June 26, 2009

I love NPR, but their Fox reporting has to end

I heard part of this exchange the other day and found myself yelling at the radio. this exchange the other day:
"This morning Inskeep was at it again in a chat with Juan Williams. After Williams claimed 'what the government's doing may in fact drive up the cost of health care' and touted a CBO report alleging that the Dem/Obama plan would 'cause some people to lose their insurance' - Inskeep played a clip of the Sebelius interview in which she calls the potential for single-payer insurance a 'draconian scenario.' He then asks Williams, 'Has the White House found any effective way to prove a negative here; to say this is not going to become creeping socialism?'"
During the same interview, Williams also talked about the declining poll numbers for Obama, but seemed to completely ignore the recent NYT poll that shows pretty solid public support for the "public plan." In fact, many other sources are commenting on the fact that Republican leaders are completely out of touch with their Republican followers on issues such as healthcare. But you won't hear about that on Fox and when two of the NPR "commentators" also "comment" at Fox, then you get the picture. And Cokie Roberts? I used to like her, but wonder when she joined the O'Reilly club. I have not heard her give balanced analysis in years.

9 comments:

steves said...

How often do you watch Fox? I am not trying to be a smart ass, but I have found that many of their critics watch nothing but snippets of Fox on other shows. I have seen quite a bit of Williams on Fox and most of the time he is providing a counterpoint to various conservative pundits. I saw him the other night go round and round with Hannity on the Sanford thing.

So, what does NPR have to do? Get rid of anyone that is critical of the Left?

Streak said...

Nope. No problem with people critical of the left. The problem is when they just lie about the polling data, and lie about the situation. When their spin is identical to the far right, that is not cogent analysis.

Hell, I trust David Brooks on NPR more than I do Juan Williams. Yeah, I know he tries against the real idiots on Fox, but think that he is not a very good analyst on NPR>

steves said...

Fair enough. I usually like Williams, but he has his moments. He tends to be more even handed than most pundits.

Streak said...

Some of it is that I really wonder what some of these people are doing on Fox. Does anyone really believe that "fair and balanced" crap?

steves said...

I am sure that some do, but it is a matter or perspective. If your leaning to the right, then Fox probably seems just fine.

As for what they are doing there, I am not sure. My guess is that want to reach as wide an audience as possible. Fox has good ratings. It could also just be a paycheck.

LB said...

I have to disagree with you about people being biased for ignoring the New York Times poll. That poll in and of itself is pretty biased. 48% of the respondents voted for Obama,only 25% for McCain. That's no where near a representative sample.

Also, the questions and conclusion don't match up. The question was "Would you be willing to pay higher taxes so that all Americans have health insurance?" 57% said yes.

That question does not directly translate into support for a public plan. For instance by paying higher taxes government could directly subsidize health insurance companies that offer some sort of price break on insurance to the poor.

One other thing, I disagree about Fox News being so biased. Certainly their commentary is biased, but by definition commentary is biased. I think its fairly clear that Bill O'Reilly is a commentator, while Special Report is a new show with a small commentary segment at the end. Its rare when I ever hear anyone accuse the actual news shows on Fox of being biased.

I'm a little late, but congratulations on your anniversary by the way!

Streak said...

I think this entire "well it just depends on your perspective" and other equalization is a false assumption. I can absolutely accept that the NY Times poll is not gospel, and also that the NYT and other sources are biased. But Fox doesn't operate like those other voices and we shouldn't act like it does. Yeah, I know the commentators are clearly biased to the right, and actually are far more reactionary than anyone on the left (with a television show). Look at Hannity and Beck coming very close to calling for revolution against Obama. But it isn't just those idiots. Chris Wallace and the other "journalists" are all clearly very conservative and make very little effort to be anything other than that. Shep Smith calls Torture what it is, and also calls out the far right for their extremism, and gets hammered by the same far right. I don't expect him to be at Fox that much longer, and he is not some liberal pundit.

Hell, look at the Sanford coverage where they showed him with a D tag. And that isn't the first time they have done that.

I am sorry, but Fox is not like the other news sources, because they purposely want to be conservative. The others may lean liberal at times, but that is not their overt intent. Fox fully intends to support the Republican party and the conservative cause. That is their purpose.

Thanks for the anniversary wishes, LB. We were just talking about what nice people visit here at the blog. Even when they disagree with me! :)

steves said...

Shepard Smith has some really good air time. I doubt he will go anywhere soon.

As for the rest of the MSM, I think that they lean to the left on most issues more often than they lean to the right. I don't think it is as bad as the right says most of the time, but I also think they are quite overt at times in their support for the left, especially in the last election.

I agree with LB, in that their non-commentary stuff is fairly non-biased.

Streak said...

Yeah, I disagree. The MSM would rather cover Michael Jackson's death than the "public option." The liberal media is largely mythical, and the conservative media is Fox and talk radio. And not a myth.