NPR’s All Things Considered was surprisingly honest on Wednesday night about Jon Stewart’s departure from The Daily Show. Stewart was credited for “influencing the way a generation of young people, especially liberals, view the news and politics.”
Correspondent Don Gonyea admitted the president of the College Democrats “sees Jon Stewart as being on her side” and cited research that shows Stewart’s audience is overwhelmingly liberal.
The liberals at NPR weren't sugar-coating their view of how conservative Republicans will lead their party into a "disastrous" end if they do well in Iowa. On Monday's Morning Edition, NPR analyst Cokie Roberts insisted Iowa Republicans seem to favor social conservatives who push the GOP too far to the right in a general election. They oppose gay marriage and "turn off young voters in droves" and oppose amnesty for immigrants, which has made Rep. Steve King's name "toxic" among Hispanics.
Talk about tone deaf at National Public Radio. On Thursday’s All Things Considered, NPR reporter Don Gonyea ran a segment on Governor Chris Christie (R-N.J.) traveling to New Hampshire to campaign with Scott Brown as he seeks to become the next senator from there.
Unsurprisingly, the NPR reporter did his best to play up the “Bridgegate” controversy despite the Department of Justice clearing Christie of any wrongdoing in the 2013 George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal. The accompanying story on the NPR website blared “Will bridge scandal jam Gov. Christie’s road show?”
As if trying to talk themselves into the idea that there might be a wave of liberal politicians inspired by Obama like he was the black JFK, NPR’s Morning Edition on Thursday tried to make national news of a Democrat running in Iowa for the Secretary of State job.
“Meet Brad Anderson,” began NPR reporter Don Gonyea. “He was the spokesman for Obama's 2008 Iowa campaign. Four years later, he ran the president's entire Iowa operation. Now, Anderson has a new candidate: himself.” But get a load of how much Brad overplays the inspiring wonders of Obama’s achievements:
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In 2007, when The New York Times granted MoveOn.org a special discount it wasn't entitled to so they could slam David Petraeus in a full-page ad as "General Betray Us," NPR reported on the ad, but never on the Times cut-rate controversy.
But NPR is sometimes very sensitive about the "independence" of media outlets -- when it seems compromised by Republicans. On Tuesday's All Things Considered, they granted air time to KUOW reporter Sara Lerner in Washington state to discuss how the Seattle Times outrageously used their own free ad space for an favoring the Republican running for governor, and how 100 of the paper's journalists were protesting:
At the same time that NPR was offended enough to go “truth squadding” on Romney’s advertisements attacking Obama's weakness on welfare, NPR’s Don Gonyea reported on Harry Reid’s unsubstantiated charges of Romney tax evasion by leaving the clear impression that Reid is effectively punching away at a Romney “vulnerability” and sees nothing to lose. He certainly can’t seem to lose with NPR.
On Wednesday's All Things Considered, NPR anchor Melissa Block introduced the story as “Don Gonyea reports on the increasingly ugly fight,” but that was applied to both Reid and the Republicans. But their online headline was “In Brawl Over Romney's Tax Returns, Harry Reid Gets Marquee Billing.” Like a boxer, get it?
In 2008, NPR's All Things Considered tried to take apart the "swift-booking" of Barack Obama by conservative author Jerome Corsi, insisting in several places "we know" Corsi's reporting wasn't factual. On Friday's All Things Considered, NPR media reporter David Folkenflik took a looser standard in publicizing the Palin-bashing book by liberal author Joe McGinniss. Folkenflik eventually found book experts who disdained the difference between a "warts and all" book and an "all warts" book. But none of the book's claims were held up individually as false. It just on the whole "felt unreliable."
This leads the listener to wonder what might be true: Palin's cocaine-snorting, the premarital sex with NBA stars, the neglect of her children? Which? Folkenflik brings up McGinniss's tawdry publicity stunt, renting right next to the Palin home in Wasilla, running some mini-soundbites of outrage from conservative talkers like Sean Hannity ("creepy") and Bill O'Reilly ("immoral"). But Folkenflik tweeted Friday "How rascally is the writer behind 'The Rogue'?" All in all, the stunt was a plus:
Perhaps obviously, George W. Bush didn't grant an interview around his memoir Decision Points to National Public Radio, since they described his presidency daily as the Triumph of the Dark Side. But when they touched on the new book, the hostility was still there.On Tuesday's Morning Edition, Don Gonyea, who covered the White House for most of Bush's presidency offer a brief summary of Bush's interview with NBC's Matt Lauer. There was a little bit on Iraq, and then more time on the drinking problem:
GONYEA: Part of the book is personal, with stories it's awkward to hear him talk about. There's his history as a serious drinker. Again, from NBC. [NBC clip]
BUSH: So, I'm drunk at the dinner table at mother and dad's house in Maine, and my brothers and sister are there, Laura's there. And I'm sitting next to a beautiful woman - friend of mother and dad's - and I said to her, out loud: “What is sex like after 50?”