Jul 1, 2022·edited Jul 1, 2022Liked by Peter Boghossian
I stopped a couple of years ago, when they replaced the old guard with every ethnic/racial/social group except straight white men. After that, I would occasionally turn it on and -- not exaggerating -- 90%+ of the time I would hear a story about either race or gender within 1 minute. I eventually made a game of it, one I called "Skin or Genitals?": to play, pick a random time and then time how long it takes before racism or sexism comes up. It's uncanny how quickly. Do they really think there are no other, much more consequential issues? Juvenile, simplistic, and divisive. Sorry, NPR, you lost another life-long supporter.
I don't want to do a video, but I appreciate this project. I grew increasingly disenchanted with NPR back in 2015–2016 during the election campaign, which escalated all through the Trump presidency when there was no vestige of balanced reporting. The disenchantment ripened into disgust over the years since, to the point where I finally sent them this comment during one of their insufferable fundraising drives:
"I'm not a Republican. I'm not a Democrat. I have many progressive views, many classically liberal views, some conservative views, some Libertarian views. I am one of many 'politically homeless' citizens in the United States of America who are searching for fair and balanced news coverage from a variety of sources, and who pine for classical journalism marked by high integrity and rigor, inclusive of many viewpoints. I used to appreciate National Public Radio as one of these sources, bur that notion of 'fair and balanced' is a swiftly receding memory.
"Increasingly over the past decade, every story and program I hear on NPR becomes more blatantly biased and left-leaning. Where are the counterpoints? Where are the alternative views? Where are the representatives from parties other than the left? There isn't even the decency to attempt to hide the agenda anymore, only smug expectations of political foreclosure from your listeners. There is no open marketplace of ideas here. Just propaganda.
"I can no longer bear to listen. I will seek new sources. I am very disappointed in you. I will no longer patronize your fund drives. I will not donate any used car to you. I resent any public tax money helping support what is no longer a NATIONAL public radio news network. Who do you think We The People are? You are not reflecting us. Is this why you want to switch your name to only its acronym? A fitting diminishment indeed."
I, like you, used to listen all the time - but haven’t listened in a while. I am generally left of center - but I expect objectivity and straight up reporting covering all aspects of a story. Vigorous debate. I stopped listening completely probably something like 12 years ago. I will take your word as to how bad it is now; I’m sure that you are correct. My question: who is doing this? Domestic oligarchs, foreign intelligence agencies- I know it sounds crazy, but this change in NPR (and left media in general) doesn’t feel organic - someone is “running” this operation.
I would love this to be expanded into the BBC as well. We cancelled the £147 annual payment when the lockdown went completely, and in any way, even questioned by BBC News. We are at the complete opposite end of the BBC’s political spectrum but there was a time when the other side, got occasionally heard. Anecdotally I know dozens of people who did the same here. There are odd reports of the BBC haemorrhaging licence holders but it’s barely discussed by rival media. But we’ve really all woken up to the fact that we’ve been unquestionably accepting of most of their garbage over the decades. It’s actually been incredibly liberating to requestion so much of what we accepted as facts based on their constant daily pummelling of our minds.
I stopped listening to NPR over a decade ago when NPR got frivolous. They started to run stories about competitive yoga and how women would rather eat their fingernails than shop for jeans. As such I was not there to object when they decided to eliminate the words "women" and "woman" from all stories about women's health issues. I use to love to listen to their reporting, but now I just listen to the local classical and jazz stations and I am a lot better for it.
I quit my favorite radio show in the world, On The Media, and then NPR as a whole, after Brooke Gladstone aired a hit piece on Joe Rogan. It was early in 2020, and the impetus for it was an article in The Atlantic by Devin Gordon. The story was called "Why Is Joe Rogan So Popular?" (goddamit!). As I listened, it became clear that Gordon had reduced Rogan to a supplements hustler, and otherwise painted him as a spurious misogynist and racist that no serious person would want to pay attention to.
It might also have had something to do with the fact that he had many, many times their audience...just saying. Click on the word "Transcript" and you can read the entire conversation and decide for yourself:
I guess OTM figured they could get away with smearing Rogan because they assumed there was such a clear divide between their listeners and his, that their audience would simply take them at their word and not check for themselves. But I had been listening to Rogan for a good four, five years by that point, where, for the record, I was introduced to Peter Boghossian, Bret Weinstein, Matt Taibbi and many other fascinating individuals whose ideas have enriched my worldview ever since.
It was a sad day, realizing that OTM, my champions of free speech and journalistic integrity, had corruptible feet of clay. Goodbye forever, NPR.
I don’t think of my self as conservative. As a matter of fact I’m liberal and can listen to other points of view. Sometime during the mid 90’s I felt like the liberal to conservative spectrum slid left and there I was in the conservative end of things. I began listening to NPR in 1983 and stopped on a regular basis in 2021 because of the way the news is reported in such an obviously unbalanced and left leaning manner. If I wanted to hear one sided accounts of events from a progressive out look I’d listen to Amy Goodman. I don’t want to listen to her or get news from Fox, either. Mara Liasson’s crack about something Trump said about election fraud; that it was from the peanut gallery, was too much for me. I remember the days of Bob Edwards and dependable professional journalism with sadness because NPR was a big part of my life, but no more. I was dismayed to realize their broadcasts stopped including other perspectives and opposing viewpoints on a number of issues. Perhaps one they will go back to balanced unbiased reporting. I miss the old days but I don’t plan to wait around for a profound reversal. Thanks for listening.
I started listening as a kid in the *mid-80s*, partly because it tended to discuss foreign affairs more than US news at the time, partly because it had a lot of witty humor -- especially stuff like Ask Doctor Science. When I came back to the US from being abroad in the late Obama era, all US media was alien to me, but NPR was unrecognizable. In the Trump era, it went from partisan and humorless to theocratic state propaganda. I honestly don't understand how friends and family of any political persuasion can find any value in it.
But the moment NPR released the swarmy piece about why they wouldn't cover the Hunter Biden laptop story, I ever after went out of my way to never listen to anything affiliated with US state media. I have zero respect for them and anyone who would sell their soul to work there.
I’ve had the same experience in Canada, with CBC radio. My wife & I couldn’t do it anymore. It was getting bad before George Floyd; after, it was unlistenable. The straight-up news readers were giving their obvious-to-all opinions in what should’ve been statements of fact. Shame. It used to be an excellent media source. Now, not so much.
I'm not going to submit a video, but the last straw for me was this segment (starts at 11:50) on how napping, drinking tea, and taking baths are forms of radical resistance and even 'decolonizing work.' (And that's just the beginning of its absurdity.)
Sometime in 2018, when the alt-right stuff began making less and less sense, Trump's economic successes kept being credited to Obama, Brooks and Shields began agreeing with each other on every single topic, and little to no attention was paid to anything else in the world.
I spent some time reading these comments and want to underscore Peter's request that you submit a video. Yes it terrified me, and I did it anyway. Make parrhesia so common that it takes the risk out of it! These beautiful words from all of you make me feel less alone as I grieve for that time in our past when we could ALL listen to NPR and find something worth listening to. I DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU.
I stopped a couple of years ago, when they replaced the old guard with every ethnic/racial/social group except straight white men. After that, I would occasionally turn it on and -- not exaggerating -- 90%+ of the time I would hear a story about either race or gender within 1 minute. I eventually made a game of it, one I called "Skin or Genitals?": to play, pick a random time and then time how long it takes before racism or sexism comes up. It's uncanny how quickly. Do they really think there are no other, much more consequential issues? Juvenile, simplistic, and divisive. Sorry, NPR, you lost another life-long supporter.
I don't want to do a video, but I appreciate this project. I grew increasingly disenchanted with NPR back in 2015–2016 during the election campaign, which escalated all through the Trump presidency when there was no vestige of balanced reporting. The disenchantment ripened into disgust over the years since, to the point where I finally sent them this comment during one of their insufferable fundraising drives:
"I'm not a Republican. I'm not a Democrat. I have many progressive views, many classically liberal views, some conservative views, some Libertarian views. I am one of many 'politically homeless' citizens in the United States of America who are searching for fair and balanced news coverage from a variety of sources, and who pine for classical journalism marked by high integrity and rigor, inclusive of many viewpoints. I used to appreciate National Public Radio as one of these sources, bur that notion of 'fair and balanced' is a swiftly receding memory.
"Increasingly over the past decade, every story and program I hear on NPR becomes more blatantly biased and left-leaning. Where are the counterpoints? Where are the alternative views? Where are the representatives from parties other than the left? There isn't even the decency to attempt to hide the agenda anymore, only smug expectations of political foreclosure from your listeners. There is no open marketplace of ideas here. Just propaganda.
"I can no longer bear to listen. I will seek new sources. I am very disappointed in you. I will no longer patronize your fund drives. I will not donate any used car to you. I resent any public tax money helping support what is no longer a NATIONAL public radio news network. Who do you think We The People are? You are not reflecting us. Is this why you want to switch your name to only its acronym? A fitting diminishment indeed."
Oh, and when shows like This American Life began to focus almost exclusively on three topics: privilege, colonialism, and victimization.
As a previous resident in Seattle's CHAZ/CHOP, I stopped taking NPR seriously when they had a piece on "in defense of looting"...
I, like you, used to listen all the time - but haven’t listened in a while. I am generally left of center - but I expect objectivity and straight up reporting covering all aspects of a story. Vigorous debate. I stopped listening completely probably something like 12 years ago. I will take your word as to how bad it is now; I’m sure that you are correct. My question: who is doing this? Domestic oligarchs, foreign intelligence agencies- I know it sounds crazy, but this change in NPR (and left media in general) doesn’t feel organic - someone is “running” this operation.
I would love this to be expanded into the BBC as well. We cancelled the £147 annual payment when the lockdown went completely, and in any way, even questioned by BBC News. We are at the complete opposite end of the BBC’s political spectrum but there was a time when the other side, got occasionally heard. Anecdotally I know dozens of people who did the same here. There are odd reports of the BBC haemorrhaging licence holders but it’s barely discussed by rival media. But we’ve really all woken up to the fact that we’ve been unquestionably accepting of most of their garbage over the decades. It’s actually been incredibly liberating to requestion so much of what we accepted as facts based on their constant daily pummelling of our minds.
I stopped listening to NPR over a decade ago when NPR got frivolous. They started to run stories about competitive yoga and how women would rather eat their fingernails than shop for jeans. As such I was not there to object when they decided to eliminate the words "women" and "woman" from all stories about women's health issues. I use to love to listen to their reporting, but now I just listen to the local classical and jazz stations and I am a lot better for it.
I quit my favorite radio show in the world, On The Media, and then NPR as a whole, after Brooke Gladstone aired a hit piece on Joe Rogan. It was early in 2020, and the impetus for it was an article in The Atlantic by Devin Gordon. The story was called "Why Is Joe Rogan So Popular?" (goddamit!). As I listened, it became clear that Gordon had reduced Rogan to a supplements hustler, and otherwise painted him as a spurious misogynist and racist that no serious person would want to pay attention to.
It might also have had something to do with the fact that he had many, many times their audience...just saying. Click on the word "Transcript" and you can read the entire conversation and decide for yourself:
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/joe-rogan-debate-moderator
I guess OTM figured they could get away with smearing Rogan because they assumed there was such a clear divide between their listeners and his, that their audience would simply take them at their word and not check for themselves. But I had been listening to Rogan for a good four, five years by that point, where, for the record, I was introduced to Peter Boghossian, Bret Weinstein, Matt Taibbi and many other fascinating individuals whose ideas have enriched my worldview ever since.
It was a sad day, realizing that OTM, my champions of free speech and journalistic integrity, had corruptible feet of clay. Goodbye forever, NPR.
I don’t think of my self as conservative. As a matter of fact I’m liberal and can listen to other points of view. Sometime during the mid 90’s I felt like the liberal to conservative spectrum slid left and there I was in the conservative end of things. I began listening to NPR in 1983 and stopped on a regular basis in 2021 because of the way the news is reported in such an obviously unbalanced and left leaning manner. If I wanted to hear one sided accounts of events from a progressive out look I’d listen to Amy Goodman. I don’t want to listen to her or get news from Fox, either. Mara Liasson’s crack about something Trump said about election fraud; that it was from the peanut gallery, was too much for me. I remember the days of Bob Edwards and dependable professional journalism with sadness because NPR was a big part of my life, but no more. I was dismayed to realize their broadcasts stopped including other perspectives and opposing viewpoints on a number of issues. Perhaps one they will go back to balanced unbiased reporting. I miss the old days but I don’t plan to wait around for a profound reversal. Thanks for listening.
I started listening as a kid in the *mid-80s*, partly because it tended to discuss foreign affairs more than US news at the time, partly because it had a lot of witty humor -- especially stuff like Ask Doctor Science. When I came back to the US from being abroad in the late Obama era, all US media was alien to me, but NPR was unrecognizable. In the Trump era, it went from partisan and humorless to theocratic state propaganda. I honestly don't understand how friends and family of any political persuasion can find any value in it.
But the moment NPR released the swarmy piece about why they wouldn't cover the Hunter Biden laptop story, I ever after went out of my way to never listen to anything affiliated with US state media. I have zero respect for them and anyone who would sell their soul to work there.
I’ve had the same experience in Canada, with CBC radio. My wife & I couldn’t do it anymore. It was getting bad before George Floyd; after, it was unlistenable. The straight-up news readers were giving their obvious-to-all opinions in what should’ve been statements of fact. Shame. It used to be an excellent media source. Now, not so much.
The cdn equivalent is the CBC. 2 years clean after “using” my entire life.
I'm not going to submit a video, but the last straw for me was this segment (starts at 11:50) on how napping, drinking tea, and taking baths are forms of radical resistance and even 'decolonizing work.' (And that's just the beginning of its absurdity.)
https://www.npr.org/2022/04/21/1094101793/napas-first-black-woman-winemaker-rest-as-a-form-of-resistance
Sometime in 2018, when the alt-right stuff began making less and less sense, Trump's economic successes kept being credited to Obama, Brooks and Shields began agreeing with each other on every single topic, and little to no attention was paid to anything else in the world.
I spent some time reading these comments and want to underscore Peter's request that you submit a video. Yes it terrified me, and I did it anyway. Make parrhesia so common that it takes the risk out of it! These beautiful words from all of you make me feel less alone as I grieve for that time in our past when we could ALL listen to NPR and find something worth listening to. I DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU.
I never stopped listening to NPR but I realized about 5 years ago that I was listening defensively.
I was listening to protect myself against them, not because I liked what they were saying.
I spent a lot of time yelling at the radio these days.