PBS and NPR are generally unbiased, independent of government propaganda and provide key benefits to US democracy
PBS and NPR are generally unbiased, independent of government propaganda and provide key benefits to US democracy
I've been a somewhat regular NPR listener for years
It of course carries from one program or station to another but my general impression is that, no surprise, nearly everyone involved in NPR is pretty solidly liberal.
But they bend over backwards so far trying to be impartial that it almost becomes a parody sometimes.
I remember one time, I'm pretty sure it was around the time of the unite the right thing, I was listening to some segment where they had some neonazi piece of shit on, I think it may have been Richard Spencer
And while it was technically a really good and informative interview, it burned me up that they just weren't tearing into this piece of crap.
And to make matters worse, Nazi boy was really confident and well-spoken, and whoever they brought in to argue the other side, some lady from a university or something, simply wasn't. If I weren't listening to the actual words coming out of their mouths I would've gotten the impression that he was someone who really had his shit together, and she was some clueless dip shit they bribed into the studio by offering her free kombucha or something.
It was like they went out of their way to make it seem like maybe this guy had a point worth listening too and didn't deserve to just be taken out back of the studio and shot.
Because conservatives don't care about fair reporting. They want their reporting.
There's a saying: facts have a liberal bias.
If you really want to get into the history, there is a Behind the Bastards episode where they talking about how during the Nixon scandal, conservatives saw that once the public was made aware of the link between Nixon and the thieves, the country turned on them.
They noticed that the facts were assumed to be true. That's why they started attacking power journalists like Walter Cronkite because their names were associated with facts.
After Nixon, conservatives attacked the Fairness Doctrine rule. And Fox News was born.
Which is exactly why the far right hate them so much.
Yep. My country just had an election and our far-right party promised to destroy our public broadcaster if elected. It would have left us with nothing but American bullshit and billionaire-owned media. Thankfully, they lost. But just by a hair.
I love PBS and I used to live NPR until they spent all of 2024 sane-washing Trump and endlessly bashing Biden. When Trump was on stage all but announcing his plans to become a Dictator, NPR was running a week long segment on how old and frail Biden was.
NPR markets themselves as unbiased public media, but take off the mask (and follow the money) and you'll quickly learn that its a news org for Neoliberal business leaders and noone else.
He was old and frail though. And the American public needed to know this.
If people had realized this sooner maybe we could have had a real primary with a strong candidate that could have beaten Trump.
Trump is old and frail too! You'd think that a respectable news org like NPR would have spent even a little time covering the credible threats to democracy (and their own funding), and challenging the insane claims from orange man. But no, they had to go on and on and on about how Biden specifically was old and gave tons of credence and and credibility to Trump.
As far as I'm concerned, NPR bent over backwards to legitimize a madman who publicly declared his intent to destroy them multiple times.
Does "unbiased" mean supporting a neoliberal status quo?
Sadly that is absolutely what it means. So indoctrinated that they can't even see it. I still love PBS and NPR in general. But it's undeniable how much worse they've gotten trying to appeal to people who want nothing to do with them.
They'll never bite the hand that feeds.
If you want real independent media, look at outlets that don't take corporate funding.
Yes, that explains very neatly why authoritarians want to get rid of it.
when the truth goes aginst the right, the right takes aim at the sources of truth. For example: trump and congress pass the big bill adding trillions to the national debt, tax cuts for the rich and taking away medicare for millions...defund NPR and PBS so they cannot talk about the emprical facts of this awful legislation
NPR was baised as hell last year, what happened? Oh suddenly they are angels? Ridiculous.
Both PBS and NPR are biased in much the same way as the rest of US corporate media is. They use the same both-sides tactics, they never question neoliberal economic assumptions, they almost always buy into the bipartisan imperialist consensus. That's because they're largely funded by large corporations.