[HN Gopher] NPR suspends veteran editor as it grapples with his ...
___________________________________________________________________
NPR suspends veteran editor as it grapples with his public
criticism
Author : RickJWagner
Score : 187 points
Date : 2024-04-16 11:49 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| incomingpain wrote:
| I looked up the article: https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-
| npr-lost-americas-tru...
|
| Generally speaking NPR rarely shows up on my radar. Punishing him
| for this article though sure has the opposite effect of what they
| hope to achieve. In fact, with this they just sent a message to
| all their journalists that they are not allowed to express
| viewpoints making their problem worse.
|
| Objective outsider view, NPR is guilty as charged. How can NPR
| ever repair trust in their reporting with this over their head?
| netsharc wrote:
| The reason for his suspension is: "the organization told the
| editor [i.e. Berliner] he had failed to secure its approval for
| outside work for other news outlets, as is required of NPR
| journalists."
|
| Not because he criticized them.
|
| It this a punishment that is always applied; or used
| selectively? If the first, then it's fine, if the latter...
| then yeah there's a problem.
| obelos wrote:
| This opinion piece is less a incisive criticism of NPR than it
| is a resume line item for Berliner applying to The Atlantic.
| His three leading "big" examples are largely wrong. The Mueller
| report didn't say "no collusion". Barr did. The report said
| that it was not possible to conclude with prosecutorial
| confidence what level of cooperation had taken place because
| there had been so much obstruction of justice, so charging for
| that would be the appropriate law enforcement action after
| Trump resumed his role as a regular citizen.
|
| Conversely, the Hunter laptop thing has never been a compelling
| above-the-fold story. Hunter Biden is a politician's kid, not
| some elected official or, ahem, a politician's kid who has been
| appointed to a cabinet or advisory role within an
| administration. There has been no evidence that implicated Joe
| Biden was a meaningful participant or benefactor in whatever
| name-dropping grift he's gotten on at. Why would a news outlet
| spend airtime on this?
|
| The lab leak story is somewhat more compelling. Although I
| think at this point because of analysis that concluded there
| were two different, yet closely related strains of the virus
| simultaneously present at different sections of the wet market,
| it's hard to conclude a lab origin is more likely than it
| coming from wild origins. But at the time he's referring to, it
| was simply a matter of dogma to conclude a lab origin was off
| the table.
|
| And commenting that the DC staff is 87 Democrat is... amazing.
| That's the natural demographic of DC, one of the most
| Democratic regions in the country.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| _Objective outsider view, NPR is guilty as charged. How can NPR
| ever repair trust in their reporting with this over their
| head?_
|
| NPR can't fix itself because any time they get someone that
| shows promise at being a stand-up reporter, they leave for a
| better gig.
|
| Case in point: Joshua Johnson[0] who used to run the The1A. The
| show was incredible while he was there. MSNBC picked him up and
| now it's daily partisan propaganda.
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Johnson_(journalist)
| typeofhuman wrote:
| Welp, this is one way to validate his criticisms and prevent
| others from ever speaking out again. This is journalistic
| oppression.
| spaceprison wrote:
| I grew up listening to NPR, it was always on. Car talk with my
| dad on the weekends, Prarie home, etc. It's been programed in
| every car I've owned since I was a teenager. My wife and I have
| listened together and donated for years. But starting around
| 2019ish it gotten harder and harder to stay engaged with the
| programming.
|
| Almost every piece of reporting is now some kind of soft-outrage
| human-interest pseudo news. I want to listen but every other
| story is a tale of victim hood and oppression. It's just too
| much.
| karpatic wrote:
| A lil game I play is to see how long until a pandering buzzword
| is said from the time I turn on the radio. Usually T < 3
| seconds if not the very first word I hear.
| kelipso wrote:
| Same, used to be my default radio and podcast listening, then a
| few years ago they had a major jump in their
| style/producers/journalists and just couldn't keep listening
| anymore.
| resource_waste wrote:
| Their podcasts went from non-fiction stories to
| advertisements for peoples random cultural book.
| wumeow wrote:
| Every time I tune in, I measure the time-to-race, which is the
| amount of time that passes before race becomes the main topic
| of discussion. Usually it's less than 15 minutes.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Similar!
|
| I think some of the flagship programs talk nonstop about LGBT
| and minority issues, but this has been a thing for some
| years. I remember pre COVID driving to work chuckling at how
| every time I turned on the radio, it was a story on those
| topics.
|
| There is a lot more going on in the world that can also be
| discussed.
|
| I like Weekend edition and All Things Considered, and their
| hourly news updates.
|
| Finally: there is a distinction between a faux "both sides"
| centrism and constant focus on identity. Having a liberal
| bias can exist while providing a wide range of coverage and
| de-emphasizing identity politics.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| If my local affiliate talked about LGBTQ stuff I would
| probably start turning the radio on again.
| superb_dev wrote:
| If we could solve these issues, maybe we could stop talking
| about them
| willis936 wrote:
| Does force feeding develop an appetite?
| hackable_sand wrote:
| "Force feeding" is an interesting term.
|
| What would you call a century of heteronormative, white
| media?
| chris_wot wrote:
| It was a bad thing. Not sure how this negates the
| argument. It was bad back then, and it's bad now?
| jimbokun wrote:
| Even minorities sometimes want to hear about something
| other than being a minority.
| xracy wrote:
| Hot take... How many other news sources discuss race?
|
| I think this is an under-discussed topic for how pervasive a
| problem it is in our country. And I think we do ourselves a
| disservice by trying to hide from it. The more we talk about
| it, the easier it is to pick up a discussion where we left
| off.
|
| And my guess here is that the proportion of news about this
| relative to proportion of people affected by that news is way
| off.
| johndhi wrote:
| is listening to people talk about it on the radio the
| 'discussion' we need to make progress on an issue like
| this?
|
| compare to Car Talk - a show that entertains you and
| teaches you about engineering. different value propositions
| of these two things
| akira2501 wrote:
| > The more we talk about it, the easier it is to pick up a
| discussion where we left off.
|
| Sure.. but.. does it lead to problems actually being fixed?
| TheSoftwareGuy wrote:
| Not by itself. But if we don't talk about it, how could
| there possibly be hop of fixing anything?
| onemoresoop wrote:
| I think it's a question of measure. When things are
| talked about fairly and equally then progress is made -
| there are serious pressing issues right not and they're
| not only about identity/race/gender, that these things
| are ignored is a big problem. When things turn full on on
| one direction they don't accelerate any progress, it may
| actually do more harm than good.
| rurp wrote:
| By focusing less on race and other identity issues, and
| working to remove racist policies across the board
| regardless of which group they benefit or harm. The 20th
| century saw immense improvements for almost all
| underserved groups, without any talking heads bickering
| about intersectionality or identity. Now that kind of
| coverage is everywhere and progress has stalled or even
| reversed in many areas.
|
| My impression is that a huge portion of identity politics
| and coverage is more about picking fights where each side
| can feel smug and superior, rather than actually changing
| things for the better.
| redserk wrote:
| So this would be under the umbrella of "Critical Race
| Theory" which has been misrepresented and unjustly
| criticized as of late.
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| The more we talk about it, the angrier people get. That's
| truly the _only_ reason to even have a conversation about
| my ancestors I never met owning your ancestors you never
| met. Things have gotten _substantially worse_ in the last
| 16 years, not better, and that 's because we've been
| using a spotlight to point out how different everyone is
| from each other. It's literally counterintuitive.
| majormajor wrote:
| > The more we talk about it, the angrier people get.
| That's truly the only reason to even have a conversation
| about my ancestors I never met owning your ancestors you
| never met.
|
| Maybe the "statute of limitations" for these things
| should be long - not to mention the idea that racism
| wasn't magically fixed by ending slavery and the "owning"
| you mention. You don't think anyone was actively racist
| and causing harm 10 years ago? 20 years ago? 50? So if
| person Y's grandparent was harmed by, say, person X's
| racist grandparent in the 1950s, and that caused person
| Y's family to suffer for generations compared to what
| likely would've happened otherwise, and that's leading to
| ongoing societal harms, it could be legitimate public
| policy interest to try to even out opportunity.
|
| Of course, this _hasn 't_ actually changed in the last
| few decades - terms like "equal opportunity" and
| "affirimative action" have those words in their very
| name.
|
| But certain interests have made very successful pushes in
| the past few decades to brand policies under those
| umbrellas as "actually the real racism", or paint
| everyone supporting them as "actually trying to guarantee
| equality of outcome," while continuing to beat the very-
| old drum of "people being worse off implies worse
| ability, it's just science" which couples oh-so-very-
| nicely with the more active forms of denying people
| opportunity that hardly ended in the 1960s.
| jimbokun wrote:
| It is a legitimate topic of discussion.
|
| The problem comes when it's the ONLY topic of discussion.
| Inflation is only relevant in how it impacts minorities.
| COVID is only relevant as it impacts minorities. Climate
| change is only relevant as it impacts minorities. Quality
| of schools is only relevant as it impacts minorities.
|
| When it's your only lens, it can distort your views, and
| in the case of NPR, caused them to get some stories
| wrong. Which then destroys your credibility which is
| really the only currency a journalist has.
| dekhn wrote:
| The New York Times, which is the other bastion of the
| liberal establishment, also covers race a lot (in regular
| news journalism, opinion, and topical articles). . It's
| gotten to the point where lots of comments on articles
| (many articles have active comments sections) ask "why are
| you making this about race?". I think NYTimes swung heavily
| progressive a few years ago, and it was very unpopular, and
| they're recalibrating to be more relevant to centrists.
| taeric wrote:
| Converse hot take, the shallow "race lens" that is all too
| often used is not helping anyone. Quite the contrary, it is
| growing counterproductive. Especially with stories like
| this where they are working backwards from the framing, not
| using it to learn something.
| thegrim33 wrote:
| It completely, utterly, baffles me how other people live in
| such a different interpretation of reality than me. For
| myself, the last decade of media has been completely
| dominated by race-based and identity-based ideology and
| discussion. I've given up all mainstream media and I still
| cannot escape it. The fact that someone exists where they
| can with a straight face say that they think race is an
| under-discussed topic just blows my mind. To the point
| where I seriously have to consider whether I'm even
| replying to a real human being and not a shill / LLM.
| afavour wrote:
| My perception is the opposite of yours so I guess we can
| be as equally confused as each other. Every time I tune
| into the news it's usually dominated by foreign policy,
| domestic horserace politics coverage and soft human
| interest stories. There was definitely an uptick in
| racial discussions during all the BLM stuff but
| "completely dominated" is very, very far from my lived
| experience.
|
| But I guess that's exactly what an LLM would say, isn't
| it?
| uejfiweun wrote:
| I don't know what that guy is smoking. It is objectively
| the case that the topics of race, identity politics, etc
| have skyrocketed since the mid-2010s [1].
|
| [1] https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/201
| 9/06/th...
| drewrv wrote:
| Do those charts actually show a shift in content, or is
| it merely a shift in terminology?
| uejfiweun wrote:
| I'm not sure if any studies accurately measure the
| subject content, and it also seems like it'd be easy to
| get any result you want by tweaking the experiment
| parameters.
|
| I can tell you that from my own life experience and what
| I can recall, it has certainly felt like a shift in
| content. All the anti-white stuff, the social justice
| stuff, the pro-censorship stuff, etc. It existed before
| in tiny bubbles like Tumblr, but it was during the mid
| 2010s that the major news sources started adopting those
| viewpoints too.
| subjectsigma wrote:
| According to a 2001 poll, nearly 50% of the population
| drastically over-estimated the black population:
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/4435/public-overestimates-
| us-bl...
|
| I'm pretty sure more recent polls show the same thing is
| true now but I can't find something more recent so take
| that with a grain of salt.
|
| Think of one of the 17% of people polled who think 50% of
| America is black. First, it's baffling to me to
| understand how that's even possible. They must be living
| in an extreme bubble where they seldom interact with
| other races. Likely this isn't even their fault, so how
| would they ever know to correct it?
|
| Second, if I was one of those people, I would probably
| think the US is hopelessly racist seeing white people
| "over-represented" in basically every area of life.
| drewrv wrote:
| I'm curious to hear about your media diet because that
| has not been the case for me.
| crackercrews wrote:
| Coleman Hughes shares a good perspective on this in his
| new book. He cites surveys showing that people changed
| their opinions for the worse regarding racism in america
| around 2010. This could be explained by an increase in
| racism or by increased awareness of racism. But he shows
| it is not based on these things because surveys also show
| that people significantly overestimate the number of
| black people killed by police. The rise in media coverage
| has led them to think that certain events are much more
| common than they are.
| justin66 wrote:
| > Hot take... How many other news sources discuss race?
|
| Heh. If you tune into the AM band you'll hear plenty of
| guys "discuss race." It'll make you fear for the species,
| but still.
| burningChrome wrote:
| >> Hot take... How many other news sources discuss race?
|
| Almost all the conservative media outlets and all their
| pundits do simply because the whole topic has been an arms
| race for years. Conservatives are finally attempting to
| sway the popular narrative that race and identity politics
| are the only thing that determines your future.
|
| They often discuss race within the context of identity
| politics and the far-left idea that "all white people are
| racist" versus their notion that race doesn't determine who
| you are, how smart you are and how successful you can
| become.
|
| Its the age old philosophical idea of determinism vs. free
| will
| jimbokun wrote:
| Yes, race is a topic that is almost never discussed in 21st
| century USA.
| jiscariot wrote:
| 20 year listener here. I now listen until they force identity
| politics in to the subject at hand, then change the channel.
| In my experience it's much less than 10m, but could be my
| market too.
| LVB wrote:
| Sprinkle in climate change, and you'll be down to 5! I may be
| grading them too critically at this point, but in recent
| years, it feels like that XKCD about Wikipedia and how all
| roads lead to "Philosophy." Sometimes, I'll sit there
| wondering how the leap will be made from some benign story to
| these anchor topics, but they usually manage. I don't like
| that predictability at all.
| sobellian wrote:
| I once tuned in to NPR when they were talking about
| artificial intelligence, and they were talking about how the
| seminal figures in the field (e.g. McCarthy) were white men.
| I reflected that if I had to pick the least interesting
| possible topic on AI, it would probably be how white the AI
| researchers were in the 1950s.
|
| I think this is the transcript:
| https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1161883646.
|
| > The Dartmouth conference has become an origin myth... Of
| course, the origin myth served to empower these men to tell
| their own story. And it's a story full of erasure... We hear
| nothing in that origin myth about the relationship that AI
| has to industrialization or to capitalism or to these
| colonial legacies of reserving reason for only certain kinds
| of people and certain kinds of thinking.
|
| (later, same show):
|
| > White men wanted to call themselves universal and produce
| themselves in the machine.
|
| I mean, seriously?
| jimbokun wrote:
| It's just odd that they feel the need to explain to their
| audience most professors, and especially mathematics and
| computer science professors, in the 1950s were white men.
| Or that a lot of the funds for the research came from
| industry or the military.
|
| It's just not interesting or newsworthy.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| > Or that a lot of the funds for the research came from
| industry or the military.
|
| I think that's interesting and newsworthy. Maybe because
| we know it already it seems obvious, but a younger
| generation might not understand how deeply enmeshed the
| military-industrial complex was (and to some extent still
| is) in academia.
| jmbwell wrote:
| In fairness, all that soft-outrageous shit is actually
| happening.
|
| But yes, turning off the news from time to time is, in general,
| good for your health.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| Some years ago I had a deeply weird conversation with a
| conservative political operative in my area wherein (among
| other things) they advanced the claim that liberals had
| demonstrably and totally won the culture wars, and then
| proceeded to go totally off the rails. I balked at the notion
| at the time but as the years have gone by I've come to the
| sullen realization that they had a point.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| There are 8 billion people on the planet. You can fill 24/7
| with whatever kinds of stories you wish---sad, maddening,
| inspiring, funny, joyful, and outrageous too. It's pure
| choice to pick the last one, it's not in any way forced by
| reality.
| josephg wrote:
| Yeah. I always find it a strong tell when people make
| statements like "make the world a bit less shitty" or "...
| in reaction to the horribleness of everything". The world
| is no more shitty than it was 40 years ago - but the
| general public perception of the world seems to have gotten
| much bleaker.
|
| Like you, I attribute a lot of that to social media. I left
| Twitter and Facebook a few years ago and my outlook on life
| got much better. I want my news to be balanced. Not all
| positive or all negative. I want to be pandered to
| sometimes, and sometimes challenged on my world views. So I
| found sources that would give me that.
|
| I totally agree with your comment - you media diet is pure
| choice. Make it a healthy diet for you.
| justin66 wrote:
| > The world is no more shitty than it was 40 years ago -
| but the general public perception of the world seems to
| have gotten much bleaker.
|
| I'll call bullshit (what is it about a thread on the
| media that so often necessitates this?).
|
| I don't have an objective measure for shittiness, but in
| terms of the bleakness of public perception of the world
| I feel more confident in making a comment: forty years
| ago, _The Day After_ had just aired.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| GenX wasn't moping around not having sex or kids or fun
| because they were upset about the state of the world.
| Even in the freaking blitz they were having more sex and
| kids and fun than Generation Eeoyore.
| justin66 wrote:
| I don't know how to comment on how much sex the kids are
| having these days without sounding like a creep, but if
| you weren't there, you'll need to take my word that the
| cold war had its highly bleak moments involving fear of
| armageddon and the AIDS epidemic, with which nothing
| today really compares. Today has more ennui and blatant
| idiocy, perhaps, but we were pretty good at that too.
| chris_wot wrote:
| Forty years ago, Threads aired. Watch it if you dare.
| ordinaryradical wrote:
| A useful heuristic for measuring news quality is to ask
| yourself, "Am I more informed about what's happening or about
| what people are angry about."
|
| Like you, I was a life-long listener and donater. I stopped
| both during the pandemic when I noticed NPR was playing the
| anger game, like every other outlet, for social media points.
| lainga wrote:
| Big context shift for me was realising roughly 2019 that
| Portal:Current events could efficiently replace 95% of my
| news scrolling
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
| vraylle wrote:
| I had no idea this existed. Me likey. Now if I can just get
| this as an RSS feed....
| wizardwes wrote:
| Same here. Let me know if you find a good solution
| pulpfictional wrote:
| https://www.to-rss.xyz/wikipedia/
| lainga wrote:
| Here's as close as I got with a bit of fiddling. You may
| or may not be able to winnow out minor changes using the
| inverttags parameter []
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?hidebots=1&hidecategor
| iza...
|
| [] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=help&modules
| =feedr...
| pulpfictional wrote:
| https://www.to-rss.xyz/wikipedia/
| aaronax wrote:
| Images of what I imagine to be their yearly performance goals
| rush through my head as soon as it turns to victim, race,
| oppression, etc.
|
| "25% of stories uplifting Black voices" etc.
|
| It just seems so forced.
| kenjackson wrote:
| Would "a focus on making sure we also give the conservative
| angle" also seem forced?
| unethical_ban wrote:
| My opinion is that news coverage _and_ liberal politics
| should focus less on race and identity, not more. That isn
| 't to say we ignore it, but not every issue in cities and
| states and countries revolves around identity, and an over-
| emphasis on it comes off as ideological.
| kenjackson wrote:
| But your position starts from the basis that we were
| race-neutral to begin with. I think part of the reason
| that there is an emphasis on "positive black voices" is
| the belief that the default narrative is implicitly
| negative toward blacks. So without intention you'll
| simply perpetuate the negative voices.
|
| For example, would the same people who say "we focus too
| much on race" view Desantis's policies and opinions as
| "race neutral"?
| unethical_ban wrote:
| >the belief that the default narrative is implicitly
| negative toward blacks
|
| Well, I disagree with that.
|
| I just said NPR specifically focuses too much on identity
| politics, and I think Desantis is implementing anti-LGBT,
| anti-education, anti-freedom and anti-democracy
| legislation.
|
| I dont support the dichotomy that one must either desire
| an abundance of identity-based journalism _or_ be blind
| to the issues minorities face. I think many of the
| problems this country faces, which may disproportionately
| affect minorities, can be covered without it being race-
| based. Poverty, healthcare, education, environment,
| climate change, foreign policy affect all.
| gedy wrote:
| It sounds too much like _" So without intention you'll
| simply perpetuate the negative voices"_ is _" you are
| either for us, or against us"_, which has caused the
| world no end to misery.
| TinkersW wrote:
| Desantis is an idiot that I have zero interest in hearing
| about.
|
| Unless the person has done something worth mentioning
| that isn't being mentioned only because of their so
| called "identity" I've zero interest in hearing about it,
| and would consider such a discussion to be bordering on
| racist.
| josephg wrote:
| As a counterpoint, I listen to The economist's coverage
| of US politics. They often interview people involved with
| the Democrat and Republican campaigns. And I've found
| some of the interviews fascinating - particularly the
| republican ones because most of my friends and news are
| left of center.
|
| For example, one interviewee in the trump reelection
| campaign said they talk a lot internally about
| obstruction. And so, the campaign has lined up a bunch of
| politically aligned people ahead of time to take over key
| departments in the US government if trump gets re-
| elected, so trump can change a lot of government policies
| on day 1. I find that fascinating. No matter your
| politics, it's interesting to know that the "opposing
| parties, taking turns governing in different ways" angle
| seems to be getting stronger.
|
| Hearing from people I don't have the opportunity to
| understand in daily life is exactly what I listen to
| podcasts like this for. I'm glad this coverage exists.
| angiosperm wrote:
| You reveal your true colors by mentioning the "Democrat"
| campaign.
|
| Replacing the expression "Democratic Party", _its actual
| name_ , with "Democrat Party" is a right-wing extremist
| goal that FOX has promoted for many years.
| goatlover wrote:
| I disagree. For all the criticism color-blindness gets
| now, there was a lot of progress from the 70s through the
| early 2000s that seems to have been forgotten in favor of
| divisive reporting and social media outrage posts. Just
| because the post-civil rights color-blind era wasn't
| perfect doesn't meant there wasn't legitimate progress,
| and that seems under threat now. Some of it is foreign
| actors, and some of it's coming from both the extreme
| right and left. They have amplifiers in social media and
| have managed to get prominent places of power, so they
| can forment their social revolutions. I count NPR as one
| of those now, which is a shame because it used to have
| good and entertaining reporting.
| naasking wrote:
| > But your position starts from the basis that we were
| race-neutral to begin with
|
| No, it starts from the position that race is not the most
| important facet of a human being's life.
|
| > So without intention you'll simply perpetuate the
| negative voices.
|
| Almost none of a person's daily life is dominated by
| racial issues, except maybe people who specifically work
| in that field of course, and so very little news would
| have racial relevance. Going out of your way to use race
| as a lens on every issue is why it's forced.
| jimbokun wrote:
| NPR is the voice of white progressives, even if more of
| the reporters are minorities. NPR's audience is
| disproportionately white.
|
| It's part of the reason polls show some minority voters
| shifting towards Trump. They don't see their opinions and
| beliefs reflected in white progressivism, even with the
| surface emphasis on DEI.
| aaronax wrote:
| Yes
|
| I have started reading the piece by Uri now and it
| basically confirms what I was imagining.
|
| "He declared that diversity--on our staff and in our
| audience--was the overriding mission"
|
| "Journalists were required to ask everyone we interviewed
| their race, gender, and ethnicity (among other questions),
| and had to enter it in a centralized tracking system."
|
| Pretty much guaranteed that they were trying to hit
| race/gender quotas.
| josephg wrote:
| I always find it on the nose when "diversity" is used to
| mean "aligned with modern leftist political ideals".
| That's just not what that word means.
|
| If NPR wants actual diversity (of opinion), they should
| consider tracking the political affiliation of the people
| they interview in their database. But in my experience,
| DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) never seems to include
| a diversity of political views. I find that very
| suspicious.
| edflsafoiewq wrote:
| When we can talk about "a diverse candidate", the word
| has obviously become untethered from any ordinary
| meaning.
| drewrv wrote:
| A news organization that chased "diversity of opinion"
| would not be a good news organization.
|
| Some opinions are not worth entertaining. If NPR were
| broadcasting the rantings of flat earthers, Sasquatch
| hunters, and anti-vax weirdos, it may be entertaining but
| it wouldn't be news.
|
| Also: the reason DEI initiatives ignore "diversity of
| political views" is because that is not a trait you are
| born with.
| astrange wrote:
| > Also: the reason DEI initiatives ignore "diversity of
| political views" is because that is not a trait you are
| born with.
|
| Is that true? You're born from your parents[0]. I don't
| think it's actually much of an important distinction that
| you would have different socialization if you were
| adopted. Younger LGBTQ/NB people don't agree with this
| nearly as much as they used to, for instance. Several of
| those groups are just things you decide to do.
|
| [0] as the vice president said: https://twitter.com/brown
| skinthem/status/1712665740069724184
| jimbokun wrote:
| NPR flat out got some stories wrong due to their biases.
| jimbokun wrote:
| New York Times is surprisingly good about this.
|
| Most of their reporting does have a left bias, and of
| course opinion even more so.
|
| But they do have some serious, thoughtful conservatives
| in their opinion pages. Like David French and Ross
| Douthat. And they have reported on controversial issues
| like the dangers of medically transitioning minors. David
| Leonhardt points out the places where conservative
| arguments have facts on their side, like how closing
| schools during Covid for so long greatly damaged learning
| outcomes and was a bad decision overall.
|
| It eliminates blind spots that come from only considering
| views confirming an ideology and thus getting important
| stories wrong.
| anon291 wrote:
| No, but a "We're not taking your tax money anymore" should
| be forced.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| The indicator on NPR is one of my favorite podcasts, and
| doesn't play the outrage games.
| photonthug wrote:
| And Berliner apparently helped to start planet money, which
| indicator is a spin off of. That's almost the sum total of
| real news that's still available at npr :(
| unethical_ban wrote:
| They have an editorial bent but they still get facts right.
| Not to mention the invaluable local news that is miles
| above most other local coverage.
| justin66 wrote:
| Oh, bullshit. Marketplace is also a great podcast.
| xracy wrote:
| Is this discomfort with the state of the world? Cause I think
| the goal is that you feel inclined towards action on that. The
| state of the world isn't... all good. We've got some serious
| issues right now. And it seems like a lot of people are
| complaining that they have to hear about that (I will point out
| almost no other news station is doing this, so also as a
| proportion of news this seems kinda reasonable) rather than
| that others are experiencing the bad things.
|
| It's funny to me because their used to be a conservative take
| that liberals needed safe spaces to talk about all of this
| stuff, and when it's actually in the media people don't want to
| grapple with it. I would bet that the most vocal proponents of
| changing this dialogue lean conservative as well.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > Is this discomfort with the state of the world?
|
| There are two separate critiques going on:
|
| 1. There is a lot of bias in the _news_ coverage.
|
| 2. There is a lot more to a radio station than covering the
| state of the world (news, social issues, etc). There's stuff
| like entertainment, humor, etc.
|
| A lot of people are arguing about 2 above.
|
| There's always malnutrition somewhere in the world (and yes,
| in the US). But we don't criticize the existence of movie
| theaters.
| goatlover wrote:
| I don't think it's the media's place to make us feel inclined
| to take action. What action, exactly? Progressive,
| conservative, green, techno-optimist, religious, etc? It's
| their job to report on whatever is news-worthy, and it's up
| to viewers what they want to do with that information. I
| don't agree with pushing agendas disguised as news. That used
| to be mainly a Fox News and AM-talk radio thing. It's
| dissapointing to see the rest of media follow suit.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| It's true that there's big problems and it's true that things
| should change.
|
| The issue is that the solution that is proposed to the
| problem is to have more attention to the problem. This result
| in a virtuous circle where things have to address the problem
| more and more. It does help address the problem though, it's
| not falling on deaf ears and it is educational.
|
| This then becomes a kind of noise drowning out other signals.
| It's the signals that listeners want not the noise.
|
| Is anything actually improved, do people benefit? I would say
| yes!!
|
| But it's a move away from signal and information towards
| problem education and political or social messaging.
|
| The virtuous circle can get reinforced by objections to the
| changes. Objections or "discomfort" are often proof that more
| changes need to be made. The signal is further reduced and
| those in change become blind in their virtue. Metrics in how
| good they are doing are perceived in terms of the messages
| that are put out not in quality productions. A kind of seige
| mentality makes it hard to determine the difference between
| criticism of the content or format and political objections
| of the added messaging to the content. Both positions become
| opposition and encourage more of the same.
|
| To me, the change to add more unbiased views or thoughts from
| the other side seem artificial and miss the actual change in
| content. It makes things more political and less about life.
| johndhi wrote:
| Car Talk with my dad was so fun
| resource_waste wrote:
| One time they said that fast food was cheaper than grocery
| food.
|
| It was so wrong, that I never listened to NPR since.
| krapp wrote:
| > One time they said that fast food was cheaper than grocery
| food.
|
| It often is. I can get a burger and fries at McDonalds for
| far less than the cost in ingredients to make it myself.
| tekla wrote:
| You must be the type to buy ingredients in units of 1 of
| each and then complain that its more expensive than buying
| the fast food meal.
| krapp wrote:
| No. I never said I actually made that complaint, because
| I don't. I was just pointing out that contrary to
| resource_waste's assertion above, fast food can in fact
| be less expensive than grocery food. It is not a
| statement of error so egregious as to be worth writing
| off the content of an entire media organization.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's a statement, that even if you "well acshually" it
| hard enough to make it work, is still useless.
|
| Can a particular fast food meal be cheaper than some
| similar grocery store meal? Yes.
|
| Is a fast food meal cheaper that the _maximum cheapness
| calories per dollar_ than everything you can get at a
| grocery store? No.
|
| Will people who hear it hear the second or the first?
| tekla wrote:
| Have you literally ever been shopping before that wasn't
| a Trader Joes or a Whole foods?
|
| It boggles my mind anyone can think that fast food is
| cheaper than grocery store food for the dollar. Its
| basically on the level of flat earthers to me.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Back of the envelope, using prices from safeway.com (in
| Seattle) I get the cost of a quarter pound cheeseburger
| being _about_ $2.60. Significant error bars on that,
| because it 's hard to estimate how much onions and ketchup
| and mustard McDonald's uses, and I'm estimating on the
| lettuce and pickle slices.
|
| But, in no case would I say it costs more than $3.50 to
| make a quarter pounder with cheese at home. I'm also
| assuming the ingredients McDonald's uses are not better
| than even the cheapest ingredients for sale at an okay
| grocery store, so I'm just giving them that advantage to
| make it possible to compare.
|
| The current price of a quarter pounder with cheese at
| McDonald's looks to be $6.22[1]. So, let's call it twice as
| expensive.
|
| I didn't even bother estimating the cost of making french
| fries after that, since there's no way they make up the
| difference.
|
| [1]https://mcdonaldsprices.com/mcdonalds-prices/
|
| I do not, for the record, doubt that some menu items at
| McDonald's cost less for them to produce and sell than the
| equivalent would cost to make at home. I would be VERY
| surprised if it cost less in the long run to buy all your
| meals at McDonald's versus making food yourself at home.
| Even buying ingredients in bulk, McDonald's does have a lot
| of overhead to pay for and profit to make.
| alistairSH wrote:
| A Happy Meal is frequently sold for $3. YOu're saying to can
| buy the raw ingredients for a hamburger, fries, apple slices,
| and juice box for less?
| anon291 wrote:
| In the sense that a 1lb thing of ground beef plus whatever
| fillers mcdonalds uses (I believe it's some kind of
| oatmeal) would probably produce like about 10 happy meals,
| and a 50lb bag of flour from winco (plus a few tbsp salt
| and water) would make hundreds of buns, I think you could
| get it way below $3 / meal. I mean, safeway often has
| ground beef for a few dollars a pound, that's a lot of
| happy meals.
|
| In reality, these ragebait articles are written by young
| people (guessing young men) who have no experience cooking
| for a family.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Quick search... $3 for pack of 8 hamburger buns
|
| $4 for 2lb ground beef
|
| $3 for 10lb russett potatoes
|
| $4 for four apples
|
| $4 for a 52oz jug of OJ
|
| $18 total for ~8 "Happy Meal equivalents", or $2.25 per
| meal, so less than the actual Happy Meal, but you need 1.
| $20 cash to buy the supplies and 2. the
| time/equipment/knowledge to prepare the meals.
|
| Yes, the headlines are rage-bait, but fast food is still
| ridiculously inexpensive. Yes, you ca reproduce the fast
| food at home, or live on rice+beans, for less. But add
| some quality protein and a pile of fresh veg and the
| price goes up.
| opprobium wrote:
| 2 lb of ground beef is way more beef than a happy meal. A
| kids meal patty is only 1/10 of a lb, you've given enough
| for 20 kids meals.
|
| The rest of your numbers are similarly off: - you are
| giving each happy meal 1.25 lbs of potato!? - apple
| serving size is 1.2 ozs - An average apple is 8-10 ozs, 4
| apples = 26 happy meals minimum.
|
| You realize how expensive fast food is if you are at all
| used to cooking at home from scratch all the time.
| anon291 wrote:
| He's the young man who doesn't cook for a family I was
| talking about I'm guessing.
| alistairSH wrote:
| My kid is 30. But yeah I'm cooking for two, not four or
| five.
| afavour wrote:
| > You realize how expensive fast food is if you are at
| all used to cooking at home from scratch all the time.
|
| But cooking from scratch all the time has a _time_ cost,
| too. Many families are time poor as well as money poor so
| there 's a balancing act to be done.
| opprobium wrote:
| When I say "cooking from scratch", I specifically mean
| the super fast and easy stuff. Starting from raw
| materials doesn't mean you do anything complicated to it.
|
| For the burger example: buying pre-formed burger patties
| is still massively cheaper. Throwing a pre-formed burger
| patty from your fridge in a pan and putting it on a bun
| with a slice of cheese will take you ten minutes.
| Microwave small potatoes while you fry. You are done.
| There is no prep, you have made 1 easily washed pan and
| bowl for potatoes and your plate.
|
| Is it the exact same thing taste-wise as your fast food
| meal? No, the potatoes aren't fried, sorry. Does it hit
| all the macro nutrients for far cheaper, and probably
| less time than even going to the fast food place? Yes.
| anon291 wrote:
| I would download the safeway app. Hamburger buns are $1
| usually. Ground beef is $0.99/lb. 10 lbs of russett
| potatoes makes way more than 8 happy meals. frozen orange
| juice is like $1 each. This is insanity, and exactly
| expresses my point above. And if you go to a food bank,
| it's all free. Most are throwing away entire grocery
| stores worth of food.
| bluGill wrote:
| McDondalds Hamburgers have always been 100% ground beef.
| The hamburger in a happy meal is 1/10th a pound 80%
| ground beef. So about $0.55 worth of ground beef; the bun
| is $.33, pickle, onion, ketchup, and mustard - $.05
| (probably less but I don't know how to calculate), cheese
| $.15 (I can't find how many slices are in a large block
| so I estimated). Potato $.25 (again I'm not sure how many
| potatoes in a fry but this seems right). Soda - $.01
| sugar/flavor, $.05 ice (they are selling Coke products
| not making the soda directly but even still $.10 is about
| all soda costs in bulk).
|
| So $1.30 if you buy the food yourself and make it all at
| home from scratch. Add $.70 for a cheap toy and you have
| a happy meal (McDonald's buys toys in bulk - you can't
| get toys for that price unless you are buying thousands)
|
| Above prices are what I'd pay at my local higher priced
| grocery store online - I can get better deals at other
| stores but they don't have a good online prices to look
| up.
| anon291 wrote:
| > Add $.70 for a cheap toy and you have a happy meal
| (McDonald's buys toys in bulk - you can't get toys for
| that price unless you are buying thousands)
|
| Most of the toys these days are cards, but you don't need
| to buy in that much bulk:
| https://www.orientaltrading.com/toys-games-and-
| novelties/nov...
|
| The first one has 144 mini skateboards for 20 cents each.
| dekhn wrote:
| What about if you add the following: the cost of the time
| spent preparing the meal. And the cost (mostly time)
| associated with cleanup- such as driving that leftover
| oil to the recycling center.
| valicord wrote:
| > driving that leftover oil to the recycling center.
|
| Right, because people who don't have money/time to cook
| real food are definitely doing that. Besides, deep frying
| is not the only way to cook potatoes.
| opprobium wrote:
| How long do you think it takes to grill a hamburger
| patty?
|
| To your second point: This is where exact apples to
| apples comparison breaks down. The sane home cook skips
| deep frying at home and associated hassles unless it's a
| special occasion. Microwave the potatoes or boil. Fast,
| minimal cleanup, and now it isn't junk food either.
| dekhn wrote:
| Well, I like deep fried potatoes, that's why I included
| it. I actually do deep fry my potatoes, straining the
| oil, re-using it, and ultimately recycling it. None of
| the alternatives are acceptable to me in terms of flavor
| or texture. Could you explain in more detail why you
| think that cooking potatoes not in oil makes it not junk
| food? (in the sense of, I've looked at a wide range of
| comparisons and it does not seem like frying in oil
| magically turns healthy potatoes into cancer daemons).
|
| It takes me about 7 minutes to fry a hamburger patty on
| my Griddle (to rare!), ignoring the heat-up time and
| clean-up time. The actual cooking is quite fast. On the
| other hand, I can end up waiting an hour in line at In-
| and-Out. So while I agree that it's not an apples-to-
| apples comparison, the economics articles I've seen that
| compare bsed on fully loaded costs (to the best that they
| can) seem to conclude that fast food can be about 10-20%
| cheaper than grocery.
| valicord wrote:
| > it does not seem like frying in oil magically turns
| healthy potatoes into cancer daemons
|
| well, akshually... https://www.fda.gov/food/process-
| contaminants-food/acrylamid...
|
| however the main concern with fried potatoes is
| cardiovascular, not cancerogenic.
| dekhn wrote:
| frying, roasting, _and_ baking all produce acrylamides.
| There 's a paper from sweden that shows you can even find
| acrylamides in bread that was cooked at standard temp.
|
| The story of frying and cardio is still ongoing; I've
| seen several full reversals in the public health field
| over the past 30 years. It's really painful being a
| quantitative physical biologist watching the press around
| papers that when carefully inspected provide little to no
| evidence supporting their position.
| tombert wrote:
| I feel like the price of restaurant dining scales linearly
| to the number of people you're feeding, while cooking at
| home scales more logarithmically. [1]
|
| If you're feeding one person, I don't know that it's _that_
| much cheaper to get stuff from the grocery store compared
| to just eating Taco Bell every day. If you 're feeding 5-6
| people, it's absolutely cheaper; I can make two large
| pizzas at home to feed 6 people for like $8.
|
| Also, where are you finding $3 Happy Meals in the US?
|
| [1] Probably not literally true, but more or less how I
| think about it.
| umanwizard wrote:
| If you can make feed N people for X, the only reason you
| can't feed one person for X/N is if you're buying too
| much of things and throwing them away because they go
| bad. This can be mitigated by freezing things, accepting
| eating leftovers repeatedly, making smaller quantities,
| etc., although indeed it's more difficult.
| tombert wrote:
| Yeah but if you have stuff that isn't freezable, even if
| you're ok with eating leftovers, you end up having to buy
| smaller quantities of stuff else you risk stuff going bad
| before you eat it. Smaller quantities tend to be more
| expensive.
|
| For example, I don't buy milk anymore since I do not
| remember the last time I have finished a carton. I keep
| some powdered stuff around because I sometimes use it for
| cooking, but I don't buy liquid milk anymore. If I did
| need liquid milk, I would probably end up buying the
| smallest quantity of milk available to minimize waste,
| but they would probably be a much higher per-ounce cost.
|
| That's what I mean about it scaling logarithmically. If
| you can buy a higher quantity the prices get much
| cheaper.
| mike741 wrote:
| It's not "the only reason" because food preparation can
| be parallelized. Putting 4 items in an oven and waiting
| for a half hour takes roughly the same amount of time as
| putting 1 item in the oven and waiting for a half hour.
| dave78 wrote:
| > A Happy Meal is frequently sold for $3.
|
| Not anymore. I just checked, a hamburger happy meal at the
| McD's nearest to my house (i.e. not an abnormally expensive
| location such as an airport) is $4.49. Extra $0.20 to add
| cheese. This is for a 1/10 lb hamburger (!). As others have
| pointed out, I think it's very possible to acquire the
| ingredients for this for less than that, assuming you can
| buy enough for 3-4 at once.
| josephg wrote:
| > assuming you can buy enough for 3-4 at once.
|
| I don't think you can make that assumption. For someone
| living alone, that burger from McD's may well be cheaper
| than the equivalent made from supermarket ingredients.
| When I used to live alone, I stopped buying salad
| ingredients because they would usually go off in the
| fridge before I used them all. It was cheaper to eat out.
| tombert wrote:
| I think that's partly why stuff like frozen pizza is kind
| of a meme with single people. Stuff in the freezer can
| generally keep for years before it really has anything
| off with it, and even after it starts getting a bit off,
| it's probably still not going to kill you.
|
| Frozen pizzas can be had for as low as like $3.50 if you
| get them on sale, and since they keep forever in the
| freezer there's no reason not to stock up at that
| point...
|
| I lived not-quite-exclusively on frozen pizza when I
| lived alone for about a year. It wasn't healthy for me,
| but it was pretty cheap living, at least in the short
| term.
| valicord wrote:
| Most fresh ingredients last at least a week. What kind of
| salads are you making that a single person can't finish
| before they go off?
| josephg wrote:
| I was out a lot anyway - lunch with work, dinner with
| friends, weekend catchups with family and so on. When you
| live alone, you need to leave the house to socialise. I
| was only home for meals a few times a week. And I didn't
| want salad every time I made food for myself.
|
| So yeah, usually I'd buy salad ingredients, make one
| salad (or veggie sandwich or something). Then a week
| later I would take a look in the fridge and notice my
| ingredients had gone bad. I did this several times before
| I gave up.
| vundercind wrote:
| You have to use each chain's app, now, to get what used
| to be menu prices. They figured out they could raise menu
| prices a ton and lots of folks would still pay it, while
| still keeping poor folks paying them money by providing
| the app option.
|
| It's still pretty cheap if you get whatever's the best
| option from the deals and freebies they offer in the app,
| rather than buying whatever you want off the menu.
| dave78 wrote:
| > You have to use each chain's app, now, to get what used
| to be menu prices.
|
| Yes, I used their app. I have kids so I know happy meals
| used to be crazy cheap. They've gone up substantially in
| price in the past 3 years.
|
| We used to get McDonald's once in a while as a quick,
| cheap meal that our kids liked. At some point within the
| past year or so I realized that it's not actually cheap
| anymore - I think they've raised their prices more than
| many competitors. IMO, they are now roughly at the same
| prices as some much more appealing options, so we don't
| really go there anymore.
| superb_dev wrote:
| Did you check on a delivery app, or in store? App prices
| will usually be inflated
| dave78 wrote:
| I used the McDonald's app, creating an order for drive-
| through pickup (they don't seem to put prices on their
| website that I could find). So, I believe that should be
| their regular menu prices. I didn't look at 3rd party
| websites or apps because of the extra expense.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Just the lowest price in the first row of Google
| shopping. Admittedly unscientific. Just trying to get a
| ballpark sense for relative prices.
|
| As noted elsewhere, I'm an empty nester. Cooking for two
| adults, both of whom are athletic and celiac, so my
| perception of what's cheap is WAY skewed. We eat lots of
| fish, chicken, and fresh produce.
| dekhn wrote:
| That's factually correct- it is often cheaper to buy the
| equivalent of a hamburger, fries, and coke at McDonalds,
| Burger King, or other similar stores, for less than you can
| buy the ingredients at the supermarket. This is actually a
| "known thing" which has been factually verified.
|
| I wouldn't stop listening over that.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| That's a silly measure, though, and not what anyone
| actuallywants to know when deciding their eating habits.
| What matters is amortized dollars per calorie, or maybe
| dollars per time period, and grocery shopping easily beats
| fast food on that.
| dekhn wrote:
| the articles I've seen that provide more detailed
| analysis typically suggest that you can get more "poor
| quality calories" from fast food. The real challenge here
| is most comparisons completely ignore prep and cook time
| as a cost, but that matters a lot for busy parents who
| don't have time to make the cheapest possible stew out of
| the cheapest ingredients.
|
| Fast food bulk-buys, prepares at industrial scale, and
| automates as much as possible. It's going to be hard to
| fight against that level of volume discounting.
| astrange wrote:
| Fast food isn't poor quality depending on what you get.
| Fries and soda are bad, but cheeseburgers are not
| particularly unhealthy. They are low fiber.
| opprobium wrote:
| This simply isn't true and you should cite some source for
| this "known fact". It seems to be a "known fact" passed
| around by people who "don't know how much anything costs at
| a grocery store."
|
| Example: A quarter lb with cheese at McD
|
| Average price at a US McDonald's, $6.65:
| https://www.fastfoodmenuprices.com/how-much-mcdonalds-
| quarte...
|
| Average price according to USDA for home cooked: $2.17
| https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-
| gallery/gallery...
|
| Fast food is typically much more expensive than home cooked
| from scratch and people have very confused ideas about
| this.
| dekhn wrote:
| I mean it's a known fact in that there are published
| articles that calculate the fully loaded cost of a (the
| most discounted) fast-food meal and compare it to the
| fully loaded cost of buying ingredients and preparing it.
|
| The economics all look great- about 10-30% cheaper for
| raw costs- except that the articles also include costs to
| prepare the meal (time cost, resource cost of fuel) and
| cleanup (time cost and often more garbage/cleanup).
|
| also, the article that were published were mostly
| published about a decade ago, when the prices for fast
| food were a lot lower. This changed in the past few years
| as fast food prices went up a lot, even more than
| inflation on basic goods.
|
| I typically don't include citations because nobody is
| here on hacker news to argue about the finer details of
| academic studies that carefully control for all the
| factors, and most of us don't have the time and
| inclination to read the studies in details to see where
| the problem lie. Instead, we build generalized models of
| the world that incorporate a great deal of different data
| and use those to explain our observations to others. My
| own model is based on 30+ years of shopping and preparing
| my own food at home, as well as working in fast food
| (MCDonald's), talking to franchise owners (always an
| interesting perspective into how McDonald's works), and
| regular restaurants.
|
| Note: I live in California, a state with a different
| economic distribution than any other state in the country
| (with New York and Texas being the closest comparable
| states in terms of wealth distribution, relative prices
| of groceries and fast food, amounts of transportation
| required to obtain food, etc). Some people I know hunt
| for their own food- they enjoy the sport and it produces
| enough meat for a family to eat in a year! Obviously,
| that's a case where fast food isn't really cheaper.
| opprobium wrote:
| You can just look at your own grocery store and your
| local McDs. I also live in CA and for a quarter lb with
| cheese comparison I looked up:
|
| My local McD's: $6.39 My local Safeway (not a budget
| option, no sales, you can do better than all of this): 1
| 1/4 lb beef patty $1.69, 1 slice cheddar cheese $0.37, 1
| hamburger buns $0.22 = $2.28, misc condiments are
| negligible but let's say $0.25 total = $2.53
|
| That's less than half the cost. The time and resources
| cost of frying that patty in a skillet and throwing it on
| a bun with cheese and ketchup comes nowhere close to
| doubling that, it's not even close.
| dekhn wrote:
| can you add in an estimate of your time spent preparing
| the food? What about cleanup? It takes me more time to
| clean my food prep and cook area than actually make food
| most of the time. And compare that to the time spent
| waiting in the grocery line/fast food line? What about
| storage costs- I just threw away a 2-week old pile of
| nasty ground beef that went bad before we had an
| opportunity to use it (totally on me, I should have
| cooked burgers for my kids a couple more nights).
|
| That's what I mean by "fully loaded"- when economists
| compare things like this, they don't just take the
| published dollar costs in a single location and compare
| them. They made a best-effort good-faith attempt at
| considering all the other costs which lead to a consumer
| making a decision.
|
| Also, fast food prices shot up in the past few years,
| faster than grocery prices. Most of the articles about
| this were written about 10-15 years ago.
| opprobium wrote:
| I used for cost comparison a pre-formed hamburger patty
| from Safeway. If it takes you more than 10 minutes to
| pull this from fridge, heat a pan and fry, something is
| wrong. You put it on a bun and put things on it and you
| eat it. There is no prep area to clean. Wash a pan and
| your plate. This isn't even a scaling issue, this is
| negligible time and cleanup for anywhere 1 to 4 people.
| This is a real side by side comparison as a McD's quarter
| lb also has nothing on it requiring prep.
|
| I understand what you are trying to say about "fully
| loaded cost". It's also wrong. The fully loaded cost is
| still much lower for home vs fast. _Unless_ you insist
| that you really desire specifically something like deep
| fried french fries, a specific cooking method that is
| extremely scalable and well suited to restaurant
| production and very inconvenient at home. But it is
| emphatically not true that a meal of similar ingredients
| /macro nutrition (burger and potato) is in general ever
| cheaper in fast food form.
|
| If you want to promote the myth that fast food is
| cheaper, you should cite any other source than that you
| vaguely remember there being articles 10-15 years ago.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Unless you're going to otherwise be paid for your time,
| it is inaccurate to count it as a cost.
| dekhn wrote:
| Opportunity cost. free time has value.
| djbusby wrote:
| Waiting for my food at a restaurant is not "free" time.
|
| Talking with friends in my kitchen while cooking (and
| drinking!) is "free" time.
| djbusby wrote:
| Time is lost getting "fast" food too. Like, the time to
| cook a patty in the skillet is the same time as the time
| waiting through the drive thru. And now factor in burning
| fuel.
| astrange wrote:
| > My local McD's: $6.39
|
| Are those menu costs or paid costs?
|
| McDonald's has moved to a model where you get the app and
| it has valuable coupons that take like 30% off the price
| that renew every day. Which is part of why the menu costs
| have gone up.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I've been thinking about this recently and articles that make
| cost comparisons of that sort tend to compare only the cost
| of ingredients and assume you have the equipment to cook it,
| the skills to cook it and that your time is worth zero.
|
| I don't know how to come up with good metrics for measuring
| that but I think currently all such articles are seriously
| bad because most don't even list their set of implicit
| assumptions concerning the costs that they are bothering to
| measure.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > I grew up listening to NPR, it was always on. Car talk with
| my dad on the weekends, Prarie home, etc.
|
| Note: These are _not_ NPR shows. They 're merely shows that
| your (and most) local NPR affiliates purchased for
| broadcasting.
|
| If you think your local affiliate doesn't have enough of these
| types of shows, let them know! Many local affiliates have wide
| discretion on the programming.
|
| More details: https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178640915/npr-
| stations-and-pub...
| eurleif wrote:
| Car Talk was an NPR show.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Nope. It was a locally produced show that was licensed to
| NPR.
| wannacboatmovie wrote:
| "Car Talk was originally a radio show that ran on
| National Public Radio (NPR) from 1977 until October 2012,
| when the Magliozzi brothers retired."
|
| Source: Wikipedia
|
| I'm laughing at everyone trying to split hairs over Car
| Talk in this thread. Most long-running programming on PBS
| were all "locally produced".
| BeetleB wrote:
| > Most long-running programming on PBS were all "locally
| produced".
|
| And I would split hairs with PBS as well :-)
|
| As I mentioned in a sibling post, NPR shows are things
| like "All Things Considered". Stuff like "Fresh Air" and
| _Car Talk_ are not considered as NPR shows - not even by
| NPR themselves.
| eurleif wrote:
| I assumed you were trying to distinguish shows like A
| Prairie Home Companion, which was distributed by American
| Public Media, from shows distributed by NPR; and that you
| were simply mistaken about Car Talk. That would have been
| a somewhat meaningful point, despite the incestuous
| relationship between all of these organizations. However,
| if you're arguing that shows distributed by NPR aren't
| "NPR shows" unless they are also directly produced by
| NPR, then you're not only being pedantic, but being
| pedantic on the basis of a definition that is not widely
| shared.
|
| NPR's own Terry Gross has described Car Talk in these
| exact words, "an NPR show".[0] A large part of NPR's
| mission is distributing shows produced by local
| affiliates, and no doubt they exercise significant
| editorial discretion in determining which shows to
| distribute. For the purposes of this discussion, who
| cares if a show is produced directly by NPR, or if it is
| produced by another organizaton using NPR's money and
| then distributed by NPR?
|
| [0] https://www.npr.org/transcripts/361408028
| BeetleB wrote:
| > NPR's own Terry Gross has described Car Talk in these
| exact words, "an NPR show".[0]
|
| It's interesting that you invoke Terry Gross as being
| part of NPR, when NPR actually says otherwise:
|
| > Several programs that NPR distributes are produced by
| NPR Member Stations, not NPR. These include top-rated
| news and cultural programs such as Fresh Air with host
| Terry Gross from WHYY...
|
| https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178640915/npr-stations-and-
| pub...
|
| NPR shows are things like _All Things Considered_. _Car
| Talk_ was produced by an independent affiliate (just like
| _Fresh Air_ ). Yes, I am distinguishing between the two.
|
| If NPR doesn't consider _Fresh Air_ to be an "NPR show",
| then nor do they consider _Car Talk_ to be an NPR show.
|
| There's a difference between these and things like TV
| shows. Stuff like _The Simpsons_ is actually a FOX show
| (as in whatever company makes them is owned by Fox).
| Whereas NPR never "owned" _Car Talk_ , just as they
| don't currently "own" _Fresh Air_. These shows can always
| choose not to be part of NPR syndication. It 's
| ultimately a licensing deal. They _do_ own _All Things
| Considered_.
| eurleif wrote:
| NPR does not say Fresh Air is "not an NPR show". They say
| it is produced by a member station. _You_ are then
| superimposing _your_ own personal definition of "NPR
| show", which Terry Gross for example does not share, onto
| that statement.
|
| Fresh Air's X handle is @nprfreshair, and you want to
| tell me it's not an NPR show?
|
| More importantly: how is any of this possibly relevant to
| the original conversation?
| BeetleB wrote:
| > NPR does not say Fresh Air is "not an NPR show". They
| say it is produced by a member station.
|
| They also explicitly say that it is _not_ produced by
| NPR.
|
| It's not an NPR show in the sense that when the licensing
| deal expires, Fresh Air can choose not to be syndicated
| on NPR. It's an independent show that licenses itself to
| NPR. A show like All Things Considered has no such
| freedom.
|
| > More importantly: how is any of this possibly relevant
| to the original conversation?
|
| The original conversation was about how one can influence
| their local affiliate to change their programming, until
| someone came and nitpicked about whether NPR owns Car
| Talk or not.
| eurleif wrote:
| No, the original conversation was about the perceived
| decline in quality at NPR. You then popped in to say that
| it was up to the local affiliates, not up to NPR, because
| these aren't "NPR shows" (by your own personal definition
| of that phrase). But regardless of whether we adopt your
| definition (and forsake the definition that Terry Gross
| and just about everyone else use), how is a decline in
| the quality of shows that NPR distributes not their
| responsibility, given that they can and do choose which
| shows to distribute?
| trashface wrote:
| I don't listen anymore but still like to use text.npr.org for
| news, its pretty easy to scan the headlines and mentally filter
| out most of the social justice pieces (and there are a lot of
| them).
|
| TBF I don't think NPR is really much different then most other
| mainstream lefty sources. I think axios is way worse than NPR
| (a lot of their "articles" are just vibes with really poor
| evidence, at least NPR still tries to do some traditional
| reporting).
| doublepg23 wrote:
| You may like https://brutalist.report/ - very easy to filter
| just by changing the URL query too.
| voidwtf wrote:
| It's hard to say how much of that is manufactured outrage and
| how much is an unsettling new reality. It may not be your
| reality, but for an increasing number of people quality of life
| is deteriorating. Not saying you're wrong, just saying that we
| shouldn't completely tune out everything that doesn't fit our
| own reality.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| > It's hard to say how much of that is manufactured outrage
| and how much is an unsettling new reality.
|
| There's plenty of unsettling new reality, I'll give you that.
| And it should be reported on, even if it makes people
| uncomfortable.
|
| But _how_ is it reported on? There 's a difference between
| "here's the economic reality of 20% of of the population" and
| "you should be outraged about the economy". And if you listen
| to analyze the way the story is told rather than to hear what
| the story is about, you can tell which is which fairly
| reliably.
|
| Much of the left has gone from "we're going to report the
| stories that happen" to "we're going to report the things we
| think need to be reported, like poverty" (which is all right,
| as long as they also report the news), to "we're going to
| report things so as to make you become politically active on
| the side that we think you should". That last step is highly
| problematic. For one thing, once you're that blatantly a
| cheerleader for one side, can I trust that you're telling the
| truth about what you're reporting on, or are you distorting
| it out of all resemblance to reality?
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| NPR has been downgraded, intellectually. They follow the rest
| of the news, discussing the same topics with the same framing
| as the rest of the media, following whatever hot topic there is
| at the moment, no matter how trivial. News and discussion is
| often spoon-fed in bite sized chunks that miss nuance and lack
| the willingness to go past the headlines to the real meat of
| the issue for fear of boring less sophisticated listeners. Its
| become boring, repetitive, and uninformative in the vast
| majority of the stories I hear on NPR One. It is a sad state of
| affairs.
| underseacables wrote:
| The suspension proves his point. NPR could've taken this in such
| a different direction. Not punishing the journalist, and instead
| providing evidence for their fair and accurate reporting
| standards in a transparent way. Instead, they got angry and went
| right for the suspension "without pay" for a pathetic reason.
|
| I used to love NPR growing up.
| pessimizer wrote:
| If you listened to it in the 90's or before, it was a different
| place. Then the Republicans attacked its funding in the
| culmination of a general attack at funding of the arts, and a
| specific attack on hearing hated perspectives on particular
| issues (80% of those issues being Palestinians being allowed to
| speak.)
|
| The head was replaced with the ex-head of Radio Free Europe (a
| propaganda station), and a permanent pair of ombudsmen were
| placed there (one meant to always be a Democrat and the other
| always meant to be a Republican) to help censor news and
| editorial on behalf of the two private clubs who trade off
| leadership in the US. Funding from the government was
| decimated, and funding was taken over by giant managed funds,
| heavy extractive industries, and medical/insurance companies.
|
| Any semblance of the hoped-for manufactured balance (to be
| provided by the ombudsmen) was eliminated by 9/11 and the need
| to invade Iraq for some reason. I'm pretty sure the positions
| are long gone (the mainstream media hates ombudsmen, the job
| attracts the ethical.) The place became neocon central until
| the property-inflation bubble burst. Everything that went on in
| society with the crash, and with weariness from the wars and
| the draconian surveillance laws and media censorship that
| resulted from them, resulted in the Obama media frenzy and
| election victory.
|
| Democrats who had felt silenced during G.W. Bush felt like they
| had turned the tables. The problem with that was twofold. One,
| the Democrats who had stayed with NPR for that entire period
| were people with no values at all, who had continued working as
| if nothing had changed.
|
| Two, the Obama presidency was not going to be a significant
| departure from the previous presidency, was going to extend the
| Bush doctrine and the surveillance indefinitely, and he made it
| his first priority to indemnify the people who had done very
| illegal things up to and including atrocities and a torture
| network. He was even eventually going to bring back the
| Espionage Act, and start surveilling journalists and political
| campaigns. He was also going to put all of his economic effort
| into protecting wealthy people from the fallout of all of those
| poor people losing their homes. Years later, there would be a
| big to-do about Trump's taxes, and the most horrifying thing in
| them is that Obama's legislation irt the crash had simply
| refunded an entire year of Trump's taxes.
|
| Obama couldn't be more liberal, economically, other than the
| favoritism towards party insiders, the weakening of the
| boundaries between church and state, and the idea that
| government social programs should all be outsourced to
| nonprofits through heavy, usually indirect, infusions of cash.
| In fact, the only thing left of the social ambition that had
| characterized the Democratic Party from Kennedy until the
| destruction of the Rainbow Coalition by the Clintons' New
| Democrats (and their funders) was the constant discussion of
| race, homosexuality, immigration, abortion, and gun control
| (edit: and global warming.) Never decisively, of course, but
| stretched into endless length and endless detours, with
| constant claims of being too weak to actually change any policy
| in the face of Republican evil, eventually resulting in
| executive orders, again carrying forward GWB's antidemocratic
| executive philosophy.
|
| That's how you end up with an NPR totally staffed with elite,
| careerist Democrats who are somehow now also completely
| neoconservative and neoliberal. The only consistent position
| they have on any issue is that elite Democrats are the best
| people to be deciding on them, not the ignorant, evil
| Republicans whom they agree with on almost every issue. The big
| controversy between them? How guilty should they feel.
| Democrats say _very guilty_. Republicans say, _not guilty at
| all, but actually proud._
|
| This is Democrats arguing with Republicans about who should
| feel guilty and who should feel powerful, not anything
| meaningful. The only reason Republicans are speaking up is
| because Palestinians are trying to talk again, and the
| Democrats at NPR have to give in at about a million starving
| children, especially if there are pictures. The guilt messes
| with their digestion.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Even NYT didn't suspend Bari Weiss despite her bringing similar
| criticisms about NYT.
|
| In all honesty, I never understood the appeal of NPR, and I've
| been consuming news all the time since I was in elementary school
| (I even got my elementary school library to get a weekly
| subscription for The Economist).
|
| I love PBS, but NPR always felt like cultural commentary with no
| actual in depth reporting. NYT occasionally feels like that as
| well, but their track record has more than redeemed themselves.
| vundercind wrote:
| Their news programming used to be pretty good ('00s and
| earlier, maybe a little into the 20-teens). Now it's at its
| best when my local station's syndicating news from the BBC. :-(
| It's markedly better, really highlights how bad NPR has gotten.
|
| On the Media remains good. Their market show's ok. I like Wait,
| Wait. That's a complete list of their programs I'm still happy
| about listening to.
| tombert wrote:
| I don't listen to NPR directly, but I think RadioLab and This
| American Life are generally pretty good. I don't know how much
| those are NPR as a whole or works by affiliate stations, but
| they are media that I enjoy, so I kind of see why people would
| listen.
|
| I will say, though, PBS is generally better. I think Frontline
| is very consistently excellent.
| readams wrote:
| This American Life is from PRI not NPR. Radiolab is NPR
| however, though of course not really news-focused.
| tombert wrote:
| Fair enough; I'm pretty sure I've listened to This American
| Life on NPR at some point but it was probably just a
| syndication thing.
|
| Yeah, neither are really news-focused, more human-interest
| stories or deep dives into newer tech.
| bonetruck wrote:
| I used to listen to NPR regularly. I enjoyed many of the
| programs. But that all changed when the "news" reporting became
| so heavily biased that I couldn't distinguish NPR from main
| stream media. In fact, I've become so irritated by the bias that
| I now openly call for defunding NPR and I've removed them from
| all my radio presets. I didn't leave NPR, they left me....
| InTheArena wrote:
| This is the same NPR that sold it's subscriber list to the
| Democratic party. In the US, the government has no business
| paying for speech, especially partisan speech.
|
| Like most of the rest of the media, NPR is no longer liberal (in
| respect to protecting personal human rights, economic freedom,
| observable truth and government institutions) but rather Liberal
| causes (restricting speech against protected classes, skeptical
| of free markets, relative truths, tearing down government
| institutions).
| alephnerd wrote:
| > sold it's subscriber list to the Democratic party
|
| Do you have a source for this? This is massive allegation you
| are giving, and can veer directly into disinformation.
| InTheArena wrote:
| To be fair, this was a long time ago - it's a quick reminder
| that I am a lot older then I remember - in the late 90s, NPR
| and CPB member stations were caught selling their membership
| lists. There was a compromise that preserved CPB and NPR
| funding in 1999 that explicitly forbid them from doing so:
| https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-
| xpm-1999-jul-21-mn-58123...
| alephnerd wrote:
| Ok. This seems to be well before my time on the Hill.
|
| Imo, you can't really compare NPR in 1999 with NPR in 2024
| - almost everyone who was senior in the organization back
| then will have already retired 15-20 years ago, and their
| funding structure today is much more donor and advertiser
| driven than it ever was in the 1990s.
| photonthug wrote:
| So you blew the disinformation whistle, find out that it
| happened, but then argue from statute of limitations that
| it doesn't matter. But if NPR agreed with the type of
| argument you're making, then I don't think they would
| make a point of covering stuff like reparations-related
| grievances constantly.
|
| Trust comes more easily for individuals / news
| organizations / political groups when we're all more
| focused on the framing of arguments on their own merits,
| with less focus on the in-groups/out-groups of who those
| arguments are against or who they are supporting.
| dekhn wrote:
| Sorry, that's too long ago to be relevant.
| magicalist wrote:
| > _in the late 90s, NPR and CPB member stations were caught
| selling their membership lists_
|
| The article specifically says partner _television_ stations
| and apparently some sold their lists to Republican
| campaigns too ( "including the 1996 presidential campaign
| of Sen. Bob Dole").
|
| Your initial statement "NPR that sold it's subscriber list
| to the Democratic party" doesn't appear to be correct at
| all if this was the end of the story.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| The Democratic Party is a private organization, not the
| government.
| InTheArena wrote:
| NPR's funding in part comes from CPB - which is government
| backed.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| By in part, you mean < 1%.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#:~:text=NPR%20receives%20
| a....
| gottorf wrote:
| You can go straight to the source, i.e. the audited
| FY2023 financial statement[0]. You're right that revenues
| from CPB contracts amount to single-digit million dollars
| (roughly $7mm in 2023) a year, out of >$300mm of total
| annual revenues; but also from the same document:
|
| > National Public Radio, Inc. ("NPR Inc.") a nonprofit
| membership corporation incorporated in 1970 following
| passage of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, as
| amended
|
| > [American Coalition for Public Radio, a wholly-owned
| subsidiary,] supports the educational mission of publicly
| funded, noncommercial, educational radio stations,
| networks, and systems (collectively, "Public Radio")
| [...] aims to secure robust federal funding
|
| One can register some legitimate disappointment in a
| "national public" radio organization, breathed into law
| by Congress, turning into something rather nakedly
| partisan. That only 1% of revenues come from tax dollars
| has little to do with that part.
|
| [0]: https://media.npr.org/documents/about/statements/fy2
| 023/Nati...
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > That only 1% of revenues come from tax dollars has
| little to do with that part.
|
| If the public creates something but doesn't fund it very
| well, that thing has to go out and find other kind of
| funding, which means they have to sing for their supper.
| This will most definitely influence their content and
| reporting, because otherwise they simply don't get to
| exist at all.
| gottorf wrote:
| That's a fair point, but the other perspective is that
| perhaps the organization grew far beyond its original
| remit, and is now run by its insiders for the benefit of
| its insiders, a la Robert Conquest's laws. The public not
| willing to fund it "very well" could be an indication
| that the organization itself should remain small and
| bounded by its charter.
|
| $210mm of $323mm, or roughly two thirds, of 2023 expenses
| incurred by NPR were for employee compensation and
| benefits. $58mm of the compensation were unrelated to
| content production and distribution; that is, booked
| under SG&A and not COGS. $42mm of it was for management.
| At least 26 individuals made a salary of more than
| $250k[0]. I suppose their singing voice is quite good, to
| receive such a supper.
|
| [0]: https://media.npr.org/documents/about/statements/fy2
| 022/2021...
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| OK, fine. What are you objecting to? The Democratic party
| part, or the government-backing part?
| chaostheory wrote:
| This is the reason I stopped donating. They don't even bother
| trying to look objective and impartial anymore. It's no different
| from Fox or CNN. At least PBS News is still decent.
| donatj wrote:
| I used to have NPR on in my car basically all the time since I
| started driving in the early aughts.
|
| I am in no way a Trump supporter but the way the tone shifted
| into vitriolic acid spitting after his election, I just can't
| abide or frankly listen anymore. I just want the news.
| 0xbadc0de5 wrote:
| "This article is completely false and misleading! We'll show
| everyone how fair and unbiased we are by... suspending anyone who
| dares to criticize us?"
|
| That's a bold strategy Cotton, let's see if it pays off.
| netsharc wrote:
| The reason for his suspension is: "the organization told the
| editor [i.e. Berliner] he had failed to secure its approval for
| outside work for other news outlets, as is required of NPR
| journalists."
|
| Not because he criticized them.
|
| It this a punishment that is always applied; or used
| selectively? If the first, then it's fine, if the latter...
| then yeah there's a problem.
| gottorf wrote:
| > It this a punishment that is always applied; or used
| selectively?
|
| Steve Inskeep, a fellow NPR journalist, published a rebuttal
| on his own Substack[0] to Uri Berliner's article. Considering
| that Inskeep's Substack is also for profit (meaning people
| must pay a subscription to read non-public articles), it
| seems that unless he is also suspended, there is in fact
| selective enforcement.
|
| [0]: https://steveinskeep.substack.com/p/how-my-npr-
| colleague-fai...
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Yeah, couldn't possibly be that he got approval for outside
| work. That's too hard to even comprehend.
| WoahNoun wrote:
| The policy doesn't say all outside works is banned. It says
| approval must be sought. Do you have any evidence Inskeep
| didn't have approval to post on Substack?
| gottorf wrote:
| Being a mere outside observer, I naturally do not have
| any such evidence, but I do wonder what that approval
| process is like? Do employees have to, for example, agree
| not to disparage NPR in such outside work?
| vharuck wrote:
| From the NPR story:
|
| >In its formal rebuke, NPR did not cite Berliner's
| appearance on Chris Cuomo's NewsNation program last
| Tuesday night, for which NPR gave him the green light.
| (NPR's chief communications officer told Berliner to
| focus on his own experience and not share proprietary
| information.)
|
| I haven't seen that episode of NewsNation, but I'd be
| surprised if this editor were invited as a guest for a
| different topic. So he did seek and receive permission in
| one case.
| stusmall wrote:
| A lot of employers have this. This isn't that strange.
| You might have the same. I've had to run open source work
| past employers when it's similar to the company's domain.
| gottorf wrote:
| > A lot of employers have this. This isn't that strange.
|
| Right, but NPR isn't any old employer. It was created by
| Congress with the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 and is
| a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a mission of "creating a more
| informed public, one that is challenged and invigorated
| by a deeper understanding and appreciation of events,
| ideas, and cultures." Despite it not receiving that much
| taxpayer funding, I would hold it to a standard of a
| government organization; and I expect diverse viewpoints
| and dissent to be a core part of that mission.
| pquki4 wrote:
| Also an outsider, but seeing the approval process in my
| own organization, I am 110% sure such "outside work"
| wouldn't have been approved, had the author sought it.
| wwweston wrote:
| "it seems that unless he is also suspended _or sought &
| received approval_ there is in fact selective enforcement."
| cafard wrote:
| Having mastered the art of the circular firing squad, NPR
| continues to practice it.
|
| Juan Williams may be laughing now. Don't know about the person
| who fired him, then lost her job in the fallout.
| jmbwell wrote:
| In the stories he's listing in the article, plenty of
| organizations were taking the "team x" positions he describes.
| It's not like NPR had the only newsroom having to make choices.
|
| Summing it up as a lack of transparency (would he rather say
| "fairness?") and viewpoint diversity ("balance?") seems somewhat
| disingenuous. At a higher level view, different organizations are
| going to take different positions. Arguably, obligated to do so.
|
| Surely he doesn't believe every org has to pretend there are
| "both sides" to every story. But if he's no longer aligned with
| NPR, then perhaps the suspension is in everyone's best interest.
| mustafa_pasi wrote:
| Exactly. To me it sounds like he's a corporate stooge who tried
| to steer NPR into being yet another fake centrist outlet, full
| of tailored opinions.
| friend_and_foe wrote:
| A public organization, funded by public money, should not be
| taking a political stance against more than half the
| population. It's one thing to just report some fact that goes
| against a narrative that half the population believes. That's
| not what is going on at NPR. If they want to take a team x
| position, fine, team y shouldn't be funding them under threat
| of imprisonment. They can get their funding the way all the
| other newsrooms having to make choices do.
| StarterPro wrote:
| Is it possible half the population is wrong? Or maybe over
| counted?
| friend_and_foe wrote:
| Over counted, probably not considering the thin margins of
| election outcomes. Wrong? Yes, half the population is
| wrong. Which half is wrong depends on which half you're
| asking. We are all probably wrong about a lot. This
| cooperation we do in spite of it helps us figure that out.
| DFHippie wrote:
| > Which half is wrong depends on which half you're
| asking.
|
| No, sometimes people are actually factually wrong.
|
| I don't have any beef with anything else you said.
| damontal wrote:
| By "wrong" you mean in disagreement with you? If not then
| what do you mean by half the population being "wrong"?
| etchalon wrote:
| It receives < %1 of its funding from "public" money.
| vonnik wrote:
| Grew up in a purple state listening to NPR. For many many years,
| it was the only smart talk radio available. But it turned into
| partisan cant a few years ago. A great tragedy.
| FeloniousHam wrote:
| I've been a lifelong listener, since I was a nerdy kid. I'm
| down to hate-listening to Morning Edition, mostly for the audio
| cues that help get the kids out the door.
|
| This morning they had a short piece on the kidney transplant
| list, and how it affect Black recipients differently. They
| spent 90% on a personal story and how this impacted him, and I
| know nothing about why the process is racist or how it was
| created.
|
| I rant to my friends, but recently Mike Pesca (an NPR alum) had
| a good take on the decline and failure of the network:
| https://www.mikepesca.com/thegist/episode/30939dec/public-ra...
| gred wrote:
| This week there's a solar eclipse; women and minorities
| hardest hit.
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| Npr was great when Bush Jr was in office. Once Obama became
| elected, it went downhill and hasn't recovered. I stopped
| listening to it years ago and it's a shame what has become of the
| network.
| InTheArena wrote:
| Here is the article that he was punished for -
| https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-tru...
| TheEggMan wrote:
| You're the man for sharing this
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Not really my thing, but this section suggests he likely has a
| valid point. Sometimes, being right is the most unforgivable
| thing you can be.
|
| _Back in 2011, although NPR's audience tilted a bit to the
| left, it still bore a resemblance to America at large. Twenty-
| six percent of listeners described themselves as conservative,
| 23 percent as middle of the road, and 37 percent as liberal.
|
| By 2023, the picture was completely different: only 11 percent
| described themselves as very or somewhat conservative, 21
| percent as middle of the road, and 67 percent of listeners said
| they were very or somewhat liberal. We weren't just losing
| conservatives; we were also losing moderates and traditional
| liberals.
|
| An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now,
| predictably, we don't have an audience that reflects America._
| cantaloupe wrote:
| NPR is not a monolithic media organization. In my experience,
| local NPR stations are one of the best sources of interesting and
| relevant local news. In contrast, most local TV/Radio news is
| borderline a crime blotter ginned up to keep people outraged.
|
| Regarding the national NPR newsroom, I think this story will
| provoke positive change, as indicated in the article. There is no
| media which every person would consider unbiased, and very few
| media organizations take action to even attempt to reign in
| biases. The fact that editors will start reviewing coverage more
| closely to remove tilt sets a higher bar than all but a few news
| organizations.
|
| I chuckle thinking about a reporter stepping out of another
| random news room in the country and spreading outrage that the
| coverage has a bias. The response would generally be: "Yes, duh."
| InTheArena wrote:
| I think as shown by similar scandals at NYT and WSJ, that the
| media press do not accept feedback, and instead will rally
| around extending and furthering their ideological anti-liberal
| (authoritarian) monoculture, and instead get rid of dissenting
| voices.
|
| see James Bennet at NYT (who was fired for publishing a op-ed
| from a sitting American senator) or even Kevin D. Williamson at
| the Athletic.
| dekhn wrote:
| I can't see why everybody got so worked up about the op-ed
| you're referring to. The Times has traditionally been a venue
| for voices that are not in its constituency, and in this
| particular case, Cotton wrote such a crazy article that it
| reduced his credibility significantly in front of the nation.
| He proposed using the military to quell protests,
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-
| protes...
| eej71 wrote:
| The Atlantic ran an interesting piece about the details of
| how that op-ed came together.
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/02/tom-
| cotton...
| dekhn wrote:
| I think if all op-eds published in the Times were
| inspected for factual accuracies, they'd find plenty in
| the ones that align with the Times's employees (the
| Cotton op-ed has a long preface which basically says "we
| shouldn't have published this because facts")
| kenjackson wrote:
| Realistically there is no way to do news without a bias nowadays.
| A Trump supporter told me there was no war between Russia and
| Ukraine. I said "OK, conflict". His reply was "mainstream media
| has you brainwashed".
|
| To cover Jan 6 do we have to say that maybe it was Trump
| supporters who peacefully went to the Capitol or maybe it was
| Antifa who stormed it - we have to treat all possible scenarios
| as equally likely?
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| Nope. The idea that all viewpoints are equally valid is
| intellectually bankrupt and a classic example of weaponized
| human stupidity because anything is possible when you don't
| know what you're talking about. Playing into the bullshit
| asymmetry principle in an effort to sway crackpots only
| mainstreams their lunacy.
| friend_and_foe wrote:
| Nobody is demanding that the editors at NPR entertain the
| idea that the earth is flat. There are legitimate
| disagreements among Americans, difficult to resolve
| ideological and pragmatic differences, that we compromise on
| mostly peacefully via our political process. Not unbiased
| discussion on these contentious issues is dishonest, people
| treating opposing political views as "of course" wrong and
| therefore not meriting discussion misses the point: we all
| think we are right and our opponents are wrong, which is
| precisely why we have to talk about it. Dismissing them as
| lunacy is arrogance at best, malicious shutting down of
| discussion you don't want to have at worst. Q is lunacy, the
| idea that transgenderism is a mental illness for example, to
| pick a very contentious, mostly party line division, is a
| genuine disagreement. Our society has to address these
| disagreements, that almost always all sides of think the
| opposing view is ridiculous, if we want to continue calling
| ourselves one people.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| I think you meant to say there are _manufactured_
| disagreements and ideological differences among Americans,
| construction of which is impossible without the full-
| throated support of media outlets. Peddling opinion in lieu
| of fact is bullshit full stop. If you 're trying to frame
| this as a political issue know that I'm deadass certain
| that supporters of both major political parties are useful
| idiots carrying water for the oligarch class to their own
| detriment, so arguments that either side of the current
| suite of public debates has legitimacy is a tough sell on
| most issues. As an example, the current tempest in a teapot
| over transgenderism, however well-intentioned, elevates the
| notional concerns of a group roughly equivalent to the
| population of Houston, Texas to a position of a national
| wedge issue. Attention that has arguably done more harm
| than good for the very community it's intended to serve. So
| no, I don't believe disagreements like this need to be
| serviced since they're entirely synthetic in nature and
| other than giving fodder to religious and political
| extremists produce nothing of benefit.
| friend_and_foe wrote:
| So to continue on the example we are running with, you
| don't believe disagreements like this need to be
| serviced. So the status quo as it was, say, 20 years ago
| was perfectly acceptable? Or would you like the status
| quo today, after the disagreement was serviced in favor
| of one side of the issue? Basically, are you conveniently
| deciding that it's not worth discussing now that an
| outcome you like (I don't know what outcome you like) has
| become reality, or do you genuinely not give a shit one
| way or another because it's a non issue to you?
|
| On another point, what constitutes a manufactured
| disagreement and what constitutes a genuine one?
| richrichie wrote:
| Actually, ability to keep two or more competing hypotheses in
| mind at the same time _is_ a sign of intelligence.
| arp242 wrote:
| "There is no war between Russia and Ukraine" is not a
| "competing hypothesis", it's unmitigated bullshit.
| Alternative facts. A complete lie. Whatever you want to
| call it.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > Realistically there is no way to do news without a bias
| nowadays.
|
| There never has been; there is no such thing as unbiased
| reporting.
|
| There is only reporting that is open about it's assumptions,
| premises and biases, and reporting that purports to be
| "unbiased". The latter is insidious and dangerous. With the
| former, you can simply avoid it, if you want to live in a
| bubble; or you can consume it, and evaluate it based on the
| known proclivities of the source.
| goatlover wrote:
| There is a clear distinction between trying to be objective
| and pushing agendas. Just as there is a difference between
| news and propaganda. What's dangerous is blurring those
| lines. That's Orwellian.
| melondonkey wrote:
| I think it's honestly annoying how they feel they have to
| parenthetically add every time something is a lie or untrue.
| While their intention is good I think it does a service to no
| one and underestimates the intelligence of their listeners.
|
| Also almost every story gets tied to either identity politics
| or climate change. Also just gets annoying even for those who
| agree. It's like watching a movie with too much exposition
| dialogue.
| burnished wrote:
| Huh. That article is.. alright. Reads as pretty emotional. The
| inciting article (linked in a sibling comment, well worth
| reading) does not deserve the criticisms as portrayed by the
| quick quotes included in this article.
|
| The bit about political 'ammunition' is interesting to me though,
| given that the inciting article is briefly but thoroughly damning
| of the political camp evidently using this as 'ammunition'.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| If NPR wanted to improve, they would fire their bigoted CEO and
| make Berliner the new one.
| donatj wrote:
| Despite having been near the top of the homepage mere minutes
| ago, this news article is now seemingly entirely delisted from HN
| without being marked flagged...
|
| [It has since been marked flagged. My comment was seemingly
| changed by someone to "and marked flagged", I've changed it back
| for posterity]
|
| I went back through five pages of posts.
|
| I understand the desire to keep politics out of HN but this seems
| like a big story to cover up.
| vundercind wrote:
| I appreciated this one making the front page because I
| encountered the original article on HN and wondered if there'd
| be retaliation. I like having the follow-up, shame it was more
| than we could handle I guess.
| bloopernova wrote:
| Unfortunately any political thread gets a lot of attention from
| people with ulterior motives to "steer" the thread. It almost
| never feels organic or authentic, just a lot of astroturf
| pushing a particular viewpoint.
|
| I don't want to have to dig through folks' comment histories to
| try to determine if they're actually being truthful or engaged.
| So I'd rather the political stuff stays on reddit and x.
| dang wrote:
| Flags affect a post's ranking before the [flagged] marker
| appears. The [flagged] marker indicates that there are a large
| number of flags relative to upvotes.
| jrootabega wrote:
| Can you please comment on donatj's claim that his post was
| edited by someone else? Can you or anyone else do this, and
| did that happen in this case? Does this happen often?
| jjulius wrote:
| >... this news article is now seemingly entirely delisted from
| HN without being marked flagged...
|
| >I went back through five pages of posts.
|
| It's currently on the first page, post #16. Methinks there has
| been a rush to judgement.
| jrootabega wrote:
| No, it was flagged for hours until recently.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I see it differently. I see inauthentic users boosting these
| stories so people lose trust in the press.
| naasking wrote:
| That ship has long since sailed.
| mjmsmith wrote:
| I still listen to my local NPR station (WNYC) despite its failure
| to pander to fragile white people.
| richrichie wrote:
| The change at NPR must start at the top - with the radicalised,
| far left, activist CEO. Her social media history is just crazy.
| Don't boards vet CEO hires?
| IshKebab wrote:
| > radicalised, far left, activist .. Her social media history
| is just crazy.
|
| I looked this up. Apparently she once tweeted that Trump is
| racist, and posted a photo of herself wearing a Biden hat.
|
| Just crazy.
| richrichie wrote:
| I sense a lack of quality look up!
|
| Start here:
|
| https://www.racket.news/p/new-npr-chief-katherine-mahers-
| gui...
| kristopolous wrote:
| Someone trying to be sensitive and inclusive!
|
| The... Shock... It's unbelievable. Just unbelievable!
| chatmasta wrote:
| Complaints about bias in journalism only exist because of an
| idealist assumption that unbiased "news" or "facts" is something
| that exists. But it does not. Sure, there are some "objective
| facts," but they're really more _measurements_ or _scientific
| observations_ -- today 's temperature, yesterdays death totals,
| the price of a stock, the score of a sports game, etc.
|
| Anything beyond the boundaries of this ticker of raw measurements
| depends on some level of narrative, and therefore bias. Even the
| driest, most unbiased reporting of "what happened" is not immune
| to selection bias in choosing which events to report.
|
| Ironically, the more that a news organization pretends this
| purist ideal of unbiased news exists, the more biased it becomes
| in its effort to hide its natural biases.
|
| In terms of raw signal/noise, a pair of oppositely polarized news
| organizations are more informative than a single "unbiased" one.
| I learn more about the "truth" (which is mostly a matter of
| perception) by reading both Fox and CNN, and comparing the
| overlaps and differences between them, than I ever could by
| reading a single "unbiased" source of news in the middle.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > by reading both Fox and CNN
|
| Most of us don't have time for that. I mostly prefer news
| oriented at business people, where too much bias would cost
| their readers real money, so the reporting tends to be more
| factual. So read WSJ rather than watch FoxNews, since even
| though both are owned by Murdoch, the former is for rich
| conservatives who have less time for idealistic BS.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| WSJ is hilariously biased. It might as well be the financial
| arm of the NY Post at this point.
| wombat-man wrote:
| I read his post which led to this. You should consider reading
| it, he cites specific examples. I think he had some good
| points.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| There are serious journalistic problems with his concrete
| claims. For example the early part of it hinges on the
| Mueller report showing "no credible evidence of collusion"
| which is a straight up misrepresentation. It found many
| specific instances of collaboration, and _some_ evidence of
| collusion but not enough to indicate criminal conspiracy.
| Which is messier than what he is implying and very relevant
| to his argument.
|
| Later when he talks about the political affiliations of the
| newsroom, how did he access the voter registrations? How many
| of those people don't live in DC and so aren't registered
| there, and how did he count them? What are the professional-
| ethical implications of researching your coworkers in this
| way?
| purpleblue wrote:
| No, YOU are misrepresenting the Mueller findings. As per
| the American Bar Association:
|
| The special counsel found that Russia did interfere with
| the election, but "did not find that the Trump campaign, or
| anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with
| the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple
| efforts from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the
| Trump campaign."
|
| https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-
| archives/2...
|
| With respect to obstruction: As far as obstruction, the
| Mueller report laid out facts on both sides but did not
| reach a conclusion. Barr's letter said that "the Special
| Counsel states that 'while this report does not conclude
| that the President committed a crime, it also does not
| exonerate him.'"
| wombat-man wrote:
| Yeah, this is what I remember. And I remember the media
| hype around his investigation.
| buerkle wrote:
| Interesting when you say the parent is misrepresenting
| when that American Bar article is just a summary of the
| Muller report by Barr and Rosenstein, who both have come
| under criticism for their review of the report.
| goatlover wrote:
| > Ironically, the more that a news organization pretends this
| purist ideal of unbiased news exists, the more biased it
| becomes in its effort to hide its natural biases.
|
| Strong disagree. You're saying that the more someone tries to
| be unbiased, the more they end being biased? This seems like an
| excuse to embrace bias and push a narrative. I've never agreed
| with that regarding news.
| chatmasta wrote:
| I am a proponent of _openly_ embracing bias and pushing a
| narrative. The problems come when they try to hide it, by
| claiming to be unbiased (either deceptively or naively) while
| actually pushing a narrative. If everyone is open about their
| agenda, then the reader has more agency to triangulate the
| "truth" without first needing to cut through some layer of
| obfuscation.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Kind of true, and very false.
|
| Don't think of "bias" as a boolean. Think of it as a real value
| between 0 and 1.
|
| You can't get perfectly unbiased. (I actually think I agree -
| you can't.) But you can get _more_ biased and _less_ biased,
| and the difference _really matters_.
|
| Was Walter Cronkite perfectly unbiased? No. But he tried. Was
| the result better than, say, Fox News? Yes, it was.
|
| There was an editor of the New York Times who, recognizing that
| his reporters leaned left, deliberately leaned the editorial
| stance of the paper somewhat to the right, in order to keep the
| results closer to neutral. He literally had "He kept the paper
| straight" put on his tombstone. The results were not perfect -
| they never are - but they were better than the results of "bias
| is inevitable, so we won't bother even trying" (which quickly
| transforms into "bias is inevitable, so we might as well run
| with our biases").
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| > Ironically, the more that a news organization pretends this
| purist ideal of unbiased news exists, the more biased it
| becomes in its effort to hide its natural biases.
|
| "Citation needed".
|
| I don't disagree with your general premise, that journalism
| always has some level of bias; it's likely impossible to create
| an unbiased narrative. That said, I find it difficult to get on
| board with the notion that seeking this perfection is self-
| defeating.
|
| I also find it difficult to believe that choosing to simply get
| your news from two "known biased" news organizations is the
| more correct choice. Some of the so-called news reported on by
| a certain news agency is factually false. It's misinformation,
| and the only use it has is exposing the bias of the agency.
| Presuming the agency on the other extreme end of the spectrum
| is doing the same thing, all you have are two pieces of
| incorrect data. You haven't learned anything because there's
| nothing of value to be learned from something completely false.
| criddell wrote:
| This comment thread is almost entirely people who think NPR of
| today is worse than it used to be (with some exceptions for local
| news).
|
| It makes me wonder if NPR news leadership thinks they are doing a
| good job? Is there an audience out there that think NPR is doing
| a good job in absolute terms? It's easy to say they are better
| than Newsmax or some other outlet, but that's not the same as
| saying NPR is good all by itself.
| thegrim33 wrote:
| The first thought that came to my mind was the Google Gemini
| debacle, as a useful analogy. How did Google release it in the
| state it was in? How did they not notice the problems? How did
| leadership think it was a good idea? I think you'd find a lot
| of similar answers in both cases.
| alephnerd wrote:
| It seems to be a mix of donor capture and lack of relevance at
| the national level.
|
| Local NPR affiliates produce locally relevant content, but
| national level NPR has no actual differentiator. The forces
| them to be much more heavily dependent on their donors (who
| have clearly chosen a specific side) and also means they aren't
| top of the list to get breaking news (no Congress member is
| going to spend 1-2 hours interviewing at NPR when they can have
| multiple interviews with nationally prominent news sources).
|
| This seems to have caused a vicious cycle for NPR as they need
| to keep their donors and listeners happy, but at the expense of
| the long term feasibility of the product.
|
| Furthermore, podcasts are a major portion of national NPR's
| "bundle", and the podcasting industry is extremely
| democratized/commodified now.
| kelipso wrote:
| I think it's institutional capture by a group, coastal
| liberal elite progressive woke, whatever you want to call
| them, and they have their own subculture and viewpoint that
| are disconnected from the majority of Americans. You have
| similar things happening in a lot of other news agencies too.
| JasserInicide wrote:
| _It makes me wonder if NPR news leadership thinks they are
| doing a good job? Is there an audience out there that think NPR
| is doing a good job in absolute terms?_
|
| Yes and yes. As rags have become increasingly partisan, the
| only ones that are sticking around and engaging/paying are
| those that have also become increasingly partisan. And they
| think the rag is doing a swell job so the execs only have their
| echo chamber of ardent supporters to get feedback from.
| tootie wrote:
| My two cents is that Berliner was just dead wrong and his
| opinion based on some really spurious reasoning. He pretty
| badly mischaracterized several key stories and then cherry-
| picked some bits and pieces of articles where guests said
| things he didn't like.
| ilamont wrote:
| If the numbers Berliner revealed about audience losses are
| correct, the impact is surely being most felt at the local
| station level. If fewer people are tuning in, fundraising will
| suffer and cuts are inevitable.
|
| For instance, Boston has two NPR stations, WGBH and WBUR, and
| both are in trouble. This article talks about declining numbers
| of live listeners and resistance to digital transformation, but
| never mentions the issues brought up by Berliner.
|
| https://www.boston.com/news/the-boston-globe/2024/04/11/two-...
| anonporridge wrote:
| KUOW in Seattle seems to be in trouble too. Their sponsors have
| been getting increasingly cringeworthy. Just last week I heard
| a long sponsor message from Christian Science. They seem to
| scraping deeper into the bottom of the barrel and sponsor
| message seem to be increasing in quantity.
| dhosek wrote:
| Are you sure it was from Christian Science and not the
| Christian Science Monitor which has been a long-time sponsor
| (and if I recall occasional reporting partner) of NPR.
| anonporridge wrote:
| It was a pretty explicit message along the lines of "come
| discover how to connect with God with us".
| mywittyname wrote:
| I still listen live on their app when I can, but a lot of their
| programs are also available in podcast format.
|
| I'm sure its hard to compete with so many alternatives to the
| same content.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| I assume the lost is entirety into the cloud of podcasts.
|
| I don't listen to any radio programs anymore and part of that
| is work from home. But I do listen to NPR programming via
| podcasts.
|
| Their business model seems to not survive the move to work from
| home.
|
| It's got nothing to do with politics. It's entirely the same
| technologies disrupting all media. We have simply stopped
| wholesale media consumption for the modern network.
| burningChrome wrote:
| As an aside, I always wondered why conservative radio always
| dominated liberal radio. Nearly every conservative pundit has a
| national show and is syndicated far and wide on AM/FM radio
| stations. Liberal shows you can't find with a search light.
| Remember Air America? It lasted two years before a host of
| scandals and a bankruptcy put it into the "where are they now?"
| bin as it limped along for another 4 years before shuttering.
|
| But I digress.
|
| Just curious why conservatives still love radio after so many
| decades and liberals have almost nothing comparable to listen
| to locally or nationally.
| dhosek wrote:
| https://bigthink.com/guest-thinkers/why-do-conservatives-
| dom...
| pesus wrote:
| I imagine at least part of it is age and aversion to
| change/new technology.
| nickff wrote:
| It might just be that conservatives drive more (and that's
| how most radio listeners tune in).
| anon291 wrote:
| Because many conservatives have blue collar jobs that have
| them in their car / at a work site by themselves where they
| can listen.
|
| Whereas progressives seem more likely to listen at a desk,
| hence the plethora of leftist podcasts.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Nope, it's the Reagan-era relaxation of ownership rules.
| Guess who owns the stations. And lots of liberals drive
| cars.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Isn't NPR the glaring exception?
| angiosperm wrote:
| Right-wing radio is heavily subsidized by right-wing
| institutions funded by the billionaires we all know about. It
| is happy to repeat lies, without shame, at length until they
| are believed. No non-subsidized radio station can compete, so
| all AM talk radio is openly right-wing, and is all there is
| on the dial in most rural settings.
| r14c wrote:
| Liberalism is pretty shallow I guess and anything further
| left is considered a national security issue so you don't get
| any interesting viewpoints. Even breadtube is pretty milk
| toast. I'll just stick to my hip hop and punk jams tyvm. IME
| a lot of millenials and younger that are "progressive" are
| too left for what can be considered "acceptable content" on
| corporate platforms. Tiktok has pretty good content in this
| area too, but I think a lot of it boils down to the biases of
| liberal broadcast media owners not keeping up with the kind
| of content people want to hear.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| There is no one true liberal narrative. There are somewhere
| in the range of 1 to 3 true conservative narratives.
|
| Politics in the US is represented with two parties: the
| right, and the tent. No one person can represent everyone in
| the tent. Anyone can represent the right.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Conservatives are easier to herd. They may argue with what
| the Republican party is doing at any given moment, but
| ultimately they _will_ fall in line.
|
| Centralized messaging is simply a better fit for the
| conservative worldview than it is for those on the
| liberal/left-leaning side of the spectrum. Which in reality
| occupies a bigger tent than the GOP ever pitched.
| jimbokun wrote:
| It is kind of comical that NPR made racial and gender diversity
| their main priority...and still have a listener base that's
| much whiter than the country as a whole.
| astrange wrote:
| No conflict there if you're used to their New England shows
| like Car Talk and Wait Wait (* pretending Chicago is New
| England for the moment). They were always woke, as in
| constantly making identity jokes about ethnic white people
| like Jews and Italians.
| crackercrews wrote:
| WAMU had layoffs recently.
| mrcwinn wrote:
| Is this really a business model issue? I understood that NPR's
| funding primarily comes from corporate sponsors, not listeners
| or the government. If that's true, there is less incentive to
| preserve local affiliates. Consolidation is inevitable, I would
| imagine.
| tootie wrote:
| That's not exactly true. For one, all the local affiliates
| have their own budgets, their own expenses, revenues and
| staff. Up until this year, NPR was specifically prohibited
| from collecting donations from listeners. If you had gone to
| npr.org and clicked "donate" it would force you to donate to
| your local affiliate. Affiliates do not give NPR a cut of
| their donations. Instead they pay (on a sliding scale I
| think) for the rights to content produced by NPR. If you look
| at the sources of revenue for any given affiliate, it will
| probably be mostly donation from listeners. So taken as a
| whole, public radio is very much paid for by listeners.
| tootie wrote:
| Just to be clear, when it comes to radio audience, the audience
| is 100% local stations. NPR does not own any radio spectrum.
| The structure is that local stations have complete editorial
| control of their programming so long as it adheres to the
| principles of the NPR mission and in exchange they get access
| to the network of content produced by NPR and local affiliates.
| Bigger affiliates like the ones in Boston produce a lot of
| local content or even sell back to the national network, while
| smaller ones are mostly running NPR content. They are also all
| running their own budgets and revenue operations.
| StarterPro wrote:
| Thread ended up way more conservative than i'd imagine.
| JasserInicide wrote:
| People getting sick and tired of news outlets becoming
| increasingly partisan are now automatically "conservative"?
| You're part of the problem
| markdeloura wrote:
| NPR listener for 30 years and I'm having a similar reaction to
| many of you in this thread. For the first time, I'm finding
| myself turning off the radio once I'm awake.
|
| It seems like Berliner breaking the rules (or norms) and throwing
| bombs by way of another media outlet was his last-ditch effort to
| break through and be heard. In that, at least, he's getting
| attention, and now let's hope it leads to change.
|
| The examples he gave in the FP piece all seemed very political,
| focusing on not covering "the other side". Honestly I don't want
| any of that crap coming at me in the morning, I don't want "other
| side" coverage just like I don't want "my side" coverage. I can
| get that anywhere. I listen to NPR because I want good
| journalism, not both-sidesism. I hope this event can lead
| coverage back there. With the new CEO, perhaps there's an
| opportunity.
| wwweston wrote:
| Recently I bought a car from the early 2000s, no aux jack or BT
| and I've been having an interesting time just listening to the
| radio rather than dropping my phone ecosystem into the car. So
| I'm listening to a lot more NPR than I have for at least a
| decade.
|
| And I have no idea where people who are saying NPR has made some
| kind of hard partisan shift are coming from. If anything, as far
| as I can tell, most programming is still trying to walk a middle-
| of-the-road multiple-perspectives this-side-says-this but that-
| side-says-that, sometimes annoying so.
|
| Of course, there is one group of people that has been casting NPR
| as particularly partisan for at least 25 years, and a lot of
| these comments sound like a cross between their rhetoric and NYT
| Pitchbot.
| zzzeek wrote:
| right, "middle of the road" is now "far left", "crazy batshit
| rightwing BS" is "the truth". This is overton window war stuff.
|
| > And I have no idea where people who are saying NPR has made
| some kind of hard partisan shift are coming from.
|
| right wing extremist groups and leaders like Chris Rufo
| zdragnar wrote:
| Middle of the road used to be that maybe gay people could
| have civil unions but not actual marriage.
|
| Middle of the road used to be that cross-dressing was fine as
| a hobby, but trans people had a mental illness that is
| harmful to enable.
|
| Middle of the road used to be "I don't like what you say but
| I'll defend your right to say it".
|
| On most issues, the Overton window in America has and
| continues to slide left, not right.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > sometimes annoying so.
|
| Agreed.
|
| I've been an regular NPR listener for like 15 years now, and if
| I had a complaint about their reporting, it would be that they
| shy away from being based if it could potentially alienate the
| right wing audience.
|
| It's good to be empathic to your audience, especially when
| reporting on sensitive topics. But tiptoeing around the facts
| because it might give ammo to people who already hate you shows
| a lack of self-confidence.
| anon291 wrote:
| Tiptoe around the facts like Hunter Biden's laptop? I agree
| NPR needs to stick to facts, not editorially choose to censor
| a topic that the public has deemed important.
| crackercrews wrote:
| > they shy away from being based if it could potentially
| alienate the right wing audience.
|
| Funny typo, considering that "based" means something
| completely different in the political realm. NPR is most
| certainly not based...
| gottorf wrote:
| > having an interesting time just listening to the radio
|
| The NPR member station you're listening to is distinct from
| National Public Radio, Inc. The former controls its own
| programming. Uri Berliner was employed by the latter.
| dhosek wrote:
| A large fraction of NPR programming, particularly drive-time
| programming, comes from NPR. I'm pretty sure OP can
| distinguish between All Things Considered and What's Up
| Spokane.
| crackercrews wrote:
| Local NPR affiliates also carry shows from other national
| organizations like PRI. It's not just ATC versus local
| programming. Many people think such shows are NPR even
| though they aren't.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| It's people who want the polarity to be "what we say" and fake
| news.
|
| NPR and other liberal media works really hard to not pierce the
| facade of conservative arguments even when they consistently
| create incongruous reasons and end up explicitly stating that
| they're doing things for political benefit and no other reason.
|
| Anyway, like most conservative media, NPR is just a target to
| chill and try and draw them into producing news that better
| builds the conservative facade of "rational" discourse they
| want people to believe is the basis for their decisions.
|
| As opposed to the racism and corrupt business practices that is
| the entire American Republicans.
| majormajor wrote:
| It's interesting that the majority of those comments are
| focused on a single issue. It sounds more like a preconceived
| notion rather than an informed criticism, where one would also
| likely be annoyed by discussions of economic injustice, ideas
| around UBI, taxation discussion, the criminality-or-not-of-
| Donald-Trump's actions (a primary thing Berliner himself
| actually mentioned in multiple instances, even!), etc...?
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Also, perhaps this is stating the obvious, but this article is
| posted on npr.org itself, and it is quite an in-depth treatment
| and analysis of the situation. While other news orgs my have a
| short blurb (often buried somewhere on their website), I rarely
| see them airing their own dirty laundry with such gusto.
| Wolfenstein98k wrote:
| That's because he forced the issue by going to every outlet
| he could, mostly liberal ones, and he was right too.
|
| He'd be buried if he didn't and wasn't.
| crackercrews wrote:
| This isn't laudable, it's defensive. The snafu has been
| covered in the NYT so there's no burying it. They are making
| sure their side is told by covering it themselves.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| ... and if they hadn't covered it, would you criticize them
| for burying the story?
| crackercrews wrote:
| No. They can't bury a story after it's been in the NYT.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| You have an idiosyncratic definition for what the phrase
| means. Or maybe I do.
|
| When the source about the Biden's bribes in Ukraine
| turned out to be a Russian asset, it was widely reported,
| including the NYT. Fox and other right news sources
| glossed past it. To me, that is burying the story, even
| though it was widely reported in other outlets.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I mean, I'd love to see, as an example, as in-depth of a
| report from Fox News detailing the sexual harassment
| allegations against Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly, but I
| had no luck searching.
|
| I also don't think NPR would be successful in "burying" it,
| but they could easily just choose to not report on it.
| Alupis wrote:
| When one agrees with content they are much more likely to say
| it sounds non-partisan, middle ground, common sense, etc.
|
| The issues with NPR reporting stem from word choice (inclusions
| _and_ exclusions), choice of stories to report (crickets about
| things they disagree with and wall-to-wall on things they want
| you to be outraged with), etc.
|
| NPR is about as partisan as it gets... it's a smoke screen to
| bill themselves as non-partisan - and some people just eat it
| up.
| hobs wrote:
| The GP isn't praising them for their middle ground reporting.
| The truth often doesn't have a middle ground.
| mrkstu wrote:
| They've been actively burying true news that doesn't fit
| their narrative- that isn't even reporting, it's advancing
| an agenda.
| Alupis wrote:
| > The truth often doesn't have a middle ground.
|
| There is rarely, if ever, such a thing as objective truth
| when it comes to politics. There are always multiple
| perspectives.
|
| Make no mistake here - NPR has an agenda to push and they
| are masterfully skilled in doing so; evidenced by the
| people who still believe it's a non-partisan "just the
| truth" journalism outfit.
| nickff wrote:
| The "lab leak hypothesis" is one instance where NPR seems
| to have buried the most plausible explanation; there are
| many other similar examples.
| subharmonicon wrote:
| Buried in what way? Googling "npr lab leak hypothesis"
| yields dozens of stories published on NPR sites reporting
| on that theory, primarily quoting WHO and US government
| reports. I wouldn't call that burying. You might not like
| what their sources say and may think there are sources
| they ignored, but calling that burying without pointing
| out those omissions doesn't seem reasonable.
|
| [edit: add a question mark]
| Alupis wrote:
| Ah yes, the Good O' Memory Hole.
|
| Every story that shows in search results is something
| that dismisses the Lab Leak theory as being farcical and
| pushed by a Right-Wing Anti-China agenda.
|
| Yet... it was and still is the single most plausible
| theory - and today there's a lot of evidence to indicate
| it is more likely true than not.
|
| So yes, NPR did suppress the lab leak hypothesis, very
| successfully. There are many today that still hold it to
| be some sort of racist conjecture.
|
| As the parent mentioned - there's many other examples if
| we review the past few years major stories, including the
| Hunter Biden Laptop fiasco that, according to NPR and
| others seeking to suppress the story, was "certified
| Russian disinformation", etc.
| feoren wrote:
| > the Hunter Biden Laptop fiasco
|
| While I agree NPR was too quick to reject and smear the
| lab-leak hypothesis, it doesn't help your case to include
| the Hunter Biden Laptop hysteria that was fabricated
| whole-cloth and never had an ounce of substance to it.
| Alupis wrote:
| > the Hunter Biden Laptop hysteria that was fabricated
| whole-cloth and never had an ounce of substance to it.
|
| None of what you have said is even close to any
| resemblance of any sort of truth. I hope you will dig
| past the partisan reporting to educate yourself further
| on this particular political cover up.
| mindslight wrote:
| Is it the job of responsible news media to report on
| _hypotheses_ , as opposed to substantiating things with
| facts? The lab leak hypothesis was initially pushed in
| the mainstream as pure speculation to support the do
| nothing President deflect blame onto anyone else rather
| than accepting the responsibility of leadership. That
| echoes to this day. There is indeed a huge intellectual
| travesty around the topic, as well as most other matters
| about Covid, and blame for that is shared between both
| teams of partisans.
| Alupis wrote:
| > Is it the job of responsible news media to report on
| hypotheses, as opposed to things able to be substantiated
| with facts?
|
| > do nothing President trying to deflect blame onto
| anyone else rather than accepting the responsibility of
| leadership
|
| This is some very interesting high-level spin you have
| going on here.
| mindslight wrote:
| What else would you call reflexively blaming China rather
| than acknowledging there is a problem? Even if China
| _deliberately_ created and spread Covid, we still needed
| domestic leadership, not "it's just like the flu". I was
| still giving Trump the benefit of the doubt figuring he
| was going to come around to addressing reality by at
| least June, but nope. He essentially had been handed a
| shoe-in second term on a silver platter for being a
| crisis time President, but threw it away for what we can
| only guess.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Berliner pointed out multiple stories they got wrong due to
| their political biases.
| cpursley wrote:
| > The truth often doesn't have a middle ground.
|
| This is the line of thinking that leads to gulags and gas
| chambers.
| wwweston wrote:
| This. There is a reason why I included the phrase
| "sometimes annoyingly so" and didn't particularly praise
| it. It's... fine, more or less, both helped and hobbled by
| its efforts at journalistic triangulation while doing its
| job of touching on some points of currency and providing
| mental snack material.
|
| And the fact that I listen to it or find it interesting is
| not an endorsement much less an absence of criticism. I'm
| listening to Christian radio networks as well (share
| similar dial segments, it's interesting to find out what's
| going on there, get a different take on the news, hear
| what's going 'round in terms of sermons and CCM these days,
| what's that you say, a Christian values investment fund,
| sounds not grifty at all, I am intrigued), college radio,
| freakin' Pacifica.
| kernal wrote:
| >I have no idea where people who are saying NPR has made some
| kind of hard partisan shift are coming from.
|
| Perhaps this will help you out:
|
| A veteran National Public Radio journalist slammed the left-
| leaning broadcaster for ignoring the Hunter Biden laptop
| scandal because it could have helped Donald Trump get re-
| elected.
|
| >Of course, there is one group of people that has been casting
| NPR as particularly partisan for at least 25 years
|
| Congratulations on contradicting yourself.
| dhosek wrote:
| He's saying he doesn't see the basis for the complaints. The
| Hunter Biden laptop scandal? Even the New York Post (not
| exactly a left-leaning publication) only ran with the story
| with the original reporter insisting his byline be omitted
| and the reporter who was given the byline wasn't informed of
| this happening because while the laptop was Biden's, the
| validity of the contents could not be verified and had
| roughly the validity of the Bush National Guard letter.
| kernal wrote:
| >He's saying he doesn't see the basis for the complaints.
|
| Their partisan political coverage is the basis for the
| complaints.
|
| >the validity of the contents could not be verified
|
| The contents were verified as authentic. Additionally, the
| FBI had the contents years before the public release and
| they knew it was authentic.
|
| >Testimony Reveals FBI Employees Who Warned Social Media
| Companies about Hack and Leak Operation Knew Hunter Biden
| Laptop Wasn't Russian Disinformation
|
| >DOJ confirms in new court filing it indeed belonged to
| Hunter Biden
| astrange wrote:
| They were not verified as authentic. You and whoever read
| that filing misunderstood it. (More importantly, if any
| component was verified that does not mean the whole thing
| is.)
|
| Also, in the same DOJ filing they attached a picture of a
| table saw covered in sawdust and said it was a picture
| Hunter Biden had taken of "apparent cocaine".
| wwweston wrote:
| As usually invoked the Melter Liden Bipbop Sandal is less a
| story people are actually interested in than a conceptual
| container for non-specific aspersions (hence it may as well
| be referred to as I just did). The most instructive thing
| about it is how readily certain people take enthusiastically
| to guilt by association with pretty vague allegations of
| ostensible corruption when they can't get anything closer
| (especially ironic when paired with denial about the
| absolutely overwhelming tidal wave of _obvious_ and directly
| connected corruption for another figure). Maybe someday a
| story about someone who 's never held public office and is
| barely a public figure will be actually be worthy of news
| when a court case or two conclude.
|
| But on a more concrete level, the idea that NPR _ignored_ the
| specific topic invoked here is wrong, not just considering
| that there 's no there there, but in absolute terms. I have
| heard NPR segments discussing it and seen posts about it. I
| don't expect you to take my word for it, here's some front
| page results from a search:
|
| https://www.npr.org/2024/02/15/1231884999/fbi-informant-
| char...
|
| https://www.npr.org/2023/09/26/1201691151/hunter-biden-
| sues-...
|
| https://www.npr.org/2023/08/11/1193465237/hunter-biden-
| inves...
|
| https://www.npr.org/2022/04/09/1091859822/more-details-
| emerg...
| mrkstu wrote:
| I'm a never-Trumper, came up as a voter in the Reagan era,
| omnivorous consumer of all news content, listened to NPR prior
| to the pandemic near daily, and still regularly afterwards,
| until the bias just completely turned me off.
|
| Your take seems wildly off to me. NPRs non-straight news
| programming has always been left, but the regular news
| programming at least mildly tried to be viewpoint neutral.
|
| That disappeared post-Trump. All programming took a strong PoV,
| and unless the politician was actively anti-Trump their
| interactions with non-leftists were adversarial.
|
| Again, as a now third party voter because of Trump/Maga this is
| not because I felt any commonality with the other side of the
| coin, but purely that I was essentially being fed propaganda
| rather than news.
| anon291 wrote:
| This is not a surprising take to find online as it's been well
| demonstrated that while conservatives mostly understand where
| liberals are coming from, liberals have a really hard time
| understanding right wing concerns.
| je_bailey wrote:
| I haven't seen that demonstrated myself. Could you point me
| to a study or two that provides the details on that?
| jonahx wrote:
| Without vouching for the validity of this source, a quick
| search on perplexity.ai (which is good for this kind of
| thing) gives:
|
| https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0146167223119
| 8...
|
| It also mentions a 2017 article in The Atlantic that I
| wasn't able to dig up.
| fsckboy wrote:
| Jesse Graham, Brian A. Nosek, Jonathan Haidt, "The Moral
| Stereotypes of Liberals and Conservatives: Exaggeration of
| Differences across the Political Spectrum"
| https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0050092
|
| Jonathan Haidt in his book "Righteous Mind"
| https://righteousmind.com/
| lolinder wrote:
| Speaking as someone who leans _very_ slightly left in a deep
| red state (I would probably be considered a conservative
| anywhere else), this is nonsense. It may or may not have been
| true in the Reagan years, I 'm too young to know, but Trump
| conservatives have absolutely no idea where liberals are
| coming from. Their perspectives on liberal views are just as
| skewed by stereotypes and propaganda as leftists' views of
| conservatives are.
| ars wrote:
| I listen to both NPR and Fox news summary every day, and both
| of them are virtually identical in how they cover things.
|
| Every once in a while you'll hear a slant in how they will
| frame something, like the context or who they chose to quote.
| But it's clear that both NPR and Fox try very hard to be
| neutral.
|
| (Note the Fox TV show with "personalities" is not the same as
| their news show.)
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I only watch Fox News during elections and I find it just as
| good as any other outlet if not slightly better.
|
| Fox Business seems about the same.
|
| TheHill seems fairly balanced and surprisingly enough newsmax
| seems fairly balanced.
|
| Redstate on the other hand has a double standard and ignores
| anything negative about Trump. They kicked out all of thier
| traditional conservatives.
| skywhopper wrote:
| Yeah, the article in question that got this guy suspended was
| like reading about an alternate mirror reality. If anything has
| gone wrong at NPR (and similar media orgs) in the past decade
| it's the willingness to bend over backwards to try to satisfy
| their harshest bad-faith critics, which is utterly impossible,
| and results in really terrible coverage.
|
| I find the five day suspension thing bizarre... either fire the
| guy or don't, whatever. But his claims that they didn't give
| _enough_ credence to the craziest, most pernicious lies out
| there is the opposite of true.
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| Last time I listened to NPR was in an Uber ride in 2020, it
| sounded like some kind of right wing parody of far-left
| activists. I couldn't believe people considered that "middle of
| the road".
|
| I'm rather disgusted that my tax dollars go to them.
| alfor wrote:
| Have you ever voted conservative? Do you have friends that vote
| conservative?
|
| Do you have collegues that vote conservative.
|
| Is it possible you are _in_ the bubble?
|
| Just here in HN is progressive to ultra progressive. Any
| mention of the other side is a sure way to get downvoted to
| oblivion.
| TheEggMan wrote:
| Completely agree. Being a conservative here is not much fun.
| notabee wrote:
| HN culture is progressive on some things but very libertarian
| on others. It's not very left wing because a large portion of
| the posters here are quite insulated from the plight of blue
| collar workers.
| feoren wrote:
| This take only works if you tunnel-vision yourself to only
| looking at the United States. It's all too easy to say "we
| believe X and you believe Y; who's to say which is right!?
| From our point of view, _you 're_ the one in the bubble!" But
| if you step back and look at the American political spectrum
| from a global and historical perspective, it's _abundantly_
| clear that it 's the conservative side that is in a bubble;
| nearly even a cult. The rest of us would love to have two
| rational political parties to pick from. Few people are
| ideologically beholden to the Democratic Party directly, it's
| just literally our _only option_.
| lolinder wrote:
| Have you read this thread that is currently pinned to the top
| of the page [0]?
|
| I'm a one-time conservative who moved to the center after
| Trump. I live in a deep red state but work remotely with an
| extremely left-wing company (the kind that regularly has deep
| discussions of identity politics during work hours). I like
| to think I have a pretty good idea of what each extreme looks
| like and every shade in between, and HN has by far the most
| balanced political discussions I've ever seen in any forum
| in-person or online.
|
| Part of my evidence in favor of that claim is that people on
| each extreme both perceive HN to be biased in the opposite
| direction.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40051728
| gyudin wrote:
| Funny how self-proclaimed progressives are not considered
| progressive by any means by liberals both in EU and Asian
| countries. But I guess impudence and stupidity can get you a long
| way in US.
| slibhb wrote:
| The lapse of journalistic objectivity over the past ~10 years is
| a dead horse.
|
| I do think we've turned a corner for the better. I haven't
| listened to NPR in years but the Times has improved over the past
| few years.
|
| One of the themes of Civil War, the new Alex Garland movie,
| concerns this dynamic. See his interview in the Times:
| https://archive.is/pzs1a. His theory is that the press is
| supposed to check polarization by disseminating objective facts
| (which never fit one faction's worldview perfectly) and this
| process' failure has led to increasing polarization.
| ametrau wrote:
| The guardian seems less polemic and agitation propagandising
| recently also.
| mannyv wrote:
| Journalistic objectivity was basically invented by anti-
| Roosevelt media. Before that newspapers were explicitly
| partisan. Roosevelt was so dominant that Republicans felt the
| need to change the script.
|
| FYI, the Civil War was really started by the ridiculously
| stupid attack on Fort Sumter. If SC hadn't gone off and
| attacked the fort the US would have split into two or three
| countries...and everyone would have been OK with that.
| slibhb wrote:
| "Telling the truth was invented in the 1930s"
|
| Hmm
| tootie wrote:
| Bias and accuracy are separate axes. Mother Jones is
| explicitly liberal media, but their reporting is highly
| factual. Fox News is right-wing and has settled multiple
| cases over defamation for spreading false stories.
| slibhb wrote:
| I don't agree. I think lies by omission are lies.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Berliner said that the newsroom had all Democrats, and zero
| Republicans. Yet magically they're going to have a balanced
| approach anyway?
|
| They interviewed Adam Schiff 25 times in the RussiaGate
| "scandal." They dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story as a
| "non-story" and somehow they still want to claim they're non-
| partisan?
|
| It might be more straightforward and honest for all you NPR-
| defenders to just come out and say, "It's OK when we do it,
| because we're right. And we're SO tired of hearing about that
| laptop."
| frankhhhhhhhhh wrote:
| Don't tell people how to think. Sums it up perfectly.
| mlhpdx wrote:
| > "Did we offer coverage that helped them understand -- even if
| just a bit better -- those neighbors with whom they share little
| in common?"
|
| I find the person leading the coverage "solution" has the same
| emblematic word choice issues as the organization as a whole. I
| love NPR and the local public affiliates but they cannot see
| their own failings.
|
| Are there any two people, anywhere in this world that truly
| "share little in common"?
| qwertyuiop_ wrote:
| To a casual observer this looks like a case of
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_woke,_go_broke
| georgeburdell wrote:
| Haven't read Mr. Berliner's piece, but I was a listener for 15
| years before I stopped altogether shortly after the events of
| 2020 that do not need to be named (and whose particular name
| chosen by the speaker usually reveals their political leanings)
|
| Coverage seems to have gotten stuck around that time.
| rsync wrote:
| Try: " _The recent unpleasantness_ ".
| etchalon wrote:
| NPR programming has been non-partisan left-of-center with a bias
| towards humanity over raw factual presentation for as long as I
| can remember. It's essentially the NPR "house-style".
| hackable_sand wrote:
| I appreciate NPR's unbiased reporting on internal conflict. They
| could have dragged Berliner but chose to report the facts as they
| are.
|
| That's why they're in my top three rotation.
| crackercrews wrote:
| How do you know they could have dragged him? If what he said
| was fair then they wouldn't have been able to land any punches.
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