Trump - Going Forward

[mjbabcock]

I think Cohen was right when he said Trump is going to start a subscription "news" service. $5 a month times however many dummies are willing to pay is a lot of money.

Yup. Glen Beck and Bill ORiley have proof of concept...my FIL sends in money regularly.

[Too Tall]

Yup. Glen Beck and Bill ORiley have proof of concept...my FIL sends in money regularly.

Pat Robertson. Just sayin'

[j44ke]

yup. Glen beck and bill oriley have proof of concept...my fil sends in money regularly.

pat robertson. Just sayin'

npr/pbs...

[Saab2000]

npr/pbs...

Touché. But smart point.

I consume less NPR than I used to over the air but do listen to some podcasts, including Fresh Air. Terri Gross often has interesting guests and interview subjects but her lack of objectivity and her very liberal bias is uncloaked.

As it happens, I generally agree with her and stand close ideologically in many areas but yeah, NPR can’t really be seen as totally objective all the time.

She’s not a reporter or anchor of course, but she’s a prominent personality on NPR like the ones above used to be on other media sources.

[j44ke]

Touché. But smart point.

I consume less NPR than I used to over the air but do listen to some podcasts, including Fresh Air. Terri Gross often has interesting guests and interview subjects but her lack of objectivity and her very liberal bias is uncloaked.

As it happens, I generally agree with her and stand close ideologically in many areas but yeah, NPR can’t really be seen as totally objective all the time.

She’s not a reporter or anchor of course, but she’s a prominent personality on NPR like the ones above used to be on other media sources.

Jesse Helms took public broadcasting and made it raise funds with all of Lawrence Welk's greatest hits. Ah one an ah two an ah...

I kid. Some of the best news reporting in the country is by NPR/PBS. As a friend who worked for Sen. Murkowski used to say "Republicans talk on Fox and listen to NPR."

[Saab2000]

I kid. Some of the best news reporting in the country is by NPR/PBS.

No argument here. I love NPR, especially at the national level. But the local Chicago affiliate is almost unlistenable, to me at least. The quality of NPR stations varies widely, and is dependent on a number of local factors, especially the editorial bent of local leadership.

I’ve been a regular listener in Virginia, Michigan and Minnesota. They were all excellent. I don’t live within the city limits of Chicago and it seems like much of their programming is focused on issues that exist solely within those borders or Cook County and to my ears aren’t presented very well.

Michigan Public Radio was excellent during the years I lived there and I think tried hard to produce quality local content. Same in Minnesota.

[monadnocky]

Touché. But smart point.

I consume less NPR than I used to over the air but do listen to some podcasts, including Fresh Air. Terri Gross often has interesting guests and interview subjects but her lack of objectivity and her very liberal bias is uncloaked.

As it happens, I generally agree with her and stand close ideologically in many areas but yeah, NPR can’t really be seen as totally objective all the time.

She’s not a reporter or anchor of course, but she’s a prominent personality on NPR like the ones above used to be on other media sources.

Plus, I find her to be a poor interviewer. People in my field, who rely on interviewing skills as one of the most important facets of our work, find her cringeworthy. Way too much personal bias coming through.
Best public figure interviewer I've ever heard? Howard Stern. Don't laugh. He's really, really good at bringing people out - a total natural.
(FWIW, I've never listened to him outside of some snippets of interviewing and I'm not, in the least, a fan).

[jclay]

When the news organizations became 'for profit', it was the end. We just didn't realize it. D

It was the 1987 repeal of the fairness doctrine of 1949 that killed objective and reasonably balanced news; and actually it wasn't that it killed it per se, you can still find that easily, it's that the repeal made it possible for organs like Fox and other irresponsible broadcast demagogues to not only exist but thrive. Never bet against unbridled, base human emotions. And now, with the interweb's unfiltered, mainlining mouthpieces for any and every wingnut....well, I think we're probably screwed.

As it happens, I generally agree with her and stand close ideologically in many areas but yeah, NPR can’t really be seen as totally objective all the time.

That's interesting. What I hear all too frequently are interviews, by many interviewers, where on the cusp of exposing a guest's hypocrisy, demagoguery, shading the truth or outright lies, they back off; invariably that happens when interviewing social/political conservatives; you know, the politicians who were waxing admiringly about John Lewis after his death, but who ideologically (at the very least) would have been "backing the blue" when he was being beaten, and would have been violently opposing the civil rights movement. And then, and I wish I could think of an example right now but it happens regularly, they flirt with false equivalences in asking questions of folks who challenge those same social/political conservatives.

Liberal bias? What do you mean, and is liberal bias a bad thing? By way of example: Naked voter disenfranchisement is the province of social conservatives; opposing that is, by definition, liberal, or from my perspective, progressive. Don't we, at least what I consider to be well meaning people, want social progress? Don't we want to rectify past wrongs? Doesn't that require that we lean into, promote, or frame positively, progressivism? Or do we say, gee, we don't want to be liberally biased so we'll just keep our mouths shut about making black folks use different toilet facilities, swimming pools, lunch counters, etc? I know that you don't hold those types of opinions but your "liberal bias" remark sounded a tad disparaging.

I'm progressively biased, big time. That doesn't mean that I, or others similarly disposed, are ignorant or unconcerned with the plight of social conservatives who's economic horizons have been getting ravaged for the past four or five decades; quite the opposite actually. I want improvement, across the board. We're not finished evolving socially, politically, economically, or in any other way....at least I hope not. I want the smart folks to push progressivism because the alternative is ugly and destructive. That said, I understand that excessively rapid changes, particularly cultural, can be destabilizing so in an ideal world we'd adjust the power levers and course corrections accordingly, but with the clear intent of progress.

I think I'll leave it there, particularly since 45 minutes ago I decided I not to address any of this.

Have a good evening, all.

[nick k]

I just want to chime in and ask us to be careful about casting a very wide net around NEWS and OTHER CONTENT on media outlets like NPR, etc. Terri Gross is not a journalist, nor does she host a news program. She hosts a general/cultural interest interview show that is not NEWS. Whatever her personal biases, they are hers and it's her show. The news divisions of national NPR, or of their affiliates like WHYY, who happen to produce Fresh Air for syndication, are held to journalistic standards in their publishing and broadcast. I actually found the Howard Stern example to be really on point. When he was on WNBC in NY in the 80s, nobody would conflate his show with the news division at NBC. If they did, it would be the same mistake as judging Gross or frankly any newspaper's or broadcast media's opinion and editorial outlets by the same standards as their news divisions. None of these personalities may be to your tastes, or conduct interviews by the standards of news-gatherers. But that doesn't implicate NPR, WHYY, the WSJ or the NYTimes, etc. with journalistic bias on the basis of their cultural-interest non-news programming. Yeah, it's nuanced, but actually not really.

[Saab2000]

That's interesting. What I hear all too frequently are interviews, by many interviewers, where on the cusp of exposing a guest's hypocrisy, demagoguery, shading the truth or outright lies, they back off; invariably that happens when interviewing social/political conservatives; you know, the politicians who were waxing admiringly about John Lewis after his death, but who ideologically (at the very least) would have been "backing the blue" when he was being beaten, and would have been violently opposing the civil rights movement. And then, and I wish I could think of an example right now but it happens regularly, they flirt with false equivalences in asking questions of folks who challenge those same social/political conservatives.

Liberal bias? What do you mean, and is liberal bias a bad thing? By way of example: Naked voter disenfranchisement is the province of social conservatives; opposing that is, by definition, liberal, or from my perspective, progressive. Don't we, at least what I consider to be well meaning people, want social progress? Don't we want to rectify past wrongs? Doesn't that require that we lean into, promote, or frame positively, progressivism? Or do we say, gee, we don't want to be liberally biased so we'll just keep our mouths shut about making black folks use different toilet facilities, swimming pools, lunch counters, etc? I know that you don't hold those types of opinions but your "liberal bias" remark sounded a tad disparaging.

I'm progressively biased, big time. That doesn't mean that I, or others similarly disposed, are ignorant or unconcerned with the plight of social conservatives who's economic horizons have been getting ravaged for the past four or five decades; quite the opposite actually. I want improvement, across the board. We're not finished evolving socially, politically, economically, or in any other way....at least I hope not. I want the smart folks to push progressivism because the alternative is ugly and destructive. That said, I understand that excessively rapid changes, particularly cultural, can be destabilizing so in an ideal world we'd adjust the power levers and course corrections accordingly, but with the clear intent of progress.

I think I'll leave it there, particularly since 45 minutes ago I decided I not to address any of this.

Have a good evening, all.

I am also progressively biased in most (though not all) ways these days. But I don't want my news media telling me what to think though there is clearly a place for editorial commentary. But even that can be intelligent and intellectually challenging rather than just junk food for the simple minded, like Fox News.

I use Terri Gross as an example, but in her defense, she's not a reporter or anchor. She's not really even a commentator. She does interviews and some have no bearing on politics or issues, they're just entertaining interviews of people I find interesting in the world of pop culture like an actor or musician.

I don't want my news to be biased in any direction. I want intelligent reporting and I do find this from many NPR reporters. An example would be Nina Totengburg. I find her reporting on the Supreme Court to be intelligent and in depth, far better than the ultra biased garbage you'll find on Fox or MSNBC. Of course I like NPR. But I also listen to EVERYTHING today with more critical ears.

[Scott G.]

The traditional burning of the papers, before the regime change.

[sine]

Liberal bias? What do you mean, and is liberal bias a bad thing? By way of example: Naked voter disenfranchisement is the province of social conservatives; opposing that is, by definition, liberal, or from my perspective, progressive. Don't we, at least what I consider to be well meaning people, want social progress? Don't we want to rectify past wrongs? Doesn't that require that we lean into, promote, or frame positively, progressivism? Or do we say, gee, we don't want to be liberally biased so we'll just keep our mouths shut about making black folks use different toilet facilities, swimming pools, lunch counters, etc? I know that you don't hold those types of opinions but your "liberal bias" remark sounded a tad disparaging.

First, Yellow Journalism. Goes back 125 years ago. Endless examples generations prior. Agreed, the internet presents massive challenges.

If you have to ask if liberal bias is a bad thing. Really. Journalists should be presenting facts, balanced facts. Not selected. Read the NYT (poster child of systemic problems), Washington Post, etc. Then read the WSJ - coverage on the same subject. Maybe somewhere in the middle lies the truth.

Finally, do not confuse media bias with social progress.

[j44ke]

The goal of progressive pluralism was - by definition - never to turn everyone into liberals. The goal was to get people to think for themselves. I say “was”, because I think that’s been lost in the comprehensive embrace of “bias” as an acceptable weapon to bludgeon people into “our” way of thinking. We’ve gotten lodged in the wedge shaped space of relativism, and the way our news reporting industry has been allowed to evolve keeps everyone tamped firmly down in place.

[ides1056]

Truly independent thinkers are few and far between.

NPR frames a "liberal" viewpoint. Koch industries became an underwriter a few years back...

[Clean39T]

Truly independent thinkers are few and far between.

NPR frames a "liberal" viewpoint. Koch industries became an underwriter a few years back...

A nice benign center-left "liberal" viewpoint that seldom challenges the status-quo.

I do love their Tiny-Desk concerts though :)

[theflashunc]

The opining for the "good ol' days" of news media is actually calling back to a time that really was an aberration in media's history. As others pointed out, the Fairness Doctrine paired with the conjunction of a wildly profitable news industry, FCC licensing for broadcast outlets, and as a political/professional climate that respected some basic norms, created a universe where you could get largely centrist, run of the mill reporting and writing. The fringes on the political spectrum could never generate the kinds of revenue and access to things like broadcast licensing to really polarize or radicalize an audience.

The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine and changes in news economics have upended all of it, and we've returned more to an era like the early 19th century before the advent of the penny press.It's become more expensive, and as a result it caters to very specific, hyper niche audiences where you can build sizable audiences feeding them outright lies and misinformation. This is not a new phenomena. You only need to look at the Presidential Election of 1800 to see partisan news outlets spreading wild lies about both Jefferson and Adams in a truly ugly race.

So yeah, to turn down the temperature there needs to be some shift in the economics of how news is made, but there does need to be some serious policy soul searching about things like licensing of cable channels, reinstitutions of the Fairness Doctrine and (much as it pains me to admit given this is President's Trump's latest screeching) social media's blanket immunity for content distribution.

Until some of those dynamics change, we have early 19th century partisan papers that happen to be able to broadcast lies 24 hours a day, and distribution their disinformation to national and global audiences.

[bironi]

Truly independent thinkers are few and far between.

NPR frames a "liberal" viewpoint. Koch industries became an underwriter a few years back...

No, that was quite a few years back.
NPR has been sliding since.
That big donation from the Mc Donald (Big Mac) family never really paid off, did it?

[bironi]

A nice benign center-left "liberal" viewpoint that seldom challenges the status-quo.

I do love their Tiny-Desk concerts though :)

Me too on the Tiny Desk.
Big fan.
And Bob Boilen is a guy that will answer your input.
And that is rare.
By

[Saab2000]

No, that was quite a few years back.
NPR has been sliding since.
That big donation from the Mc Donald (Big Mac) family never really paid off, did it?

Are you referring to the donation by Joan Kroc? I suspect it has paid off in droves. It was a large sum. I don't know if she attached editorial strings to her generosity.

Here's a small story about it. A quick search will find many articles about story.

https://current.org/2016/11/the-pub-...it_nosession=1

[Jimbolina]

https://www.salon.com/2020/12/30/bio...al-in-history/