The moment I started questioning every NPR story was a couple years ago when 1A "reported" on the violent flare up in Israel / Palestine by playing a five second sound bite of Netanyahu followed by five minutes of the former head of the PLO just talking freely with hardly any questions, let alone pushback on his claims.
Not to mention the entire network's steady march through political correctness into wokeness.
Loved the "ideologically captured" line. Seriously, the title of the new program you are releasing is "chef's kiss" good: "All Things Re-Considered". Kudos, Peter, et al.
Amen. I am a life-long liberal who is appalled that the woke movement calls itself liberal. Race essentialism, upending the entire country over a phenomenon that affects less than 25% of the number of flat-earthers are incomprehensible.
Transgenderism is real and incredibly rare. There is no evidence to support any regional "outbreaks" as anything other than sympathetic histrionic acting out. We should hold our transgendered friends' hands and walk with them through the amsazing journey called life, not destroy the country in a misguided belief that we're "helping.."
I was just reading Helen Pluckrose on this. Much of the academic writing directly states its opposition to liberalism. I had originally also conceived of it as an outgrowth of liberalism taken to an extreme not as something that exists to undermine liberalism--despite the evidence in front of me that illustrated that undermining.
I am a life long conservative (a phrase rarely uttered, I realize). I listened to NRP for years while I worked in my shop. I thought it was an entertaining way to try to balance my outlook on things. But when it became the bot channel you describe, I talked to my more academically inclined friends to see what they thought only to find that they were abandoning the station in favor of podcasts, so that’s where I am these days.
Once people go down the rabbit hole on either side I doubt they ever really escape. Maybe your NPR revisited will prove me wrong. I wish you all the luck.
Thank you. In NPR's case, it's giving the impression of presenting information in a balanced way, when they have a very clear agenda. Matt and I discuss this in detail during the show.
I would love you to go after the topic of gender and gender medicine with the nuance our children deserve. It's so sad that the woke left media (such as NPR) cannot see or won't admit to how harmful this is for confused youth. It's absurdly destabilizing for gender ideology to be taught in schools, but it seems the left is afraid to give an inch on this because.... it's okay to sacrifice children in the name of wokism?
They push a very particular narrative, and in order to do that, their reporters can't push back and ask hard questions or give sufficient airtime to experts who hold a different position.
Love this. Thought about submitting a video about the moment i stopped listening, but it really wasn’t a monumental event... more like a straw breaking the camel’s back. The accumulation of so much absurdity that i just couldn’t listen anymore. Sad, because it once was really good and a nice thing to turn into in the early morning hours.
I hope your reporting leads to it being good again. Until then, it disgusts me and i want nothing to do with it.
One other thing i will add: it is just amazing to me how so many « smart » people can be so dumb, so sheep -like. It actually makes me think that i should never have been surprised, that assuming « smart » people were any wiser or more virtuous may have been conceited in the first place.
Yup, Shermer writes about this in "Why People Believe Weird Things". Being smart does not insulate one against holding bizarre beliefs. In fact, it may make one more susceptible.
Agreed. If you are smart, you are probably less likely to concede a difference between intelligence and wisdom. Easier to conclude you are just right because you are smarter than someone else, rather than listen to someone you consider inferior.
I look forward to seeing a detailed analysis of NPR. I have noticed that PBS TV is becoming more biased than in the past. This is also true of most mainstream publications. Of course, all of this is part of the Critical Social Justice orthodoxy that has swept the nation. One way to push back is to avoid funding or supporting organizations that have become part of the illiberal orthodoxy. Another is to speak out when feasible instead of remaining silent. I write "2026" on Substack.com about preserving the U.S. Constitution and U.S. democracy.
This interests me. I stopped donating a handful of years ago when I realized that I was not getting fair or balanced reporting. I always knew there was bias in the content selection of the news covered, but the lack of fair and balanced treatment of even that content became frustrating, disappointing, heartbreaking. Like you, I thought it used to exist. And I used to love my NPR station. I stopped donating, then kept listening to see if things would change and allow me to be able to support the news outlet. I think 2020 was my breaking point.
It should be noted, too, that my feedback was never acknowledged/fell on deaf ears. I do keep getting fundraising letters, however.
I eagerly awaited this series, have wrangled 3 family members, into viewing and discussing after each episode.
Being part of helping and watching the younger in my family develop broader skills of discernment using your platform has been, to be very honest, unrepayable.
You will understand the capture by visiting the online webpage, "Trans Journalists Association Style Guide." No names attached, no professors of journalism as authors.
Ute Heggen, author, In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022)
(where you'll find some natural, practical healing movements for body dissociation from former professional dancer, BFA U Wisc-Milwaukee, Early Childhood Speciallist, MS ED, Brooklyn College)
NPR went off the rails years ago. We should demand they be defunded. Why should we fund a radio station full of bias political slant? No! Tired of tax money being abused by these woke agencies pushing garbage.
I have to disagree. Too much tax payer’s money spread around as bribes to spread lies. We need to shut down departments and rid DC of half there along with annual funding outside. If they are worth their salt, they don’t need our money Year after year.
NPR doesn't deserve even a penny of taxpayer dollars. Every dime since their implosion into the woke dumpster fire they are today should be refunded to the taxpayer plus interest. They love reparations anyways.
In my opinion--CPB money should continue to be used to support public radio stations across the country. I believe that public radio stations can be wonderful assets to communities. But there needs to be oversight regarding diverse ideological representation on these stations. This does not mean censorship--not even of NPR. It means NPR can't be the only perspective broadcast on public radio.
I am really excited by the premise of this episode and the prospects for this podcast. I'm always excited to see what you, Peter, have to add to the discourse. Looks like you are off to a good start. I would love to help in any way I can. I am an artist not an academic (though I have a very worthless, $40,000 degree) But if you every need any art I'd do it for free!
I gradually stopped listening. I listened every morning for several years. I can't remember if it was during the Trump election or after he was elected but they were so obsessed with him. I didn't like him but tired of listening to their campaign against him. I significantly reduced my listening but still did until every episode was about black oppression and activism. I couldn't take it anymore and just started listening to music instead.
This is very similar to what happened with me. I listened everyday on my way to and from work, which was at least an hour each way. When Clinton and Trump were running against each other I kept hearing a lot of one sided stories favoring Clinton and I just blew it off because Trump is pretty bombastic and says very hyperbolic things. When Trump was elected it seemed like everything was about Trump and how he is hurting everybody. That is when I started to listen to the economic parts of NPR until they started becoming more woke. I now just listen to podcasts and I have no interest in going back.
Greetings from Germany! Here we also have public broadcasting (radio, television - the mainstream media) which is paid with compulsory ("democratic") fees. In the last years, more and more people don't want to pay these fees anymore because everything became ideological and "woke", and there are also a lot of stories about embezzlements and nepotism. I could be more specific, but it would be about German topics (refugee crisis, Islam,...). I just want to let you know that this NPR issue sounds very familiar to me, and I like your first Youtube video very much. I hope you can save your NPR!
Among one of my favorite “you’ve lost the plot” moments recently with NPR had to do with their obsession in the summer of 2021 over the alleged greater coverage of missing white women as opposed to women of color. One of the NPR pieces focused heavily on women going missing from Indian Reservations, they then turned to Wyoming Public Radio to run the story who hammered on about the lack of coverage of news reports. WPR covers issues in the nearby reservations all the time and has been well before it became the woke de jour thing to do. So it was interesting seeing them sort of out themselves for not covering their own beat properly.
The moment I started questioning every NPR story was a couple years ago when 1A "reported" on the violent flare up in Israel / Palestine by playing a five second sound bite of Netanyahu followed by five minutes of the former head of the PLO just talking freely with hardly any questions, let alone pushback on his claims.
Not to mention the entire network's steady march through political correctness into wokeness.
"Not to mention the entire network's steady march through political correctness into wokeness."
Exactly, and with it their integrity and the loss of public trust.
Loved the "ideologically captured" line. Seriously, the title of the new program you are releasing is "chef's kiss" good: "All Things Re-Considered". Kudos, Peter, et al.
Amen. I am a life-long liberal who is appalled that the woke movement calls itself liberal. Race essentialism, upending the entire country over a phenomenon that affects less than 25% of the number of flat-earthers are incomprehensible.
Transgenderism is real and incredibly rare. There is no evidence to support any regional "outbreaks" as anything other than sympathetic histrionic acting out. We should hold our transgendered friends' hands and walk with them through the amsazing journey called life, not destroy the country in a misguided belief that we're "helping.."
If there's one thing Wokeism or Critical Social Justice is not, it's liberal. In fact, quite the opposite.
I was just reading Helen Pluckrose on this. Much of the academic writing directly states its opposition to liberalism. I had originally also conceived of it as an outgrowth of liberalism taken to an extreme not as something that exists to undermine liberalism--despite the evidence in front of me that illustrated that undermining.
I am a life long conservative (a phrase rarely uttered, I realize). I listened to NRP for years while I worked in my shop. I thought it was an entertaining way to try to balance my outlook on things. But when it became the bot channel you describe, I talked to my more academically inclined friends to see what they thought only to find that they were abandoning the station in favor of podcasts, so that’s where I am these days.
Once people go down the rabbit hole on either side I doubt they ever really escape. Maybe your NPR revisited will prove me wrong. I wish you all the luck.
Thank you. In NPR's case, it's giving the impression of presenting information in a balanced way, when they have a very clear agenda. Matt and I discuss this in detail during the show.
I would love you to go after the topic of gender and gender medicine with the nuance our children deserve. It's so sad that the woke left media (such as NPR) cannot see or won't admit to how harmful this is for confused youth. It's absurdly destabilizing for gender ideology to be taught in schools, but it seems the left is afraid to give an inch on this because.... it's okay to sacrifice children in the name of wokism?
They push a very particular narrative, and in order to do that, their reporters can't push back and ask hard questions or give sufficient airtime to experts who hold a different position.
Love this. Thought about submitting a video about the moment i stopped listening, but it really wasn’t a monumental event... more like a straw breaking the camel’s back. The accumulation of so much absurdity that i just couldn’t listen anymore. Sad, because it once was really good and a nice thing to turn into in the early morning hours.
I hope your reporting leads to it being good again. Until then, it disgusts me and i want nothing to do with it.
One other thing i will add: it is just amazing to me how so many « smart » people can be so dumb, so sheep -like. It actually makes me think that i should never have been surprised, that assuming « smart » people were any wiser or more virtuous may have been conceited in the first place.
Yup, Shermer writes about this in "Why People Believe Weird Things". Being smart does not insulate one against holding bizarre beliefs. In fact, it may make one more susceptible.
Agreed. If you are smart, you are probably less likely to concede a difference between intelligence and wisdom. Easier to conclude you are just right because you are smarter than someone else, rather than listen to someone you consider inferior.
I have to check out Shermer’s work.
I look forward to seeing a detailed analysis of NPR. I have noticed that PBS TV is becoming more biased than in the past. This is also true of most mainstream publications. Of course, all of this is part of the Critical Social Justice orthodoxy that has swept the nation. One way to push back is to avoid funding or supporting organizations that have become part of the illiberal orthodoxy. Another is to speak out when feasible instead of remaining silent. I write "2026" on Substack.com about preserving the U.S. Constitution and U.S. democracy.
The Substack doesn't link to your Substack.
I wasn't sure if it was okay to provide a direct link in my comment. You will find my Substack at 2026.substack.com.
This interests me. I stopped donating a handful of years ago when I realized that I was not getting fair or balanced reporting. I always knew there was bias in the content selection of the news covered, but the lack of fair and balanced treatment of even that content became frustrating, disappointing, heartbreaking. Like you, I thought it used to exist. And I used to love my NPR station. I stopped donating, then kept listening to see if things would change and allow me to be able to support the news outlet. I think 2020 was my breaking point.
It should be noted, too, that my feedback was never acknowledged/fell on deaf ears. I do keep getting fundraising letters, however.
I want to love NPR again. I truly do. The answer to ideological capture is not defunding, it's journalistic integrity.
Sadly, Peter I’m afraid few place’s these days have such integrity.
I eagerly awaited this series, have wrangled 3 family members, into viewing and discussing after each episode.
Being part of helping and watching the younger in my family develop broader skills of discernment using your platform has been, to be very honest, unrepayable.
You will understand the capture by visiting the online webpage, "Trans Journalists Association Style Guide." No names attached, no professors of journalism as authors.
Ute Heggen, author, In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022)
uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com
(where you'll find some natural, practical healing movements for body dissociation from former professional dancer, BFA U Wisc-Milwaukee, Early Childhood Speciallist, MS ED, Brooklyn College)
Bookmarked it. Thanks.
NPR went off the rails years ago. We should demand they be defunded. Why should we fund a radio station full of bias political slant? No! Tired of tax money being abused by these woke agencies pushing garbage.
Defunding isn't the solution, and in the show we explain why.
I have to disagree. Too much tax payer’s money spread around as bribes to spread lies. We need to shut down departments and rid DC of half there along with annual funding outside. If they are worth their salt, they don’t need our money Year after year.
NPR doesn't deserve even a penny of taxpayer dollars. Every dime since their implosion into the woke dumpster fire they are today should be refunded to the taxpayer plus interest. They love reparations anyways.
To be honest: it's theft.
Hi Ruth.
I very much understand your instinct. The gut says,
"hit them in the pocketbook and they will be forced to reexamine this path."
"those that control the purse strings control the message."
You are correct! No way NPR could not compete in the private sector.
Because of your current and to be honest my previous position of defunding. I have a question.
If NPR ceased to exist, what should or could that money be used for instead?
Lets just say for for the sake of this chat, the entire funding budget is NOT RETURNED back to the taxpaying public.
In my opinion--CPB money should continue to be used to support public radio stations across the country. I believe that public radio stations can be wonderful assets to communities. But there needs to be oversight regarding diverse ideological representation on these stations. This does not mean censorship--not even of NPR. It means NPR can't be the only perspective broadcast on public radio.
"oversight" that is a tricky and murky administrative framework within an already "ideologically captured" institution.
I agree, NPR's current exclusiveness is at the root.
It will be interesting to see the content and perspectives brought forth in this upcoming series.
Very , very true.
I am really excited by the premise of this episode and the prospects for this podcast. I'm always excited to see what you, Peter, have to add to the discourse. Looks like you are off to a good start. I would love to help in any way I can. I am an artist not an academic (though I have a very worthless, $40,000 degree) But if you every need any art I'd do it for free!
I gradually stopped listening. I listened every morning for several years. I can't remember if it was during the Trump election or after he was elected but they were so obsessed with him. I didn't like him but tired of listening to their campaign against him. I significantly reduced my listening but still did until every episode was about black oppression and activism. I couldn't take it anymore and just started listening to music instead.
This is very similar to what happened with me. I listened everyday on my way to and from work, which was at least an hour each way. When Clinton and Trump were running against each other I kept hearing a lot of one sided stories favoring Clinton and I just blew it off because Trump is pretty bombastic and says very hyperbolic things. When Trump was elected it seemed like everything was about Trump and how he is hurting everybody. That is when I started to listen to the economic parts of NPR until they started becoming more woke. I now just listen to podcasts and I have no interest in going back.
Greetings from Germany! Here we also have public broadcasting (radio, television - the mainstream media) which is paid with compulsory ("democratic") fees. In the last years, more and more people don't want to pay these fees anymore because everything became ideological and "woke", and there are also a lot of stories about embezzlements and nepotism. I could be more specific, but it would be about German topics (refugee crisis, Islam,...). I just want to let you know that this NPR issue sounds very familiar to me, and I like your first Youtube video very much. I hope you can save your NPR!
Thank you!
Among one of my favorite “you’ve lost the plot” moments recently with NPR had to do with their obsession in the summer of 2021 over the alleged greater coverage of missing white women as opposed to women of color. One of the NPR pieces focused heavily on women going missing from Indian Reservations, they then turned to Wyoming Public Radio to run the story who hammered on about the lack of coverage of news reports. WPR covers issues in the nearby reservations all the time and has been well before it became the woke de jour thing to do. So it was interesting seeing them sort of out themselves for not covering their own beat properly.
Peter, thank you for taking this important issue on.
The March Through the Institutions is complete.
Those who can still reality owe it to those who can’t to fix it.