...without calling attention to his seriously "divided (that is, 'compromised') loyalties."Yes, I mean his seemingly permanent, unapologetic, probably profitable--but never audibly acknowledged, on NPR, at any rate--connection with Roger Ailes/Rupert Murdoch's Fox News machine. His connections--not to say his 'loyalties'--to Fox are salient when evaluating his NPT reportage, especially given Fox's proud, recent declaration that Fox News is the 'unofficial' voice of the anti-Obama opposition.
Even though NPR has badly betrayed its origins and roots (remember when Michael Harrington, head of Democratic Socialists of America, had a regular weekly slot on ME?), the network does still pose as the paragon of objectivity, fairness, and balance (when it can get over its own clever cuteness--remember, you cannot spell REPUBLICAN without N P R), which standard is plainly repudiated when the other (conflicting?) interests of it on-air personalities are elided by the NPR management, and camouflaged by glossing--when they do not completely ignore-- salient facts about those personalities and the perspectives they 'represent.'.
Here is the message I sent to the NPR Ombudsone yesterday, after Williams was introduced to announce Cokie Roberts' usual Monday cover-ups:
I believe that your 'senior correspondent' Juan Williams should be identified to your listeners as a member of the Fox News commentariat anytime he is introduced as a commentator on NPR. I suggest something like the following: "Now here's Juan Williams, NPR Senior Correspondent, and frequent contributor to such Fox programs as Bill O'Reilly's "No-Spin Zone."Recently, NPR begged Fox NOT to announce Williams' affiliation with NPR on the Fox Network shows on which he appears, to which pleas Fox complied, though on their 'talent' page for Williams, the Fox bio includes--indeed, it highlights, proudly--Williams' work for NPR.
I am pretty certain most NPR listeners are aware of Williams' connection (at the wallet) with Ailes and Murdoch. But to announce it regularly might lend that aura of 'truthiness' to your own programming.
In the CorpoRat State, corpoRat media are State Media...
4 comments:
NPR is suspect to me now. When they do news programs anymore there is always several representatives from the right and the monied, like AIE or The Wall Street Journal for example. I rarely hear the left's perspective let alone the fabled middle.
Leave Juan Williams Alone!!!
As one who met Michael Harrington when I was active in DSA in my Socialist period I miss his presence in the US body politic. However, NPR despite the comments above remains center-left overall and journalistic ethics require that rightists like those at the AEI think tank get interviewed along with liberals from Brookings or radicals from IPS.
You want radical leftist, ahem, "progressive, " radio? feel free to be bored by listening to Pacifica Radio with a few thousand other ultras. The rest of us prefer NPR.
Julius I don't know what color the sky is where you live, but here wehre it's blue alot, to imagine that there is as much (or ANY) "left" perspective on NPR as there is "right/CorpoRat" (used interchangeably as faras I'm concerned) is risible...
I never met Harrington. I read every word I could find. Is there anyone on NPR, regularly, who bears the imprimatur of the brand, who can be even remotely said to speak for the same interests as Harrington did?
Name ONE.
Chomsky? Vidal? Van Jones? Ehrenreich? You can count on one hand the number of times ANY of their voices has been heard, either on ME or ATC...
As for Pacifica, I don't listen to the news to be entertained. Give me Amy at her occasional most stridently leading worst ANYTIME over the glutinous spiel of Mare Laisson...
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