliefs. I say beliefs because most people are to dumb to ascertain reality. Terrorists want to kill us because they think it's the right thing to do. We will not socialize the terrorists. Rather than try to adjust our beliefs a bit to further the noble goal of peace, we will continue to try to destroy each other until one side or the other is gone and we can just stop worrying about the other. That's how apes solve problems.

Gosh this one is fun!

I admit to usually being a "bold print reader" of these comments (I look to see whether the comment was RE'ed by Roger or if a commenter is commenting on another commenter's comment [and that was an awesome sentence right there]) but Randy and a Few v. Roger and Everyone Else on the Issue of CPB's Bias is too gall-darn entertaining to just skim it.

So: 1)I love NPR, especially "Radio Lab" (even if they only put out like FIVE shows a YEAR - seriously, I think South Park releases more episodes a year than they do); 2)I'm politically a libertarian (small "l"), from this you may correctly guess that I think; 3) Randy is right (NPR is left leaning and is so entertaining that shouldn't be sullied by the noblesse oblige of our Benevolent Father who art the Government)

And while I do appreciate the becalming, This-Is-Surrious-Bizniz tone of NPR, I think a snide and cynical bastard of the Twain/Mencken/Hitchens vein is more likely to drop us off near the ballpark of truth.

C'mon, everybody, doesn't Randy make a great butt-boy? Let's give him a big round of applause! Good goin' there, Ran!

Even if you ARE a perfect example of how America's getting into deeper and deeper psychological doo-doo. "Left, right and apathetic?" What bulldozer operates more effectively on just the one tread?

You're too obstreperous to straighten out directly, so I'll just have to fix you up subconsciously. People who cling to the one imaginary side or the other are gullible that way. Do not read the following sentences. Let them slip invisibly through the holes in your ballcap.

Left, aka "liberal" has the tendency to regard the picturesque as real. Right, aka "conservative," tends to assess reality in terms of rigid personal fantasies. Both can be enormously literal-minded. For this, both can get foolish enough to insist "morality" can be achieved by government force. (Okay, Ran, you can open your eyes now.)

Was gonna say, I can't kick the messenger, but the happy happy science news NPR just about alone heralds usually disturbs me more than they mean it to.

I don't cheer when they announce that "Science" has learned how to make monkeys stupider, rats more disease-prone, and so on. They bleed these sentient creatures to death, stick needles into their exposed brains, cut them to pieces while alive, inflict them with diseases and poisons and everything else Japanese doctors did to live humans in unit 731:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAp8bSdE5MQ

You junior scientismists really need a look at this kind of thing. Now, it's okay 'cuz they're animals? So why the hubbub about ancient Kosher methods lately? What is more barbaric than 24/7 lab animal tortures-for-profit?

You'd have to say NPR has an enormous prejudice, or chauvinism, in that way. It goes unnoticed, however as the prejudiced use their prejudices as lenses to view life. In that way, William George, above, is quite correct.

One thing I have never understood about the organized right in this country is that their narrative is that they are always under assault--from the left, from government, etc. WHy is it that every Christmas there is an uproar about "the War on Christmas"? Why is it that conservatives always insist that everyone insists they are stupid? What is this, the third grade?

Well, like third graders--or fanboys in a Star Wars ticket line, wondering why passersby stare at their costumes--there's nothing that unites the downtrodden so much as a Persecution Complex from an Uncaring World. As imaginary as possible, if need be.
On our movie boards, we had one poster ("Passionistas", I believe they call them today) who believed it was his mission to post on how "Hollywood had changed" after Mel Gibson, and how Sandra Bullock winning the Oscar for "The Blind Side" was representing a new turn for the industry, etc...And when that clearly wasn't happening, and we'd good-naturedly locker-room pants him and drag him around the gym track a couple of times for still doing his vaudeville act after he'd gotten the hook six times, his FIRST line of defense was to talk about the "media's War on Christianity", and how our unified treatment of him was only a symbol of Our Society turning against vales. It became almost masturbatory that he would troll just to see us giggle (ahemrandy), and then at the first hint of a wry smirk, you would see his eyes virtually light up with "Am I being persecuted yet, am I, am I, huh? @_@ "

Think it's more just psychological projection that the Right believes NPR is a vile, concocted scheme to broadcast political indoctrination to the innocent--complete with jackbooted Sheriffs of Nottingham to knock on our door for it demanding bags of gold--and funny that that should be the first idea to spring to mind...But (at the risk of bringing out the similarly persecution-bating athie faction), think it's that they MISS the days they read about and never got to experience, when you could always get the chance to prove how devoted you were against some big totalitarian Roman with a sword who was going to beat you to a pulp because he just happened to be evil--It's much more difficult to deal with our more tolerant modern times, when the biggest peril you face to your beliefs is just the prospect of sounding like a complete idiot, and there's no martyr status in accomplishing that.

Ebert: Actually, I do listen to Howard Stern all the time on Sirius, in the car.

(No wonder you liked "Private Parts"--Think he'll ever make a second film someday, or did he pretty well close the door on his mainstream career for good making a vanity jackass of himself about it?
I loved seeing the expression on his old E! TV show, when guests would ask him what he had next in the works, and you got to see that uniquely disgruntled look of "Yeah, whatever, talk to my agent...")

Mr. Ebert,

Thank you for hosting this very thoughtful and enlightening discussion on NPR and "liberal bias." The "liberal bias" charge by conservatives has always mystified me, and I've attempted to engage other conservatives in other forums on what that actually means to them, to no avail. The extended length and the civility of the exchange has been very helpful.

I kind of understand a little more about what Mr. Masters views as "liberal bias," in the sense that he doesn't find his point of view adequately represented. I actually feel the same way, on the other side, in many traditional media venues. If you take any of the Sunday talk shows as an example, they very rarely have a true liberal on the show. The only two true liberals that appear occasionally is Krugman and Maddow. To me, the Sunday talk shows have a very conservative bias, and I almost never see my point of view represented on Sunday talk shows (for example). I think the data will show that as well.

Now, we can argue about who is representing the "conservative" view and Mr. Masters may not consider a "conservative" guest to have a truly conservative view, just as I don't consider James Carville, for example, a truly "liberal" view. That's a problem on both sides -- lack of diversity of opinion in the national media, on both sides.

In my opinion, a venue like Talking Points Memo has a "liberal bias" like Fox has a "conservative bias" but most of the traditional media just suffer from shoddy journalism. They are mostly agnostic, not biased. Their point of view reflects the homogeneity of the journalists in national media: mostly white men age 30-45 from upper middle class backgrounds and a distinctly northeastern flavor of education. They people are not "liberal" by any stretch of the imagination. Their lack of diversity, I think, is why both liberals and conservatives believe that their points of view are not represented.

@Randy Masters on November 20, 2010 9:54 PM
I don’t know why so many gradations, though. I see it as left, right, and apathetic.

I'm gonna bug you again, Randy, about oversimplifying things.

"Right" takes in far more territory than you're willing to admit, as does "Left". What you call RINOs are real, live Republicans who just aren't as conservative as you would like. But they are conservatives.

Moreover, "Right" and "Left" depend greatly on context. What you call "Left" would be on the right of centre in Norway, for example. Even in Canada, Obama would probably fit in nicely with the old Progressive Conservative party. He'd horrify our National Democratic Party, which even I think are a bunch of socialist boobs (my apologies to boobs everywhere :) ).

Fact is, when you start talking about a large enough population, there are going to be people who do not fall into simple categorizations. I know you're intelligent enough to be able to process the complexities, yet post after post you show an unwillingness to do so. I'm frustrated for you.

I'll also add that there are many people who are apathetic, for whatever reason (and there are more reasons than we know). But there are the more "muscular" (if I can use the term) centrists who are there by reasoned judgment. On some issues they are conservative; on others they are more liberal. Neither party represents their views totally or eternally. I'd far rather trust someone like that, than someone who will vote for a Republican or Democrat fencepost (or Liberal, Conservative, or NDP fencepost, in Canada), rather than look at issues and think.

Ebert: It does seem to me that liberalism is more reality-based and conservatism more ideologically-based. Consider that conservatives want to encourage and extend the current catastrophic greed on Wall Street.

I'd agree, except to note that this is not something that is structural or a natural extension of either point of view. There have been periods where conservatives were more honest and truthful than liberals. But for that, you'd have to go back to the period before WW II.

And regardless, both groups these days need to work on their reality-basis...

Apologies for being a bit snippy in my comment above.

But you do mess up other people's punchlines.

The example I recall best is Peter O'Toole's classic line from My Favorite Year.

You switched the clauses, breaking the rhythm and rendering the quote awkward.

The correct phrasing is:
"I'm not an actor, I'M A MOVIE STAR!!!"

This is one example. There have been many others over the years.

"Doctor! It hurts when I do that!"
"Then don't do that!"
Extra word anymore breaks the rhythm.

You get the idea.
See that this doesn't happen again. ;-)

It is striking to me that conservatives have these ideas about liberals that are not particularly nuanced or based on much observation of liberals. More cartoonish than real. Or maybe, like some of the posters here, "liberalism" represents a much younger naive self. Most liberals, on the other hand, can let go of the more extreme levels of idealism without completely going over to the other side.

In regard to Juan Williams, most posters on this site (and other places) miss a very important fact about this case: Americans do have the right to express their own opinions--however, the reality is that if you express an opinion on national TV that makes YOUR EMPLOYER feel embarrassed, you will probably lose your job. Your rights as an American are pretty solid. Your rights as an employee--not so much.

Is this OK? Well, I think we should be a little nervous about this...but it holds up in court nevertheless. An excellent book about this, "Speechless," was written by Bruce Barry, a professor at Vanderbilt Law School. It's sobering stuff. Like it or not, you represent your employer, especially if you are in a position of public visibility, like Williams.

Was Williams' opinion embarrassing? Well, just imagine if you think you're trying to be the radio station of intelligent discourse--and your highly visible guy takes a verbal shot at any religious group, or worse yet, a style of clothing ("Islamic garb"). Just plug in any group and try it out:

"Whenever I see a pickup truck full of rednecks with those tattoos wearing camo, I feel..."
"When I see a group of pierced, tattooed, black-clothed kids at the airport, I feel..."
"Whenever I see a horde of those unshaved Hasidic Jews at LaGuardia in those black clothes and hats, speaking a foreign language, I feel..."
"When I see those Mennonites wearing that garb and those crazy hats and bonnets, I feel...."
"Whenever I see a big clump of businessmen with those briefcases wearing suits worth thousands of bucks on the plane, I feel..."
"Whenever I see a herd of Christians with those crosses and bibles and all that endless church talk..."

If Willliams had reported fear or animosity toward any of the above, it would make a negative impression. (Even though he should be nervous about that pickup of rednecks...he'd be crazy to say this on national TV.)

Did I think Williams should have been fired? No. But if I was his boss he'd be copyediting in the back for a long while. I thought what he said showed very poor judgment.

I too learned English with NPR, but also learned how to apreciate finer things. When I hear other radio stations and people giving decided opinions about everything like experts, I long for the real experts that NPR brings. Terry Gross is real classy , never let you know her own opinions. I never knew I liked her so much until I heard that guy from kiss offending her on an interview. She never lost it. Love prairie home co., we listen as a family on our way to church Saturday nights, and I think my kids are much better off for this. They had an insight in the America that I couldn't provide.

I suspect those who tag NPR as liberal also tag it as elite, Democratic, "Blame America First", etc. They probably never listen to it. It's just the old "they're not my tribe" syndrome.

Do I listen to conservative radio/TV such as Limbaugh and Fox News? Yes. I force myself periodically to confront this programming. Do I enjoy it? No.

But at least I get to relish the difference. And, God knows, there is a difference. NPR really IS a breath of fresh air and not an insult to the intelligence. Those in Congress who got their knickers in a twist about the Juan Williams firing are probably also those who renamed french fries in the Congressional cafeteria to freedom fries.

God save America.

NPR is the kind of mythical beast that I thought had been wiped out from the Far West.

I don't know whether I'm guilty of Nationalistic zeal or xenophobia, but I've always felt that, here in Switzerland, we are altogether still more sensible than in many other parts of the civilised world. We are small, far too humble for our own good, and the businesses of entertainment are not held in such high regard as they are in the homeland of Hollywood.

SRG SSR is Switzerland's public broadcasting service, roughly equivalent to the BBC, that concerns itself with both TV and Radio. It doesn't, however, have the same leverage as the BBC.
Public Radio in French-speaking Switzerland offers 4 main stations: one for news and general popular content, one for classical music, one for pop music and one for more eclectic tastes -- these are ranked in order of importance. Other stations exist (usually dedicated to popular music), but these four, and especially the first, are those taken seriously by the adult population.

On TV we have political debates, one-on-one Charlie Rose style interviews, no Oprah, no "reality" TV.
The idea of a Glenn Beck in Switzerland isn't feasible. Here he is a kind of logical impossibility. He would be laughed at and ostracised by the entire community. Will there be a Glenn Beck in Switzerland in 20 or 30 or 40 years? Maybe.

I feel like I could or even should go on, spelling out the numerous examples that illustrate my point, but this isn't the place for such bold moves.
I think I have made my point quite clearly. Now at the very least you can ask yourself, if you have ever shared privately what I have put here into words, what ineffable phenomena or spirits of our age, culture or traditions may have us in your past and you in our future?

This message isn't intended as offensive or provocative -- I don't think I'm better than you, just different. I merely want to spark a train of thought.

I think NPR is sets the standard for reporting on the world around us. Maybe the reason it's attacked is because it's as close to objective, balanced reporting on the world as anyone can get. I trust NPR more than any other news source. It also is the only broadcaster that fufills a standard outlined many years ago:
http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/commentary/hiddenagenda/murrow.html

I have to say that NPR is one of the few places in the US to get the facts. Even my intelligent conservative friends appreciate it it's general lack of bias.

I can understand Randy's argument that by selection of topics NPR may lean slightly Left. Of course Conservative talk Radio, and Fox News in particular, are often deliberately disingenuous or misleading.

Regardless, very little of the network, cable, or radio news is actually informative. NPR is. The BBC is another good source for news.

In the words of Stephen Colbert "Reality has a clear liberal bias"

Without liberals we would still have children working in factories, women would be denied the vote, and slave states would still exist.

Maybe I've mentioned this before.

As I grow older, find myself listening to more and more vintage radio. Always loved hearing Studs talking with people. My few audio tapes are pretty well shot. His website is of course dynamite, and the NPR archives have some of his best stuff too. Even listen to the old Radio guys, particularly Benny, who were at their peaks even before my time.

Wonder if their stuff works at all for young people today--Studs most likely--surely the great voices of Edward R. Murrow, or Winston Churchill. The old radio comedians are less likely to translate I imagine, even Will Rogers, and least likely, the work of Gosden and Correll.

So it goes.

Thank you so much for "Good Radiation".

NPR quiets the mind from the barrage of thoughts and stressors of everyday life. If that station can have me think about the lifestyle of an aboriginal tribe rather than think about the load of laundry I need to do when I get home, then it is a champion of the human mind!

Whoa, that's what Terri Gross looks like? It's weird to finally see the face behind one of the narrators of my childhood. I spent one or two afternoons a week after school at my dad's sign shop until 8th grade, and he always had NPR playing over the speakers. We'd listen to Morning Edition in the pickup truck on the way to school, and Afternoon Edition on the way home. I don't own a radio these days - I ought to get that app for my iPod.

Since the political issue has been brought up, I'll just mention that I come from a very traditional, conservative Christian background (but not one that cares much for politics). Everyone at my church back home loves NPR.

Of course my personal experience is hardly an in-depth analysis of the conservative population, but my point is, you don't have to conform to a liberal worldview to be interested and educated by NPR. I feel like those who would accuse it of leaning to the left must be standing so far to the right that their perspective is a bit skewed. Must everything be one or the other?

@Randy (sorry to be on the critiquing bandwagon), you wrote:

3. Asserted fact: "Elizabeth Nash is a public policy associate for the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights group that tracks state laws. She says that those who oppose abortion want to reframe the debate."

My rebuttal: That's not a fact.

And then later...

My rebuttal: Abortion opponents? How about life advocates. Why the negative labelling of the pro-life advocate?

It may or may not be fact that "those who oppose abortion want to reframe the debate," but I'd like to point out that even you can't stop yourself from reframing the debate in your own post. Abortion is about the woman; anything involving the word "life" in this context is about the fetus; and it really does seem like neither side will use any other terminology. It's hard for anyone to agree when both sides refuse to discuss the same thing.

@David, you wrote:

I also was intrigued by your comment about O'Reilly- "He believes public opinion should set policy." Why is it that those who consider themselves smarter than anyone else because of their atheism also don't think their fellow citizens are smart enough to decide what is best for them? What colossal arrogance.

The American public has the right to decide what's best for them because the American public has the right to vote. I've never met anyone, atheist or devout, who debates that right.

I have been a fan of Prairie Home Companion for years. I remember touring as an actor and pulling into Minneaopolis hoping to go on my day off and finding out they were in residency in New York. Sorely disappointed.

As far as bias is concerned with NPR. I would say, yes. There is a liberal bias, An INTELLIGENT liberal bias. What makes Fox News execrable is that there's no intelligence in their reporting. Just fear mongering and out right lies. That plus the fact they call themselves a news station as opposed to Fox Opinion r something of that ilk.

I would welcome a conservative station, radio and TV that traffics in intelligence and not fear mongering. I would even watch or listen to it even if I disagreed. An intelligent conservative might not completely agree with Obama's health plan, but would acknowledge it's strong points. A real fiscal conservative would understand that keeping tax cuts for those making over $250,000 is unsustainable. A real conservative would not dismiss global warming. Their solutions may be different, but science would be recognized as science.

I got off topic, but I think the basic agreement is we want intelligent reporting and intelligent opinions and not pandering to the baser aspects of human nature.

P.S. Watching Dragonfly with Kevin Costner while writing this. What an awful, awful film,

I believe an few adjustments to the comments by MH Clarke above might illustrate why conservative taxpayers feel their money is wasted in the funding of public broadcasting. Just substitute what I have put in brackets for his original wording and you have it...

"Americans (Publicly taxpayer funded radio stations) do have the right to express their own opinions--however, the reality is that if you express an opinion on national TV (a publicly taxpayer funded broadcast outlet) that makes YOUR EMPLOYER (members of the taxpaying class) feel embarrassed, you will probably lose your job (funding). Your rights as an American (Publicly taxpayer funded radio station) are pretty solid. Your rights as an employee (a business enterprise that is funded by the taxes of ALL Americans)--not so much."

Look, no one on the right is pooping on NPR's right to exist...we just don't agree that it has a RIGHT to our tax dollars to do so. If NPR is so wonderful and fulfilling as liberals say, then it should be fine fending for itself in the open marketplace. If not it will go the way of that other bastion of liberal radio speak Air America. Not scared of that are ya?

Hi Eric J

--complete with jackbooted Sheriffs of Nottingham to knock on our door for it demanding bags of gold

Eric, it was a word-picture. A pretty effective one, I think. Try witholding your taxes and see if the sheriff (or IRS version) doesn't show up. Ask Wesley Snipes.

I've yet to see anyone make a positive defense for federal funding of NPR (through CPB).

I get that many of you like it. I like it enough to listen to it too - while recognizing a liberal bias. I don't agree that it should have federal funding.

Again, we're $13 Trillion dollars in debt. Borrowing huge wads of cash every day from China to even make the interest payments. Make the case for me that we should borrow even one dollar from China that my kids will have to pay off so that you to get to listen to Morning Edition or classical music. Make that case. Anyone?

Surely that's a reasonable question in our fiscal situation. In fact, I suggest that as a story for NPR. Let them take their facts-only, bias-free, research ninja staff and do a story on whether we can afford to federally fund public radio with borrowing at the level we are borrowing. Can't wait for that segment.

I'm a longtime fan of Mr. Ebert, a longtime follower of this blog, and, today, I am particularly delighted to see this post on NPR. I am, however, going to cut to the chase (Shameless self promotion):

I'm an MFA student, currently enrolled in a "blog class" (silly, I know), and my semester-long project has been an NPR-themed blog that's actual theme, it turns out, has been whether or not I can stay on topic. There is, in spite of that, a great deal of fun had at the expense of All Things Considered, and a great deal of joyful reverence.

My most recent "assignment" has been to "make a concerted effort to increase site traffic." So, yes, this is spam. I'm sorry. However, this may be the most sincere spam you've ever encountered, and considering the content of this particular post, I don't feel that it's apropos of nothing. I humble myself to you, Roger, and to your readership. I love this community, and while I rarely make my voice heard, I value this little corner of the internet. I think you may actually enjoy my stupid NPR blog.

That said, spam (from a well-intentioned grad student in Northern Virginia):

http://thankyoupublicradio.blogspot.com/

NPR got a $400,000 grant from the Carnegie Foundation to say nice things about American Muslims.

When immigrants come to America, they are supposed to become Americans, or they go back home.

The process of becoming an American... means you are no longer living in a country where Islam is the official religion... where the government will arrest people for speaking out against Islam....

Our government wants to maintain better relations with Muslim countries, like Saudi Arabia. They don't want to explain why Americans consider Islam a terrorist organization pretending to be a religion.

but Islam... is based on a book, which is supposed to contain messages delivered by an angel, in a dream. Those messages include flogging of women and amputation of hands... and I don't care what NPR says, or what the government wants Americans to think, every time "Islam" makes progress in America, we lose part of what makes America great.

The only acceptable alternative... is for immigrants to understand what America stands for, and then walk away from Islam, voluntarily. And for that to happen, we need dialogue. Lots of it. To explain WHY Islam is not really a religion.

A terrorist named Mohammed wanted people to die for him. He decided to take over entire countries through the use of terror. Calling it a religion is an insult to all the other legitimate religions. Muslims need to hear this, and they need to join the conversation, so they can understand why America rejects Islam at every level.

You have to have written to have writer's block. Otherwise we all have it.

@ James on November 21, 2010 2:24 PM

I appreciated your thoughtful comment.

It's more, I think, than just the lack of representation of a viewpoint. It's the active shaping of a story to favor one viewpoint over the other.

Wonder if their stuff works at all for young people today--Studs most likely--surely the great voices of Edward R. Murrow, or Winston Churchill. The old radio comedians are less likely to translate I imagine, even Will Rogers, and least likely, the work of Gosden and Correll.

Thanks to the miracle of the Internet and in-car iPod jacks, Jack Benny, Bergen & McCarthy, the McGee's, You Are There (which was much more dynamic as a radio-bulletin broadcast), and even Eve Arden (her sardonic zinger-delivery on "Our Miss Brooks" was ahead of its time) have saved MANY a long car trip with the backseat rugrats. We've tried Garrison Keillor, but it turned out to be a bit too laid-back.
(Benny was an innovator at creating "cartoon" imagery from just sound and timing, and said younger generation is still convinced that Edgar and Charlie were two people...The McGees' verbal vaudeville was a bit too old-fashioned for their tastes, but de gustibus and all that.)

As for Gosden & Correll, haven't had the chance to experiment yet: Keep in mind, we're talking about the 40's and 50's radio series, where they worked within a conventional gag-driven sitcom--Whereas most, ahem, uninformed people would still picture a minstrel act from 1929 or a failed movie that had been written without them.
I, however--after a similar experience watching bystanders' first exposures to the 50's TV series--would argue that the radio versions were still the Kramden & Norton of their day: http://tinyurl.com/2aeraq4
(Probably due to the fact that G&C didn't sound remotely like real black characters, and I always believed I was listening to the radio adaptation of a Pogo comic strip.)

Ebert: Bob & Ray still work.

Hi Tom,

Obstreperous? Well now, that's a mighty big word. What - I'm not clamorous? Unruly?

For this, both can get foolish enough to insist "morality" can be achieved by government force.

Well, only in the sense that we are a nation of laws and that laws have to have some basis in morality. Which laws to write and enforce form the battelground of ideas for liberals and conservatives.

Also, I really wish you hadn't mentioned me in the same comment with a reference to Unit 731. Or called me a "butt-boy", whatever obstreperous thing you meant by that.

"NPR is left leaning and is so entertaining that shouldn't be sullied by the noblesse oblige of our Benevolent Father who art the Government"

The problem is, without that sullying, you have a service that's entirely dependent on ratings.

Ratings dependence makes for bad news. It makes for sensationalism- it encourages prioritizing stories based on how many people will listen over how important the stories actually are. It encourages cutting departments that aren't cost-effective, which is what happened to international reporting in the US after the Cold War- networks figured it was a waste of money to have that much of an apparatus. That's why CNN is a mess of terrible technological gimmicks in lieu of content, and why MSNBC and FOX rely primarily on ideology and punditry to draw attention.

We need one service in this country that doesn't have a bottom line.

Hi Jon G.

Randy-You selectively quote me to be snarky and clever...My point was that I get my news from the BBC and NPR because they practice fact based, investigative journalism.

Didn't need to be snarky. Just concise.

I was repeating my argument that liberals who are inundated with liberal-bias media are like the classic "fish in the ocean that doesn't know that he's wet".

Two thoughts. You did one thing that many on here won't do - identify yourself as liberal. I'm cool with that. I like admitted partisanship. I'm fascinated with, and pick at, the many others who espouse liberal positions but want to call themselves "middle" or "moderate".

Second, I am here disputing that the two news sources often cited as neutral / fact-based are in fact that. I've argued that both the BBC and NPR are left-biased.

On the BBC's bias, I'll refer you to this article about BBC Chief Director Mark Thompson admitting to a "massive" left-wing bias. Well, duh.

http://j.mp/9yKbXV

You identify as a liberal. You choose what I consider to be left-bias sources to get your news, which you consider to be fact-based neutral. I'm saying that you are comfortable with them because they match your bias.

I simplified all of that as "fish, meet water."

It gets old reading comment after comment about conservatism being nothing but ignorance and fear of the truth, while liberalism is all sweetness and light. Left and right disagree about the priority of community versus individual liberty. That's pretty much it. The holier-than-thou posture of so many liberal commenters here underscores a problem: many liberals are largely incapable of respecting someone they disagree with politically.

Me? I like liberty. It's the left, not the right, passing rule after rule to tell us how to run our businesses, what kind of light bulbs to use and how much salt we can have in our food.

When you liberals can reconcile all that garbage with your all-talk-no-action commitment to human freedom, gimme a call. Till then, enjoy your "balanced" NPR--and by the way, if taxpayer dollars don't pay for it, what do you care if it's de-funded?

Be consistent. Look up some facts. And climb down off your g*ddam high horse.

Ebert: True of classical conservatism. How does belief in individual freedom correspondent to anti-choice? Or the current conservative corporationism.

I don't know how many times I can say making abortions illegal is impossible without increasingly perpetuating police state measures before Randy can understand it.

I'd also like to state that, in the blog world of commenting, a comment with lots of text is also used equivalently in an auxiliary manner succeeding talking louder over and at one as a dubious access to debating prowess.

Treating people as if none are needed is where the self-deceit lies and where lies lay self-deceit.

Ebert: There will be abortions. Everywhere, at all times. The problem is how to address them with the least pain to individuals and society.

@Randy Masters on November 21, 2010 10:35 PM

It's the active shaping of a story to favor one viewpoint over the other.

I understand that. I really do. I often have that same frustration. Moreover, I think it is entirely true. However, I don't think it is a "liberal" viewpoint, in many cases. It is something else. Witness:

What one might call the "liberal" viewpoint was completely excluded from the health care debate. There was absolutely no public discussion of universal health care or single payer. That was the liberal viewpoint. Obviously, there was no liberal viewpoint allowed in the run-up to the Iraq War. Right now, there is no discussion from the liberal side on the economy - no discussion of solutions to unemployment, it's all deficit and debt. That's a clear anti-liberal bias. There are no liberals at the table on this issue.

So I immediately sympathized with your frustration on the issue of abortion as you detailed above. There has been no rational public debate vis a vis the rights of a fertilized egg or a fetus versus the agency of a competent adult woman and her right to control the integrity of her physical body. We should have a scholarly discussion and debate about that. But we get much heat and little light. I wish your side put forth rational arguments on the merits, but I haven't seen it.

But I believe that the economic debate is almost totally dominated by the conservatives. You presented as proof of liberal bias a story on NPR about how rising college tuition is adversely affecting college students. Is that not a legitimate news story? Does NPR not include discussions on the deficit, the national debt, the Medicare crisis, "fixing Social Security"? They do, and that is the conservative viewpoint. If NPR never included discussions on those issues, then sure, I'd say there was a liberal bias. But it simply isn't the case. But even actually liberal biased news venues, e.g., TPM, nighttime MSNBC, include discussions of those issues.

I contend that the bias in traditional media is not liberal bias, but lacks a range of viewpoint that frustrates both liberals and conservatives. Your thoughts?

NPR is in (it's most recent) trouble because of the dispicable firing of Juan Williams. It's funny how the left eat their young when they're not quite towing the line. His honesty in saying that he gets nervous when he sees an airline passenger dressed in muslim garb (while on a Fox program, no less) was just too much for the oh-so politically correct brass at NPR. There are certainly programs I enjoy on NPR but let's be real... there isn't a conservative among them.

The move to end funding was probably prompted by, and an overreaction to, NPR's awkward handling of the Juan Williams matter. What is your opinion of the way Mr. Williams was shown the door?

I suppose I am as conservative as they come, and rather enjoy listening to NPR. It's great to hear NPR receives no federal funding, as I thought it did. The federal government shouldn't be in the business of funding journalism. The federal government shouldn't be in the business of funding the arts, either.

I know, I know. Now we get to talk about all the poor artists that couldn't ply their trade without Uncle Sam's largess. So what? Some of the publicly-funded crap I've seen could only exist because of the taxpayer's dime. But I digress.

I love much of NPR. Other than the aforementioned Terry Gross and Garrison Keillor and the excellent morning and evening news shows,a word should also be said for Diane Rehm. Brilliant interviewer, straight down the middle. Mention should also be made of Peter Overbye's excellent reportage on the campaign finance beat.

That being said, I don't think anyone can really argue that all of NPR is either liberally biased, as some might argue, or unbiased, as others would. There is a contingent of on-air talent who lean rightward, and their bias is pretty evident. I'd say the worst offender in this regard is the afternoon call-in show "Talk of the Nation" when hosted by its regular host, Neal Conan. Conan's biases are often pretty evident. A prime example is a show from back during the heyday of the Tea Party about "the place of extreme rhetoric" that featured as guests Michael Gerson (former Bush speechwriter) and an NPR reporter whose name escapes me, along with Jonah Goldberg, author of a book-length screed called "Liberal Fascism". Goldberg was treated gently and as an expert, and no serious questions were asked about the place of incendiary rhetoric like Goldberg's own work. Note, too, that there were no guests with political views counter to Gerson or Goldberg. Another prime example is national political reporter Mara Liasson.

This isn't, of course, to condemn NPR's news operation -- it's brilliant; the only one better on the planet is the BBC. But, as the presence of Conan and Liasson show, it isn't perfect either.

Hi Randy ... Hi Tom ... Just a suggestion:
How about you two exchange e-mail addresses and take this offline?
That way the rest of us can get back to reading the topic that Roger commented on without having to scroll past the childishness as you try to be more clever than the other.

Some posters have already mentioned that the stories chosen by NPR are left leaning and I have to agree. I listen to NPR some, as much as anything else. I did really enjoy the short lived This American Life that was on showtime and can now be viewed on Netflix. Unfortunately, I seldom listen to recorded broadcasts or the radio on Saturday to pick up the weekly show.

Roger mentioned that fox news lies, and I totally agree. I think Glenn Beck is the king of this with his revised history lessons. Even when there is a lot of good in them, even the slightest crack in truth brings down the whole segment. I recently received a gun control propaganda email about the Tony Martin case in Britain. I had to read the real story to find out that Tony had shot a burglar in the back as he was attempting to flee as opposed to an attacker coming at him with a crowbar as the email implies.

The firing of Juan Williams has brought this recent spotlight on NPR. The glaring omission of Williams in this blog is an example of how NPR would spotlight a story. I would love to hear your views on Williams.

Now I read some entries until I got to:

Ebert: "It does seem to me that liberalism is more reality-based and conservatism more ideologically-based. Consider that conservatives want to encourage and extend the current catastrophic greed on Wall Street."

Is the liberal view not to support Fannie and Freddie with billions? Let the banks that were in part to blame continue? To tax all banks to provide a slush fund for bad banks that take too many risks? That the simple people are stupid and need to be protected from making poor decisions? And apparently you want to start a "War on Greed". You are painting conservatives with a broad ignorant brush. The same can be done in reverse. One could say the reality of liberalism is riots in Europe.

Mr. Ebert just like what you say with bad movies. It's not about getting rid of bad movies, it's more about building better audiences that will drive good cinema. This is what we need to do with our news. People should resist the temptation to click on news "snippets" and tune into the evening news every night. Don't be afraid to read Time with a dose of skeptism. (They need to fill an entire magazine every week!)

Ebert: Actually, I do listen to Howard Stern all the time on Sirius, in the car.

I know you do. Wouldn't Howard make a great blog entry in the likes you gave Hugh Hefner? Talk about a man getting people to mellow out about sex. I just think that whenever you mention radio, you have to mention the real king and innovator, and PBR as just a footnote.

ps

Have you ever discussed in detail when Howard hijacked your Tonight Show appearance with Gene? I understand what Howard was doing but he always says that you were mad at him after that appearance and I wonder if you just rolled with it or was truly offended.

Love your blogs and your insight. And I'm glad you're starting to like 3D a little, at least with the animated medium. Video games are art, Roger!!!!! :)

One of the greatest treasures NPR has to offer is David Edelstein's occasional Fresh Air review. As the only other movie critic I fully trust, when you and David disagree, I know it's a movie I need to check out!

There is no Left on the public airwaves or in Congress anymore. Sanders and Kucinich are about the only politicians I would consider liberal. The Right have managed to pull the center so far to the right over the last 30 years, that being a moderate centrist like Obama or Clinton is now considered liberal.

The best I can do is continue to register Green and continue to be disappointed by the ignorance and blind ideologists on the Right.

I know you do. Wouldn't Howard make a great blog entry in the likes you gave Hugh Hefner?

(I believe the point of the Hefner article was that Hugh had class, and could talk about other cultural subjects of conversation besides himself.)

I just think that whenever you mention radio, you have to mention the real king and innovator

Yeah, but how many times have we done the Orson Welles article? ;)

The Excellent Mr. Waters et. all:

“The problem is, without that sullying [government funding, if you don’t want to scroll the four virtual feet back up to my previous post], you have a service that's entirely dependent on ratings.”

Two things are popping into my notably jumbled head:

1) To quote the divine Dr. Johnson: “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

Jamie Oliver, in his noble quest to bestow upon America his wise and European ways of eating, stumbled upon a group of school-children who were foolishly eating pizza for breakfast at their cafeteria. And he fell to his knees and cried. Pizza! For breakfast! What fools the Americans be!

What he failed to fact-check was that this ignoble government-funded meal was a result of its noble government grant contract. If the children failed to eat, the cafeteria didn’t get paid. So they fed the sorry little souls what they would eat – pizza.

Now consider the alternative – no matter how many children showed up for breakfast the cafeteria would be paid in full and the children would be greeted with mounds of delightful fresh, local, organic fruits and a vat of nice warm fair trade, low-sugar, high-nutrient cereal.

That’s a lot of expensive compost.

So NPR shouldn’t be subject to ratings? But are your strawmanly feather’s ruffled when someone-that-definitely-isn’t-you-but-you’re-friends-with-well-more-acquaintances-really accidentally clicks onto a celebrity gossip site and discovers that that notoriously unemployed heiress spent six-hundred dollars on a two-person meal and she mostly only ate the salad? Outrageous! Wasteful! Cut her funding!

2) In order to ensure the continued support of one’s patron, one must be sure to promote one’s patron’s ends, and in this consumer-awareness-aware age, occasionally poke fun at them in an entirely insubstantial way to show that one knows that one’s listeners know that one knows that that one’s listener’s know that they have a patron.

A government funded media outlet has a patron – the government. Whether that government currently has a conservative or a liberal or an apathetic majority in power, that outlet is obliged to put a nice shine on government’s boots.

Not Republican, not Democrat, not Green, not Libertarian – just Government, in all its worshipful glory. The better able that Father who art the Government is to bless with sacred grants, the better – I, for one, would love to see Radio Lab do an episode on how un-biased and scientifically validly super-awesome it would be for everyone in America to give me five bucks.

I'm building a theory that this country goes a little nuts whenever its security is threatened. After the dark days of Japanese internment camps (Axis powers) and McCarthyism (Soviet Union), America was starting to become somewhat sane while everything was going swimmingly in the 90s. No threat of Nazis or commies, and my impression is that the discourse was largely civil and productive, if not downright progressive. The threat of terrorism has brought that undercurrent of craziness back to the fore, and I'm starting to think that it's an unfortunate and enduring part of our culture. I don't know, Roger - you've been around longer than me, do you think it's particularly crazy these days? Are we going down the tubes as a nation?

I believe that "confirmation bias" is the underlying issue in much of this discussion. To many of a conservative bent, Rush Limbaugh is witty and on target, Fox commentators are wise and neutral, and the WSJ editorial page is a fountain of truth. To those of a liberal bent, NPR, network news, and the NY Times are obviously impartial sources of news and Paul Krugman is a brilliant and reasonable guy.

I'm a right leaning centrist to say my bias. I tend to see and expect bias in all reporting of any issue with even the slightest political overtones. I believe that anyone who feels that an organization of individuals of homogeneous beliefs can cover all sides of an issue is fooling themselves. If basically all your reporters are liberals or all are conservatives, to expect it not to influence story content in some way is folly -- even if there in general is no explicit attempt to slant things. Expecting people to produce material that is truly neutral in their selection of which stories to cover, which quotes to use, how to frame the quotes, etc in the face of their own prejudices and world view is, well, unrealistic. Though for news stories one at least expects a good attempt at it...

And I think NPR had the right to fire Juan Williams, but it was unwise to do so, and cowardly to fire an employee of over 10 years over the phone without discussion. I thought it was a questionable choice, badly executed both from the PR standpoint and as a matter of respect due to a longtime employee. I'm an occasional listener to NPR, and like some of the shows. I've even contributed once or twice to WBUR, my local station. But I see no rational case for government to continue funding it at all.

Sitting here listening to "Ideas in the Afternoon"on CBC radio.I am not sure how liberal CBC is,that word has a differant connotation in Canada,"Ideas" is about bag pipes today so would that be liberal or conservative?
My evening listening includes "As It Happens" which has in its history the glorious Barbara Frum,mother to David of axis of evil fame.
It would seem that Americans are more concerned about labeling than actually listening.The great society that was so open and welcoming has cetainly changed in recent years.
Anywhoo it certainly is entertaining reading the back and forth,its a bit sad but entertaining.

OK, this is going to be about the actual subject of the original essay.

Maybe.

You see, I almost never listen to radio any more.
I don't have satellite radio, so that's alien territory to me.
(And anyway, based on his appearances elsewhere, I don't care for Howard Stern.
Or Don Imus.
Or Rosie O'Donnell.)

When I do turn the radio on, it's WGN - or what's left of it (I hear that now that the Transformers have left, there might be some changes for the better; here's hoping).

As for NPR - never hear it (not even Keillor, who I actually find kind of a bore), and so cannot comment on its biases or agendas.

I made my comments yesterday at the KMart internet cafe, where the font is microscopic, and so I didn't see Randy Masters's wholly unsurprising tirades until today.

Really, is anyone surprised that Randy still lives in his 2-D, either-or world?

According to Randy, there are no moderates:
if you're not Right (and therefore Right), you must be Left (and therefore Wrong).

Having spent my whole adult life in the political rundown - caught between bases (and trying not to get beaned by the thrown ball) - the one thing I've learned is sales resistance.
I've heard all the cliches, all the slogans, all the nostrums - all the substitutes for thought.
What i never hear is how to actually solve the problems.
I now know that I never will.
Everybody cares more about getting heard (usually at the other guy's exclusion) than about making sense.

Randy's use of Fox News as an example of balance is worth looking at more closely.
- I'll start with Glenn Beck.
On-air, he's an engaging personality, far more so than anyone else on Fox: more truly humorous than just about any other commenter on any cabloid outfit.
Which makes for quite a disconnect with the apocalyptic tale he's spinning.
The blackboards and whiteboards and felt boards, all packed with names and faces and accusations, which Beck takes willy-nilly and synthesizes into Leftist Armageddon most nights like a libertarian Verbal Kint.
But other times Uncle Glenn goes into his Frank Capra Mode to celebrate What's Good About The USA And The People - the John Does, as it were.
Interesting that Meet John Doe is the one Capra film that seems to be ignored lately - at a time when its message is more relevant than ever.
I wonder if Glenn Beck ever saw Meet John Doe.
What would he make of it?
Which character would he identify with?
This is the picture where Capra (lifelong Republican) and his screenwriter Robert Riskin (lifelong Democrat) wrote themselves into a corner and were unable to devise a satisfactory ending - the one they finally used was the fifth one they filmed, and they still weren't satisfied.
Maybe Glenn Beck would know ... or would he?
Or maybe Roger ought to write a Great Movies essay about it.*hint hint hint*

- Keith Olbermann notwithstanding, Bill O'Reilly is the real-life Lonesome Rhodes figure at FoxNews.
That's the Andy Griffith character from A Face In The Crowd, another neglected film in need of a new look in today's context.
*another hint hint hint, Roger...*
Randy is right strictly on the face of it when he says that O'Reilly isn't hardline Rightwing.He's not, and never has been.
What he is, is a runaway egomaniac.
He never lets us - or,I imagine, his bosses at Fox - forget for a second that he made FoxNews #1 for more than a decade, or that he and he alone keeps FoxNews #1.
You have to go back to Arthur Godfrey's glory days at CBS back in the '50s to find stories of unchecked ego to match Big Bill.
His reaction to Ted Koppel's op-ed is more than typical.
Although his name was mentioned only once,in passing at that, O'Reilly blew sky-high, as if the whole column was a personal attack on him (never mind that Koppel's main target was his sworn enemy Olbermann).
Billo demande that Koppel prove that he had lied - even though Koppel had at no time accused him of that.(Or Olbermann either - his point was that cabloid commenters on both sides skewed facts to their agendas).
This was no different than O'Reilly's fatwa against Dick Wolf for having a character (a villain, at that) on Law & Order: SVU refer to him (again, in passing) with other loud media types. The ego at work, again; O'Reilly was the first and he's still the biggest, but he wants to be the only - and that's just not so any more.

- That brings us to Sean Hannity - the Counterfeit Patriot.
Hannity is all about the externals - the outward signs of patriotism as opposed to the actual deeds involved.
One anecdote will serve to illustrate:
In Superman Returns, Frank Langella, as Perry White, does a brief comic riff on one of the old Superman catch phrases, to wit:
"Truth, justice - all that stuff?"
On-air, Hannity reacted as if the flag had been burned in his presence.
Suddenly, the citizenship of Hollywood generally, and of Warner Bros and DC Comics was called into question:
HOW DARE THEY?
This was about a tagline devised for the old radio serial by the Leo Burnett ad agency, on behalf of Kellogg's Pep cereal.
I wonder if Hannity knows about a graphic novel from 2003 called Superman:Red Son. It's an "alternate history story" in which the infant Kal-el's spaceship lands not in Kansas, but in the Russian steppes: he grows up to be the Superhero of the Soviet Union.
Just hearing about it might send old Sean into hyperventilation.
This is one example, the most egregious.
I'm sure others can be supplied.

This is all too much for one day, so I'm going to lunch.

@Bill Hays: You are an ignorant and hateful man, plain and simple. And that's all I have to say about you.

NPR is a breath of fresh air, in my opinion. You only need to listen to it once to realize that these are REAL news stories. These are REAL people. They're intelligent, informative, occasionally witty. These people care about the news.

Then you turn on Fox News. Glenn Beck. Ugh. He doesn't care about people, or the news. He may be intelligent, but he's squandering it with pointless scare tactics. All this man cares about is ratings.

I say these things as a person with no poliical affiliation. So people can say that NPR has a liberal bias, or that Fox News has a conservative bias, and it doesn't make a difference to me. Because at the end of the day, I'd rather be thought of as a liberal and listen to NPR, than have to put up with more of Beck's nonsense.

Hi JMW.

Sorry that I am frustrating you with oversimplification. :)

On one hand, I do make concise argume