Public Discourse - Does it seem like liberals' idea of public discourse becomes more and more like Soviet Russia every day?

NPR doesn't like conservatives turning the table so it will stop doing live interviews of conservatives.

Next, liberals will insist on having presidential debates moderated by partisan hacks who have fed questions to their favorite, corrupt, inevitable politician.

//`National Public Radio ombudsman/public editor Elizabeth Jensen has recommended that the taxpayer-funded radio news service bar future live interviews of conservatives who may have controversial views, following an interview Nov. 16 with Breitbart News’ Joel B. Pollak.
Pollak, who serves as Breitbart’s Senior Editor-at-Large and In-house Counsel, defended its Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon from false and defamatory claims of antisemitism and “white nationalism.” He also turned the tables, pointing out that NPR has “racist programming,” including a story that called the 2016 election results “nostalgia for a whiter America.”

NPR listeners were apparently outraged that anyone from Breitbart News had been given an opportunity to defend the website and its chairman.

In her response, “Listeners: Two Recent Interviews Are ‘Normalizing Hate Speech’,” Jensen concluded that the live format had allowed Pollak to get the better of host Steve Inskeep.

She suggested that future interviews be taped: “In addition, in my opinion, these interviews should not be done live. Inskeep is an excellent live interviewer, but live interviews are difficult, especially when there is limited time. A little contextualizing never hurts.”

Jensen went on to argue that “contextualizing” had worked for a similar interview with former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, as well as for an interview Nov. 17 with white nationalist Richard Spencer. (Pollak responded to the latter interview in an article Nov. 18 rejecting NPR’s attempt to link Bannon and Breitbart with white nationalism.)

Notably, Jensen’s recommendation mirrors the language of a critique by the left-wing pressure group Media Matters, which complained that “the interview failed to contextualize the true extent of Breitbart’s extremism under Bannon’s leadership.”//

"AIDS Activists Teach Inner City Kids to Love Shakespeare."

NPR parodies itself.

Or according to Mickey Kaus:

The Perfect NPR Story.

Is there a place on earth that hasn’t used rap music to assert its long-suppressed cultural identity? NPR has not found that place. Just in the last two days we’ve had the Crow Nation and the Taiwanese. Previously: “A New Beat Gives Young Mongolia a Voice, Identity” and “Rapping About Land and Identity” (Palestinians). Don’t forget the Somalis. And “The Rap Songs of Arab Spring.” If “All Things Considered” can’t kill hip hop, I guess nothing can.

But we just have to have public funding for NPR or we will lose this valuable content forever!

If you haven't had this reaction while listening to NPR...

...then you are hopelessly brain dead.

Reason on David Mamet's conversion:

The Secret Knowledge grew out of a bridge-burning 2008 essay that Mamet wrote for the left-wing Village Voice. In it, the Pulitzer-winning playwright boldly walked back his own life-long leftism and described the clinching moment in his political journey as having occurred while he was driving in a car with his wife: “We were riding along and listening to NPR. I felt my facial muscles tightening, and the words beginning to form in my mind: Shut the fuck up.”

My experience came in the late '80s after being forced to listen to one too many of the "human interest" stories that NPR played during the "morning rush" with subjects like "Aids activists teach Shakespeare to inner city children."  There just came a point when threading the politically correct cliches in order to listen to the biased news just wasn't worth it anymore.

 This is interesting in that it links Mamet's rejection of leftist utopianism with his return to Judaism and the concomitant realization that attempts to make a heaven on Earth are always doomed to boom-a-rang.

The Secret Knowledge is clearly the result of much reading and extensive contemplation. Mamet’s references range from Tolstoy and Trollope to Friedman and Sowell to Marx and Brecht and the immortally entertaining Susan Sontag. He celebrates his Ashkenazi heritage and, centrally, the Torah, which he sees as a keystone of this country’s Judeo-Christian foundation—a font of true justice, as opposed to the fashionable “social justice” he so witheringly reviles. (On hate-crime laws: “[A]s if getting beaten to death were more pleasant if one was not additionally called a greaser.”) He adheres to the “tragic view” of human nature—we are all irredeemably flawed, prone to corruption, and incapable of perfect understanding—and is thus deeply skeptical of any attempt at root-and-branch social transformation, however slickly retailed. He is especially eloquent in noting the latest instance of this evergreen political scam: “[S]hould we all simply mass behind a leader so charismatic and well-spoken as to induce in the electorate that state of bliss which, though it may momentarily be indistinguishable from madness or satori, necessitates eventual return to a world made more complicated by our surrender[?].”

Why the media is in trouble.

Patrick Frey catches NPR's ombusman making up "spin" - claiming that Ron Schiller - last seen calling the Tea Party a bunch of scary racists - as saying on the same video where he was outed that he is a Republican.  The problem is that he didn't say it and the video never says it.

Make that two problems.

When called on it, NPR ombudsman, Alicia Shepard. spins like a PR flack, not like someone whose job it is to make sure that mistakes are corrected.  Frey observes:

Note a few things about this statement. First, unlike the original, incendiary claim, which was repeated by more than 100 people, including Jack Shafer (who has now issued a correction) and Radley Balko, this tweet was repeated by only 8 people. And it’s termed a “clarification” — which is just amazing, given that her original claim was flatly wrong. She needs a “correction” and not a “clarification.” She needs to admit she was wrong. Isn’t it the job of an “ombudsman” to be clear about admitting error? Isn’t it the job of an “ombudsman” to care about facts in the first place, and not make statements with no basis in facts? I summed it up in my last e-mail to Shepard:


In other words, you never had a basis for saying what you said, and you are not clearly admitting error.

This is NPR’s regard for facts??

Apparently so.

Well, maybe she thinks that people who are not among the "predominately white, liberal, highly educated, elite" core that makes up NPR's listeners are too stupid to notice that she can't be trusted.

Well, it was the constant stream of stories like "AIDS victims teach opera to inner city kids" that made me stop listening to NPR back in the '80s...

...so it's interesting to here an NPR board member finally admit that "we unwittingly cultivated a core audience that is predominately white, liberal, highly educated, elite."


According to Sue Schardt:

What happened as a result is that we unwittingly cultivated a core audience that is predominately white, liberal, highly educated, elite. "Super-serve the core" — that was the mantra, for many, many years. This focus has, in large part, brought us to our success today. It was never anyone's intention to exclude anyone.


But we have to accept — unapologetically — that this is the franchise we've built.

We have to look at this because the criticisms that are coming at us — whether they're couched in other things — do have some legitimacy. We must, as a starting point, take on board some of this criticism. Before we can set a path, we have to own this.

One choice, at this transformational moment, is to say, "We are satisfied with what we are doing. We — in radio — are providing 11 percent of America with an extraordinary service." If this is our choice, we need to carefully consider whether we warrant public funding and, if so, what the rationale would be.

So, amazingly, a system based on public funding managed to use taxpayer money to build an entertainment and propaganda vehicle that (a) catered to exactly the kind of people who don't need a subsidized system and (b) are the kind of people who are in control of government and the levers of public opinion.

What a coincidence.

Via Ann Althouse.

Oh, goodie....

NPR is getting more money from our taxes.

NPR STATEMENT ON THE PRESIDENT'S FY 2012 BUDGET


Public broadcasting received a vote of confidence today from the Obama Administration. The President's FY 2012 budget submission to Congress included $451 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) for the two year advance appropriation for FY 2014, an increase of $6 million over FY 2013 funding.

NPR President and CEO Vivian Schiller said, "We are grateful to the Obama Administration for recognizing the importance of public radio to the life of communities across the nation. Every day, over 900 public radio stations present fact-based local, national and international news, as well as local arts, music and cultural programming that can't be found anywhere else."

She concluded, "At a time when our country is confronting many difficult challenges, public broadcasting is providing an essential service by informing and educating 170 million Americans every month. This mission is more relevant than ever."

 After all, where else would we get stories about Aids-activists teaching opera to inner city kids.

Note that NPR is actually getting a raise for its fine work.