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National Propaganda Radio
I’d like to riff on something JP posted in my comments and on his site, about a clip he heard on NPR:
this guy on npr yesterday was saying how we need to ‘protect the borders by any means necessary,’ including building a giant wall along the whole thing. he came across as this deep-voiced he-man patriot, but you could really feel how afraid he was.
Now I know NPR is often seen as a liberal bastion, and that tons of people love it. But the last few times I’ve listened to it - well, I don’t know what to say. It sounded as full of hogwash as the rest of the mainstream media. Does anybody else feel this way, or am I all alone on this one?
Honestly, I don’t listen to it enough to really be able to back any of this up with cold hard facts or concrete examples. But I guess the sense I got from it the last couple times I heard it was that - sure, it leans toward progressive. But only in such a way that keeps you firmly enmeshed within the system. You could call this a lot of things. Some might call it common sense. Others might call it propaganda. What do you call it? What are your thoughts on NPR as a whole? I’d especially like to hear from people who have a great deal more exposure to it than me as well.
To give a little context, I was also in a bar recently and the Discovery Channel was on. Maybe I’m just 100% jaded at this point, but even that seemed like propaganda cleverly packaged as entertainment. The sound was off so it was easier to see the images for what they were: endless explosions, cheap manipulation, inaccurate images of science, and copious commercials for futuristic military weaponry. Have you ever watched television in another country? It’s a strange experience, because the subtle cues and things you take for granted about tv are totally changed. That’s sort of how I felt watching Discovery. I felt like I was visiting a strange foreign land where things were far more screwed up than they are in the place I spend my time. (Wherever that may be)
May 16th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
NPR is one of the few decent news sources we have left. And I mean “left.” Of course, we should scrutinize every source we obtain information from and recognize that both sides spin information in their benefit. If you don’t believe me listen to Air America and see how the left spins any and all information just as the righty talkers like Rush and Hannity do. I will, however, hopefully calms some of your fears. You see, NPR does have mulitple sides comment on each topic, which is no doubt what you’ve heard the last few times you listened in. For example, last night right after Bush’s speech they had commentary from both sides including the Minute Men. So, there you have it. Just keep listening and asking questions. Cheers.
May 16th, 2006 at 1:07 pm
People should see the movie Manufacturing Consent. Talk about how the media spreads its propaganda!
It has often been noted on Daily Kos how NPR was becoming more conservative or doing a poor job of journalism and putting things in proper context.
The right hates PBS and NPR and they seeked to change it. Jeff CHester said
http://www.democraticmedia.org/news/CPBpr3.html
Chester also filed a FOIA to see
May 16th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
MJ: What I heard was not two people debating the sides of an issue. It was a simple news report, but deeply slanted with hidden biases.
Second of all, I don’t consider myself on the “left.” I think that’s a false dichotomy designed to keep people in a dualistic system. Which is exactly my point about NPR. Even if they do have people from “both sides” of an issue, the simple fact is that there are always more than two sides. Or three sides. Or four. It’s fine to look at all the sides, and definitely necessary for critical understanding of anything. But what I find personally lacking in what I’ve heard recently is any attempt to actually question the issue itself. Why is such and such an issue? Who’s making it be one? What are we doing by engaging in a debate that highlights “sides”?
It feels to me like by looking at sides of the debate, we end up watching the players on the field and rooting for one particular team, or even just enjoying the sport of it. But we’re never asking why we were all brought together to the field to begin with and why the cost of admission was so high.
Also, look at who is funding NPR. One of the advertised financiers while I was listening to it was Wal-Mart. What kind of pressure do you think that puts on NPR to frame an issue in a certain way to encourage a particular type of dialogue?
May 16th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
I love NPR. I’ve been listening to it actively for almost two years now. News-wise, I would also call it “progressive,” a term that I personally don’t totally equate with “left” or “liberal.” I think they do a good job presenting both sides of an argument… and even if they don’t, they still don’t report in a righteous way (like Limbaugh, etc).
What I love about NPR most is their website’s archives (@ npr.org). You can listen to most any show going back years and years. At this point I’ve downloaded hours and hours of streams from them. Listening to interviews and conversations with authors/scholars like Elaine Pagels, Karen Armstrong, Wade Davis, and Bart Erhman were largely responsible for getting me into all things gnostic (and eventually this site). Just a small example of what they’ve done for me. NPR is at the top of the list of places I would give money to.
May 16th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
NPRs cultural, scientific and human-interest stuff is still pretty good, but IMO their political coverage has become just about as shallow and credulous as FOX, turned down 30 decibels. Just another bunch of stenographers repeating whatever they’re told.
May 16th, 2006 at 1:36 pm
Aaaaahhhhh…. Tim, you get it!
There is an acceptable discourse that is defined by the right and left. (Interestingly, both flanks are slowly moving to the “right”, to the extent that “right” is a meaningful concept: racism becomes more acceptable as it becomes less acceptable to question the primacy of “profit” over all other values).
In my social life (personal as well as professional) I rarely leave this territory, since you are bound to be punished if you do otherwise (assigned the label of “crazy” or “crackpot” and summarily dismissed). However, I find that if you can ask the right questions within the bounds of acceptable discourse, people will find that they have no answer and will receive a brief illumination that the bounds are arbitrary and do not define the limits of reality. This is usually ignored, but for some it may lead to further questioning. I’ve used this technique with my partner and he’s slowly come to accept some ideas that lie outside the boundaries (sometimes surprising me now with observations that I’ve overlooked!)
May 16th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
I listen to NPR a lot, but really, it is pretty light fare. It’s watered-down and palatable. Real news has moved online.
I like Marketplace. But, the coverage of the NSA scandal was appallingly light on facts, and entirely skirted the issue of exactly why the administration thinks it is legal (c.f. John Yoo)
“Administration lawyers defended the program, saying it is legal.”
That’s giving both sides, in their view. If you want to know what’s really going on re: the spying, you have to read Glenn Greenwald’s blog or something.
May 16th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
NPR is moving squarely to the right. I’m totally w/slomo on this one. NPR is just part of the acceptable discourse, which is, some lip service to social justice causes, but no real radical thinking. One of the reasons Tavis Smiley left NPR is because he thought NPR was far too conservative, especially with their attempts a (or, lack of) diversifying and broadening (aka “coloring”) their audience base. As for the info, it’s watered down indeed. Every so often they do have cool things regarding the enviornment. That’s one of the last things that identify them as “left.” But in order to be “taken seriously,” they play the game of centre politics, which basically means “conservative.”
May 16th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
I should have put “right” in quotes also. All of these labels are ridiculous, but what can you do? People classify. So, IMO, the “mainsteam” US is essentially a very conservative society. And NPR is part of that “mainstream,” alas.
May 16th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
Re: the Discovery Channel
I’m right there with ya, Tim. I noticed a definite change in timbre 2-3 years ago. It was about the time “The Learning Channel” became a nonstop barrage of babies, life in the er, home and body makeover shows.
It’s especially creepy that this “enterganda” was not even something I was looking for - jaded or not. I just used to enjoy those two channels alot and noticed something was different. I puzzled over the change trying to figure out what was different. I don’t watch much TV but I am of the modern TV generation.
When I finallly pinned it down to a form of propoganda taking up several hours of airtime I was decidedly freaked out. Oh, don’t get me wrong it’s subtle and not every show - in fact there are a couple of good shows still on the Discovery Channel but there is a perceptible slant to several shows on several networks.
A whimper, not a bang.
May 16th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
Discovery has this cool show Hauntings- some very creepy episodes based on real life haunted houses. But I have to say National Geographic Channel has very good programming- such as the Gospel of Judas recently- very interesting stuff. They also show nature programs. Holy crap I did not realize how savage and brutal life could be for cute lil’ animals minding their own business.
May 16th, 2006 at 3:41 pm
I listen to NPR mroe now because my commute is longer and I have to say thank god for them and Fox. since NPR leans so far to the left and Fox so far to the right only their combined bias keeps the earth balanced on its axis. for instance, NPR really really romanticizes poverty and poor people: their music, their language, their stories. it’s so stupid. clearly no one at NPR was ever really poor. none of them grew up in poverty. Otherwise they’d know it sucks. and makes you angry and tired and scared. Poor people are not ‘adorable’ they are traumatized by the violence of living an oppressive life that makes crime seem optional. They are not all good people - or better than you. They are angry and sad and scared and tired. Not exactly full of love and life. Healing from poverty is as traumatic as recovering from physical violence. NPR is so elitist I sometimes scream at them like I do Fox news.
May 16th, 2006 at 3:51 pm
I meant to also comment on Discovery channel. but was so caught up in my rant, I forgot. What’s most disturbing to me about the Discovery and History channels, et al is their lack of accuracy. They often report popular ideas as facts. no, I can’t think of an example now.
oh wait! the ‘documentary’ on I think it was the Biography channel about the Marquis de Sade. It was so full of factual errors I couldn’t believe it. For example, they presented his motivation for his writings as sexual deviancy (that sells I guess) when in fact he was overtly political and spoke out quite loudly against the ruling class. His writings helped to fuel the French Revolution. that wasn’t in the biography at all. Portraying him as a pervert is way ’sexier’ than a political protestor.
it’s all entertainment. I have to remember that whether I listen to Rush LImbaugh, Sean hannity or NPR or Discovery Channel. It’s all ultimately about selling us something. like products. more so than agendas.
May 16th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
Welcome to samsara, and the truth about existence on this plane, for all biological organisms …..
May 16th, 2006 at 5:37 pm
Last year I blogged about what Eric Hoffer calls the Inert Coagulum. The “mainstream” is always conservative. They are two sigma of the population, they’re surrounded by people who are almost exactly like they are, and they want life to remain as it is.
Actually, I noticed network news leaning more Republican 15 years ago. Why? Because the mainstream was. The phraseology changes and the party in power changes, but the majority is mainstream and they’ve got the votes to get the government they want.
I have a friend who’s an editor at a big newspaper. He and his wife joke that they’re the only Democrats left in the state That was 10 years ago. Now they live in suburbia, moved to get into a “better” school district because the minorities in their old neighborhood weren’t involved enough in the school. They enroll their kids in every class that will give them upward mobility, etc.. In final analysis, they want what most everyone else wants. And when they get close to it, they fight to keep it. They tease my wife and I of being Republican because they see us as corporate management types. But we’re more radical than they are. And we never vote for parties. We’re homeschooling from a classic “trivium” approach because the public schools were turning our kids into cookie cutter automatons, and they’ve bought into the system—big time. Who’s liberal?
The Democrat party was mainstream in the middle of the 20th century. They were conservative while in power and trying to hold onto it. Talk is cheap. The so-called Reagan Democrats of the 1980s are today’s Evangelical Republicans. They’re just mainstream. Always were. Reagan was smart enough to know that the Dems had forgotten their base. So he moved the party. Notice how Reagan spent loads of money on pork and retiree entitlements? Clinton balanced the budget (well kinda, there’s still the elephant in the room: Social Security trust fund listed as mainline item so it makes the deficit look smaller).
The Republican party is most progressive. What about the sweeping changes that Newt and the Radical Republicans pushed through. Just because they’re called “Family Values” or some other nonsense, doesn’t mean that they’re conservative relative to the status quo.
Tim’s right. The whole scheme is just dualistic, us-against-them, choose us or go to hell. Notice how the national parties always seem to get richer when there’s a “campaign reform” trick pulled.
May 16th, 2006 at 9:16 pm
I don’t listen to NPR as much as I used to, but I trust them to be genuinely “fair and balanced.” They do a good job of presenting both sides of the issues they cover, but I don’t feel they lean left. Conservatives regard it as left leaning because they don’t actually want to be made to think or exercise their non-existent intellectual curiosity… The same problem they have with public broadcasting in general.
I’m still grateful to NPR for their calm and rational coverage on 9/11.
May 17th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
Jill,
Here’s an example on the History Channel: This “documentary” on the “Bible Code” that they keep rerunning. It even had a little neocon propaganda mixed in, saying that the Bible “proved” that Saddam had moved his WMDs to Syria in order to foil our noble commander in chief. This has been on within the last year!