Reckless Disregard for the Truth: My Incredible Interchange With the NPR “Ombudsman”
Last night Alicia Shepard, the NPR “ombudsman” issued the following message on Twitter:
Uh-oh! There goes that James O’Keefe again, with his heavily edited and deceptive videos! Why, I bet he wasn’t even wearing a pimp costume! Her message was repeated by Jack Shafer of Slate and Radley Balko of Reason — and more than 100 others, as you can see.
Just one problem: the message was flatly untrue. And when I called her on it, her regard for facts was about what you would expect from an NPR ombudsman.
Do you really think that Ron Schiller — the guy who called Tea Partiers “seriously racist” people — is a Republican? Do you really believe he said so on that video?
Yeah, neither did I. I could see him saying he was raised as a Republican. But that he is one? Uh-uh. I asked Shepard:
I added:
Corroborating my suspicion was the fact that one of the people who appeared on the video, who goes by the name of Simon Templar, took issue with Shepard and said she was wrong:
So I went and found the full two-hour video, which is posted on the Project Veritas web site, here. I quickly found the relevant passage at timestamp 12:52:48, where Schiller says:
I grew up a Republican and am proud of that even though I’ve voted mostly Democratic lately.
Just as “Simon Templar” had claimed, he said he was raised as a Republican, not that he “is” a Republican. He goes on to severely criticize the current Republican party, as we have all heard. I sent the proof to Shepard on a silver platter, complete with a link to the video and a timestamp, and copied Jack Shafer:
This is the part where she reviewed the video, apologized for her misstatement, and quickly and cheerfully issued a prompt correction. Right?
Yeah, not quite.
I soon got this message from Shepard on Twitter:
Uh, OK. I did, saying:
Unless there is another part of the video that I missed, Ron Schiller did not say he is a Republican. Given what he did say, I find it hard to believe I missed it. But if I did, please let me know.
Patrick Frey
patterico.com
She responded:
Thanks for contacting me Patrick. You watched all two hours? He didn’t say anything abt being a Republican??
Sent from my Crackberry
I replied:
You’re the one who made the assertion he did. Could you tell me where that is?
I followed up:
If you don’t have a portion of the video to point to, then on what basis did you make your assertion?
I’m getting ready to write this up soon, so please let me know.
She replied:
Can u give me 15 minutes. I’ve got a transcript. Have to access it. Am at home.
Sent from my Crackberry
So I waited, and eventually, Shepard e-mailed me this passage from her transcript. Keep in mind that this was the basis for her declaration that Ron Schiller had said he “is” a Republican:
It feels to me as thought there’s a real anti-intellectual mood on the part of a significant part of the Republican Party. It’s not all Republicans. In fact, I grew a Republican and, you know, proud of that, even though I voted most of the time (unintelligible). I like the Republican Party, in terms of fiscal conservatism, but where – and the fact that the Republican Party of old really believed the government has no role in personal lives, family lives, and that government is really about other things. The current Republican Party, particularly the Tea Party, is fanatically involved in people’s personal lives, and very fundamental Christian.
Yeah, that guy sounds real Republican! In her e-mail quoting that passage, she said:
Patrick — here’s the quote. Maybe you figured out the “unintelligible.”
Well, yeah, Ms. Shepard, I did. You want to know how I figured that out? I watched the video! The transcript is horrible, through and through — and the supposedly “unintelligible” part is anything but. Schiller says he has voted “mostly Democratic” lately. It is crystal clear. There is nothing hard about making it out — again, if you actually watch the video. Feel free to check for yourself: the full video is here, and the relevant passage, as I told Shepard, is at 12:52:48. See if there is anything “unintelligible” there.
So I wrote Shepard back:
Yes, he says he votes Democratic most of the time. I watched it.
You can see he does not say he is a Republican.
Will you please now correct your tweet?
And here she said something that actually stunned me:
My concern is that the professional transcriber thought that word unintelligible. But you are sure of it?
Are you kidding me? I gave you the link to the video, the specific time stamp, and you didn’t watch it?? I replied:
This is incredible. You made the assertion and you obviously didn’t watch the video.
. . . .
You had no basis to make your statement. You were called on it and did not do the legwork even when it was handed to you on a silver platter. Forgive my impatience, but I am just astounded that someone with so little regard for the facts would be placed in the position of “ombudsman” of NPR.
This exchange will appear on my blog.
She replied:
Been a v. busy day. Post whatever you like. I read the transcript.
Too busy to get the facts right? I was still confused: even if she made a declaration regarding the contents of the tape without watching the tape, what about the fact that the transcript did not provide a basis for her statement? I asked:
Does the transcript say he said he was a Republican?
And she replied, with the kiss-off arrogance we are so used to from Big Media types:
No, it does not. Tweeted the quote. Night.
Oh, OK. She went on Twitter and issued a correction? I went to look. Here is what she had put up:
Note a few things about this statement. First, unlike the original, incendiary claim, which was repeated by more than 100 people, including Jack Shafer (who has now issued a correction) and Radley Balko, this tweet was repeated by only 8 people. And it’s termed a “clarification” — which is just amazing, given that her original claim was flatly wrong. She needs a “correction” and not a “clarification.” She needs to admit she was wrong. Isn’t it the job of an “ombudsman” to be clear about admitting error? Isn’t it the job of an “ombudsman” to care about facts in the first place, and not make statements with no basis in facts? I summed it up in my last e-mail to Shepard:
In other words, you never had a basis for saying what you said, and you are not clearly admitting error.
This is NPR’s regard for facts??
Apparently so.
UPDATE: Thanks to Instapundit for the link. I hope new visitors will bookmark the main page. And you can catch these slapdowns in real time by following me on Twitter, here.
Good work, Patterico.
This goes directly to a philosophical question I’ve often wondered: “Which person in an organization can help you when you have a problem with an ombudsman?”
Comment by aunursa — 3/10/2011 @ 7:11 am
Winning!
Alright, I’m getting sick of that too, but it fit.
Comment by Darin H — 3/10/2011 @ 7:18 am
Wow. Great work.
Comment by carlitos — 3/10/2011 @ 7:18 am
Well done, as usual, Patrick. This needed to be exposed, and shows how much the lefty MSM would get away with if not for dogged fact-checkers in the blogosphere.
Comment by Jim Lakely — 3/10/2011 @ 7:24 am
darin
Not sick of it yet.
Winning!
Btw, so… “Alicia” is an OmbudsMAN?
off topic, but funny…
Yucking around aside, good job patrick.
Comment by Aaron Worthing — 3/10/2011 @ 7:24 am
and my tax dollars pay for this hoochie’s pop tarts?
I quit.
Comment by happyfeet — 3/10/2011 @ 7:24 am
My exchanges with the ‘ombudsman’ have been similar.
Comment by pat wilson — 3/10/2011 @ 7:25 am
This goes directly to a philosophical question I’ve often wondered: “Which person in an organization can help you when you have a problem with an ombudsman?”
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” This problem has been around for a loooooong time.
The Bible was right: “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ephesians 1:9).
Comment by Robin Munn — 3/10/2011 @ 7:28 am
And another one bites the dust!
Comment by ropelight — 3/10/2011 @ 7:30 am
Gah! Ecclesiastes 1:9, not Ephesians. Sorry.
Comment by Robin Munn — 3/10/2011 @ 7:30 am
NPR has been staunch supporters of Republican fiscal policies in the past but, until recently, decided that Democrats intrusion into our healthcare was the way to go for the nation. NPR admits their management has always been mostly raised Republican but outgrew it in favor of European socialistic policies which lead to more support for their government funding…strictly business.
Comment by SenatorMark4 — 3/10/2011 @ 7:31 am
The most screamingly BS part of that exchange is “professional transcriber”. PROFESSIONAL TRANSCRIBER??? Oh, well, gee, if the person with an advanced degree in “listening to a recording and then writing down what is heard” says it’s “unintelligible”, I guess I better disbelieve my own ears, huh. Because that’s clearly the tone of her comment—how can YOU be so sure, Patterico? We have had our top men-our TOP MEN-on this listen-and-write-down thing.
There is so much elephant crap packed into that tiny statement, my head is going to explode.
Although, it does make me wonder where I can get me one of those degrees-I could always use some extra cash, and if there are people getting paid to just listen to crap and then write it down, well, hell, I can do that. Any damn fool can do that.
Comment by Linus — 3/10/2011 @ 7:34 am
Would it be politically incorrect to assert that she is not technically an ombudsman, but rather an ombudswoman?
Just askin’…
Comment by Jeff H — 3/10/2011 @ 7:36 am
The new standard of the new journalism is that a poor transcript is more authoritative than the video itself when O’Keefe publishes it.
So now “publish the whole video” meme is obsolete, its now “I only have to read a bad transcript” to discredit O’Keefe.
Unbelievable.
Comment by SPQR — 3/10/2011 @ 7:37 am
A cynic might point out that this is the sort of reason that groups like Wiki won’t accept “original” research. If they can pretend that the actual tape doesn’t count for research and just point to their “official” transcript (or the official newspaper story) they don’t have to defend the actual events.
Comment by Have Blue — 3/10/2011 @ 7:38 am
Let me understand this. The ombudsman in totally uninterested in the primary source, the actual video tape?
Who prepared the transcript?
Comment by Maria Horvath — 3/10/2011 @ 7:39 am
One wonders what motivated her to write the original Tweet.
Comment by MayBee — 3/10/2011 @ 7:40 am
Betcha now Pat’s got her asceered she might be joining the Schillers. To be fair, I am positive that yesterday was one of the single worst days of her young life as a hack. Still, it is stunning malpractice that she would not have protected herownself’s reputation and NPR’s legal interests by actually listening to the entire unedited video before she started issuing statements and tweets.
Comment by elissa — 3/10/2011 @ 7:40 am
Is a Crackberry a Blackberry you stow in your butt? PBS must need to buy them by the crate-load then.
Comment by andycanuck — 3/10/2011 @ 7:40 am
What this tells us is that NPR is
filled with propagandists, through
and through.
Shepard was born in the wrong
decade and on the wrong continent.
She belongs in the old USSR Polit-
bureau, supervising “Pravda”,
where the state pretended to tell
the truth and the Russian people
pretended to believe, but of course
they didn’t.
Shepard, if you are reading this,
if your aren’t too busy, (as if
you are doing anything else right
now but responding to this PR
crisis) you might re-consider
your world view. If you have to
lie, if you have to mis-represent
your beliefs and those of your
associates, there is something
wrong with your belief system.
Can’t you see that your actions are
indefensible?
Want to know why I don’t listen to
NPR? The constant refrain: Tea
Party, Republicans, Bush, men,white
people are racist (except you), companies, Big Oil, Big
Pharma, Israel, War in Iraq, all
bad, bad, bad, bad!
Liberals, democrats, unions,
minorities, women,Muslims, Islam,
socialism, good, good, good, good.
All of the above, 90% of the time.
The other 10%, you switch it
around, not in order to say that you
are “balanced” but because you can’t
hide that particular story.
I bitterly resent that my tax dollars,
are spent to pay your inflated,
unreasonable salary.
Comment by Jack — 3/10/2011 @ 7:41 am
“Ombudsman”… i.e. – professional gate-keeper and apologist. O’Keefe was obviously correct when he implied that the rot spreads throughout the entire organization.
Comment by Stevieo — 3/10/2011 @ 7:44 am
It seems to me that NPR’s
professional transcriber is paid
to listen to the tape and then
transcribe what NPR tells them
to.
Patterico, I think that you’ve
just found your next LA Times.
Comment by Jack — 3/10/2011 @ 7:44 am
I mean, did someone just tell her that was on the tape somewhere, and so she wrote it up under her ombudsman account and sent it into the world?
It does not seem she actually had first hand knowledge when she used her official account to make the claim.
Comment by MayBee — 3/10/2011 @ 7:45 am
it was a v busy day, MayBee
facts are hard
Comment by happyfeet — 3/10/2011 @ 7:46 am
You are a racist bigot.
Comment by Alice Wigglebotton — 3/10/2011 @ 7:48 am
FANTASTIC! Exciting to see integrity coming back into vogue!
Comment by Doreen Curry — 3/10/2011 @ 7:49 am
Liberals are so darn smart. They know we rubes are far too dumb to match their sophisticated hearing skills. I guess this is what NPR considers the merit of being college educated and culturally savvy: they are able to distort the truth with ease and never have to say, “I’m sorry; I was wrong”. [By the way, I have an MA and became a Republican after 9/11 when I realized that Liberalism sounds great but so often results in effects fully opposite to those intended.)
Comment by mbabbitt — 3/10/2011 @ 7:49 am
Very tempest-in-tea-pot-ish, mi amigo. In short, not really news. She made a mistake, sure, but it is not really a big one, and the correction, a bit slow in developing, was given.
Process worked, it seemed.
Comment by Passingby — 3/10/2011 @ 7:50 am
Shall I hold my breath waiting for her to “clarify” her accusation that they kept something out of the video?
Comment by Mama AJ — 3/10/2011 @ 7:51 am
the NPR ombudsman is every inch the propaganda whore as the steve inskeep or the meeshell norris
it’s like they have no off switch
Comment by happyfeet — 3/10/2011 @ 7:51 am
Sir,
I read your blog daily, seldom comment. However, this post is an example of you at your finest. Absolutely crystal clear pristine reasoning and logic.
Well done, sir! Well done!
Comment by emrys — 3/10/2011 @ 7:51 am
Jack – “There is no news in Pravda and no truth in Izvestia,” as the cynical Russian citizens used to say.
(Thinking about it I may have mangled that quote.)
Comment by Have Blue — 3/10/2011 @ 7:52 am
==did someone just tell her…==
Maybee–This is just proof that somebody like Alicia can be elite and highly “educated” and also be a sheeple. They stand apart from the regular folk with their noses in the air but genetically they are still just sheeple.
Comment by elissa — 3/10/2011 @ 7:53 am
I call BS on Schiller’s implicit assertion that he voted Republican until “recently.” Unless, of course, recently means since 1992 or even 1976.
Recent can mean anything since the last mini ice age, geologically speaking. Politically, since the birth of this upstart nation. Personally, from the age of majority on. Schiller didn’t specify, did he?, and which is why his claim sounds mealy bogus along the lines of “some of my best friends.”
Comment by balogna! — 3/10/2011 @ 7:53 am
Sounds about par for the course, based upon some slight interaction with NPR ombudsman a year or two ago.
The job apparently entails being an apologist, coverup artist, and misdirection expert, with very selective powers of observation. Waste of salary, IMO. They could replace it with an automated menu-driven telephone system that starts out with “Press 1 if you have donated during our last pledge drive, Press 2 to repeat this message, Press 3 to be disconnected.”
Comment by ruralcounsel — 3/10/2011 @ 7:54 am
NPR’s a beacon of light. No wonder the Rethugdimcons want to shut it out.
Comment by Zoubida — 3/10/2011 @ 7:55 am
while hoochie’s on a roll maybe she could share with us the names of the other Republicans at NPR
Comment by happyfeet — 3/10/2011 @ 7:57 am
Claiming to be a Republican is an old old Democrat trick. We saw it repeatedly during the Bush years, when various people criticising his policies would claim to be lifelong Republicans, and then some digging would reveal that they were nothing of the sort. Since then I never accept anyone’s word for that claim; show proof or I assume that if you waddle and quack like a Democrat you’re a Democrat.
Comment by Milhouse — 3/10/2011 @ 7:58 am
Teh Narrative must be serviced.
Comment by JD — 3/10/2011 @ 8:02 am
Good point Patterico.
If the whole purpose of the NPR Ombudsman is to respond to charges of biased reporting, and correct it, but the ombudsman themselves is biased, it doesn’t leave much hope for the fairness of the news organization.
Comment by richard40 — 3/10/2011 @ 8:02 am
It took me a while to figure out that you meant 12:52:48 on the sideways timing display. I was trying to go to 12:52 on the video itself. That is not an excuse for the ombudsperson, just letting you know. He clearly says “I voted mostly democratic lately.” No question.
You have to love that Mr. globally-aware, vacations in Rome every year, NPR guy orders wine when meeting with a Muslim. Very culturally sensitive.
Comment by carlitos — 3/10/2011 @ 8:03 am
Once you realize how the left thinks, this makes perfect sense. They simply cant distinguish between feelings, opinions and facts. So if they have an opinion, they will feel something was probably said, and hence it’s a fact that it was indeed said. You can show them the video all you want, but since they dont give facts any more weight than their feelings and opinions, it simply won’t matter. It’s just a video, and they “feel” it wasn’t the truth.
And they do these smearjobs all the time, that’s how they function. It has the same basis, they are of the opinion someone is bad, that makes them “feel” the person is bad, and it’s therefore an indisputable fact. Any real facts given doesn’t really change anything since they still have their opinion and feelings, and they trumphs any facts. It’s two out of three.
Since they feel it could be true, they want it to be true, and then in their mind it is.
Comment by Erik — 3/10/2011 @ 8:05 am
When someone claims to be critical of their own party, I ask for their voting record: 2010, 2008, 2006, etc.
Or, when was the last election that you voted for a Republican for president?
etc.
Comment by aunursa — 3/10/2011 @ 8:05 am
Ms. Shepard previously beclowned herself regarding the cartoon that was published on their web site, the one that portrayed the Tea Partiers screaming “NAZI!” at the politicos they disagreed with. Her explanation was the hallowed “I’m sorry if anyone was offended, but we also make fun of Democrats…” crapola. This is just more of the same, I’m afraid – but not surprising.
Comment by Dmac — 3/10/2011 @ 8:07 am
I will give Alicia Shepard this: Ron Schiller sounds a great deal like Olympia Snowe, Dick Lugar, Susan Collins, Colin Powell, Mike Castle, and a host of other DIABLOs (Democrats In All But Label Only) that she is likely to associate with. It’s easy to see how she might have placed Schiller in the Republican Party since he did not swear eternal fealty to Barack Obama (in her eyes that probably makes Schiller a racist Rethugican wingnut teabagger).
You know the type of DIABLO that I am talking about. The ones who are out to “save” the GOP from itself. The ones that compete for the title of the MSM’s favorite Republican. The ones who are – in their own way – more destructive than Democrats.
Comment by Mwalimu Daudi — 3/10/2011 @ 8:08 am
Perhaps Schiller is a John Cole republican.
Comment by MayBee — 3/10/2011 @ 8:08 am
Schiller was lying lying lying about voting mostly democratic recently.
Comment by JD — 3/10/2011 @ 8:09 am
There’s another recent example of the NPR Ombudsman’s dishonesty that some people might have missed.
The offending remark by Alicia Shephard is at time 7:55:
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/npr-ombudsman-and-andrew-breitbart-debate-fairness-of-okeefe-stunt-with-piers-morgan/
Listen to the Ombudsman scoff into her mic “That’s not true”, essentially calling Andrew Breitbart a liar on CNN’s Piers Morgan when the latter claimed that NPR “had a thing on its website called ‘How to talk tea bag’”.
I searched “How to talk tea bag” and found what Breitbart was talking about, although it was called “Learn to Speak Tea Bag”. If you haven’t watched it (and I hadn’t), it’s rather revealing:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120344047&ps=cprs
Comment by Rykehaven — 3/10/2011 @ 8:18 am
More evidence that NPR’s hiring process must include an IQ Test that eliminates anyone with a score above 60.
d(^_^)b
http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com
“Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive”
Comment by LibertyAtStake — 3/10/2011 @ 8:22 am
TO: All
RE: The NPR ‘Ombudsman’
Obviously the ‘ombudsman’ at NPR is nothing but another PR flack. And subsequently needs to be dumped along with the rest of NPR/PBS.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out....]
Comment by Chuck Pelto — 3/10/2011 @ 8:24 am
TO: All
RE: NPR and PBS are Acronyms
No
Public
Reliability
and
Public
Bull
S#!†
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. -- President James Madison]
P.S. PBS/NPR are the ‘farcical’ part of the coming ‘tragedy’….unless the rest of US can find a better source of information.
Comment by Chuck Pelto — 3/10/2011 @ 8:27 am
Good Job!
Comment by jcp370 — 3/10/2011 @ 8:32 am
Excellent.
The claims of NPR being a the last bastion of intellectual enlightenment don’t really hold up.
Comment by wodun — 3/10/2011 @ 8:34 am
The basic fact is that they are going to lose on the funding votes and they can’t figure out why.
Comment by Mike K — 3/10/2011 @ 8:36 am
Seemingly unnoticed is the esteemed Mr Schiller’s statement:
Except that the TEA Partiers are far more motivated by economic concerns than social conservatism. The social conservative movement has been part of the GOP since Ronald Reagan, but the TEA Party resulted from the insane spending by our government, not some new surge concerning abortion.
Then again, perhaps Mr Schiller had been getting his news from NPR>
Comment by The OmbudsDana — 3/10/2011 @ 8:36 am
I really really like NPR, and I contribute. But this is embarrassing.
Comment by MayBee — 3/10/2011 @ 8:37 am
Interesting that she belabored the “unintelligible” bit. What did she think “even though” might have lead to? “I voted most of the time Whig?”
Comment by Nerdie McSweatervest — 3/10/2011 @ 8:43 am
More evidence that NPR’s hiring process must include an IQ Test that eliminates anyone with a score above 60.
Then what are TeaBaggers complaining about? They’re sure to be hired.
Comment by Zoubida — 3/10/2011 @ 8:46 am
She belabored the “unintelligible” bit because she’d never seen/listened to the tape before, nor, I suspect, had she read the whole transcript. It was all she had left.
Someone told her something was on the full tape, and she tweeted it without checking.
Comment by MayBee — 3/10/2011 @ 8:46 am
These folks don’t want to get it right. They are in the service of an ideology not truth. Ombudsman, schombudsman.
Comment by Martinsen — 3/10/2011 @ 8:51 am
The arrogance and contempt of her communications tell me that the NPR gang don’t understand either how fed up the country is with them, or just how close they are to having to start hustling for a living along with all the other private-sector serfs.
Comment by Sardondi — 3/10/2011 @ 8:51 am
“The current Republican Party, particularly the Tea Party, is fanatically involved in people’s personal lives, and very fundamental Christian.” – Ron Schiller, from the video.
There are factions on the right, and it is fair to characterize them as republicans, that are fundamental Christians and fanatical about issues that Schiller would call personal, but how can he be so far off base as to attribute this to the Tea Party? The Tea Party’s sole focus is to reduce the size and scope of the federal government, reduce federal spending and keep taxes from going up. The Tea Party is responsible for moving the Republican Party further from those “personal lives” issues and onto fiscal issues.
Comment by Mike S — 3/10/2011 @ 8:52 am
And yet, NPR execs are confused and wonder why anybody would even think of defunding them.
Comment by Unfavorable Odds — 3/10/2011 @ 8:52 am
I would really like to know where she got this supposed transcript from, and I would especially love to see it in its original form.
How much you want to bet that the “unintelligible” part was added by Shepard herself?
Comment by Jewels — 3/10/2011 @ 8:52 am
Reminds me of the Great Staunch Republican [object] of ’07.
Comment by the wolf — 3/10/2011 @ 8:52 am
So the NPR Person Of Ombuds isn’t any more competent or honest than the rest of the assclowns associated with that nuthouse. Shocking.
Comment by Dave (in MA) — 3/10/2011 @ 8:54 am
Another piece of evidence in support of Mark Twain’s observation:
“A Lie can travel around the world before Truth can get its boots on.”
Just say or write something defamatory against a conservative and it will be picked up by MSM and spread widely before the eventual rebuttal is even issued. The response never gets as wide a circulation as to lie and what sticks in people’s minds is the lie.
Comment by Joseph Somsel — 3/10/2011 @ 8:54 am
NPR and PBS should be privatized. There is no and never was a good reason for state broadcasting. They will survive just fine on their own and if they can’t all the more reason to have never funded them at all.
Comment by cubanbob — 3/10/2011 @ 8:56 am
My favorite part is where she tried to transfer the burden of proof – when asked for backup, she asserted that Pat first had to back up his challenge.
This only makes sense to a mind that habitually creates its own reality.
Comment by Amphipolis — 3/10/2011 @ 8:59 am
Even if he was a Republican… so what?
Comment by Jim Treacher — 3/10/2011 @ 8:59 am
“zoubida” thinks it is so cute calling people teabaggers.
Comment by JD — 3/10/2011 @ 9:04 am
Close enough for government work, eh? Give her a break, she’d had a busy day, at home.
Night.
Comment by TvG — 3/10/2011 @ 9:09 am
Probably something on whatever listserv the liberal media is currently using made her think it would be a good idea to send out her original tweet. This seems most likely because in her response she’s clearly disavowing any pretense of critical or original thought. Someone else must pre-chew the difficult parts for her.
Comment by Ken C — 3/10/2011 @ 9:11 am
Let’s face it–if NPR and PBS were forced to compete on the open market, we’d still have Big Bird, Lake Woebegone, British comedy, and any number of programs that people enjoy and are willing to pay for. What we’d lose is all of the liberal propaganda that no one wants to pay for, except a few deluded liberals on either coast, and Harry Reid who enjoys cowboy poetry.
Comment by Rochf — 3/10/2011 @ 9:11 am
That Bible quote in your comment should be Ecclesiastes 1:9, not Ephesians 1:9.
Comment by Dave — 3/10/2011 @ 9:12 am
NPR: “Just making stuff up as we go along, and you’ll pay for it!”
Great work, Mr. Frey!
Comment by MikeHu — 3/10/2011 @ 9:13 am
I can see why Rethugdimcons want to see NPR defunded; they think the funds would be better used in Murdorck’s pockets.
Comment by Zoubida — 3/10/2011 @ 9:13 am
“Rethugdimcons”? Okay, this guy’s pulling our leg.
Comment by Jim Treacher — 3/10/2011 @ 9:15 am
Listen to the Ombudsman scoff into her mic “That’s not true”, essentially calling Andrew Breitbart a liar on CNN’s Piers Morgan when the latter claimed that NPR “had a thing on its website called ‘How to talk tea bag’”.
In fact, on the link you left kind commenter, the Ombudsmen of the Day, Ms. Shepard, offers and long-winded explanation of the “Tea Bagger” post… which is so freakin’ insulting I want my tax money back, retroactively.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2010/01/loud_protests_on_nprs_tea_part_1.html
Comment by TvG — 3/10/2011 @ 9:18 am
Rethugdimcons? OK, as parody that’s OK.
Cowboy poets should resent the FCC censorship of NPR. I want profane cowboy poetry in drive time for my tax dollars.
Comment by carlitos — 3/10/2011 @ 9:22 am
Would Ombudswench be appropriate? How ’bout Ombudschick?
However, the lovely Miss Shepard
See, Pat, she represents you! And here you thought she didn’t even care.
Of course, since she represents you, her mistakes are your mistakes.
Comment by The sexist pig Dana — 3/10/2011 @ 9:22 am
Wow, an obudsman who doesn’t actually have to ombud. And undoubtedly pulls down the big bux, while going out to nice Washington lunches and texting snark to those who would have her ombud just a little. Where can I get a gig like that?
Comment by Carlos — 3/10/2011 @ 9:24 am
She has to explain NPR to us mouth-breathing knuckle-dragging rubes.
Comment by JD — 3/10/2011 @ 9:26 am
However, the lovely Miss Shepard…
Looks like she irons her hair. But, curiously, not her skin. Whazzup with that?
Comment by Carlos — 3/10/2011 @ 9:30 am
In Soviet Russia, Ombudsman correct you!
Comment by carlitos — 3/10/2011 @ 9:37 am
I’ve had several exchanges with NPR omsbudmen over the years and want to congratulate you on sticking with the question long enough to get a real answer. The last time I tried to explain why NPR’s broadcasts have alienated me as a listener, the response was an invitation to contribute money. (Presumably if I donate they will care what I think?)
Comment by Gregor Samsa — 3/10/2011 @ 9:46 am
Dear Greg: you should send them a box of plastic roaches.
Comment by Simon Jester — 3/10/2011 @ 9:48 am
#78–profane cowboy poetry would be an improvement over some of the stuff we see and hear on NPR and PBS.
Comment by Rochf — 3/10/2011 @ 9:48 am
It is funny that she teaches a graduate level class at Georgetown in Media Ethics, an oxymoron if there ever was one.
Zoubida eats boogerz.
Comment by JD — 3/10/2011 @ 9:49 am
Oh, and regarding Ms. Shepard:
“…She also teaches a graduate-level course in Media Ethics at Georgetown University, where she won the 2009 Dean Service award for teaching in the journalism program….”
That says it all, huh?
Comment by Simon Jester — 3/10/2011 @ 9:49 am
JD, you beat me to it!
Comment by Simon Jester — 3/10/2011 @ 9:50 am
Alicia sweetie you can cut down on dirty socialist propaganda at NPR just by using this one weird old tip
Comment by happyfeet — 3/10/2011 @ 9:53 am
Isn’t the job of an Ombudsman to check and verify the facts and when incorrect to correct them? She should be fired for NOT doing her job.
Comment by ballawana13 — 3/10/2011 @ 9:55 am
Zap! Pow! Zing!
Well done, Patrick.
Comment by Mike D — 3/10/2011 @ 10:06 am
Yesterday, at 01:56 pm Alicia Shepard included the following statement in an article lamenting the potential effects of O’Keefe’s video on NPR and the abrupt departure of the Schillers.
Under the headline: No One Seems To Be Taking Care Of NPR
“People at NPR yesterday were angry and dazed by this episode, which is just the latest in a series of events that put the company in the worst possible light. Doesn’t anyone in NPR’s top management think of the consequences before they act?”
Comment by ropelight — 3/10/2011 @ 10:12 am
Wait a minute.
Shepard provides this from the Professional Transcript.
And then “clarifies” with this?
The transcript Shepard provided said that Schiller’s voting preference was “(unintelligible)”. To say now that Schiller “mostly votes Democratic” based on the transcript is a flat out lie. She may have watched the video herself, or was lazy enough to rely on Patrick’s description (no offense Pat) and realized her error, but she cannot say that the transcript supports something it does not say. Unless, of course, she misrepresented what was in the original.
Comment by Blue Ox — 3/10/2011 @ 10:15 am
This is a good post, and it was good work, Patterico. But you can’t swab someone out — conduct a thorough-going conversation, in which you detect, document, pin down, and then refute your subject’s factual misstatements — via Twitter. There is an inherent “out” for anything anyone says on Twitter just because each tweet is limited in size. And the medium simply begs for shallow, impulsive, and poorly chosen statements, and its users (as a general rule and with conspicuous exceptions like yourself) do not disappoint. Yours are serious questions, and they deserve a more dignified and powerful setting, even if it’s merely an email trail.
Now get off my lawn.
Comment by Beldar — 3/10/2011 @ 10:24 am
I think NPR’s strategy is to put someone out front who is merely a hopelessly biased and slow-witted mouthpiece, to give cover for the rest of the staff of highly-paid professional Democrat propaganda artists.
Comment by sherlock — 3/10/2011 @ 10:28 am
That transcript was plainly deliberately deceptive. A real ombs would dig directly into that. Well done, P, as usual.
kman will be along shortly to ask why we see bias @ npr.
Comment by Dustin — 3/10/2011 @ 10:39 am
jd@87 says all we need to know about liars running msm education.
Comment by Dustin — 3/10/2011 @ 10:42 am
Fair point, Beldar, but sometimes you have to work with what you have.
Comment by Jim Treacher — 3/10/2011 @ 10:42 am
The Left is holding on to taxpayer money by their finger tips. Why on earth, when they display no professionalism whatsoever should the American Tax payer – pay for them to play fast, and loose with facts? These people work at NPR, because they can’t compete in private life ( the anti intellectualism claim they make constantly is a cover for them not being especially bright) They are incompetents or as they like to say in public service, they are good enough for government work.
Comment by keyboard jockey — 3/10/2011 @ 10:44 am
@Ombudsman – Credibility Fail.
Comment by Retired Geezer — 3/10/2011 @ 10:45 am
Being raised a Republican doesn’t count for $#!T.
Hell, Hillary Clinton was raised a Republican and look how she turned out.
Comment by Pachyderm — 3/10/2011 @ 10:56 am
You folks obviously don’t know what “ombudsman” means.
Someone in a particular department or project area can get something wrong. In this way, their damage is limited.
An Ombudsman can get everything wrong, regardless of department or project area.
See? Hope that clears it up. If not, I’ll issue a clarification to the clarification.
Comment by IndieDogg — 3/10/2011 @ 11:19 am
Good point, Pachyderm. My father was “raised a Democrat” in the deep south and left the party in part due to their support for instituional race based segregation. Yes, it was the Democrats who supported “whites only” drinking fountains. Do his children get any respect for his wisdom?
No. Absolutely not. Never. Not once.
What matters is not how you are raised, it is not the color of your skin, what matters is the what you choose to become of your own free will.
Comment by tyree — 3/10/2011 @ 11:29 am
Pachyderm wrote:
Bad parenting, huh?
Comment by The daddy Dana — 3/10/2011 @ 11:30 am
Apparently, “Ombudsman” is now the politically correct term for “Propagandist.”
Comment by Stephen L. Hall, Esq. — 3/10/2011 @ 11:49 am
– #56
That was laugh-out-loud funny. Thank you.
Comment by jimg — 3/10/2011 @ 12:03 pm
I was raised as a democrat. However, I grew up, got a job, saw the democrats robbing my money through their confiscatory taxes, and became a republican. Obviously, this “ombudsman” has never had a real job. If shedid, she would not be a democrat.
Comment by Brian — 3/10/2011 @ 12:37 pm
She’s right about Schiller being a Republican. In fact, his comments about how badly his party has lost its way show that he’s a “concerned” Republican.
Patterico, are you sure you’re not out of your depth? Remember, Alicia is a professional journalist — and being an ombusdman, that makes her super-professional. Just like the transcriber.
Comment by Northeast Elizabeth — 3/10/2011 @ 12:46 pm
Did someone at NPR do the transcript… you know, when you get to the parts you don’t want to hear, you just write “cross talk” or “unintelligible”
Comment by SteveG — 3/10/2011 @ 12:56 pm
**James O’Keefe will be on Hannity (radio) in a couple minutes. 790 in SoCal.
Comment by Vermont Neighbor — 3/10/2011 @ 12:56 pm
That was awesome.
Comment by Lou — 3/10/2011 @ 12:57 pm
“…She also teaches a graduate-level course in Media Ethics at Georgetown University, where she won the 2009 Dean Service award for teaching in the journalism program….”
Too perfect. I was going to guess this before I heard it. Reality is all parody now.
Comment by rrpjr — 3/10/2011 @ 12:59 pm
A question, that comes to mind, why would he think that would cut any ice with an Islamist that wanted
to spread Sharia law, ‘Winning’
Comment by narciso — 3/10/2011 @ 1:00 pm
I am apparently qualified to be an ombudsman at a major news organization! Hot damn, I got that going for me. Where do I apply?
Comment by dfbaskwill — 3/10/2011 @ 1:15 pm
O’Keefe just released a new video on his Project Veritas site about 5 minutes ago… re: Betsey Liley and the $5m.
Great post, Patterico.
Comment by Vermont Neighbor — 3/10/2011 @ 1:20 pm
O’Keefe’s site is reachable via exposeNPR dot com .
Comment by Vermont Neighbor — 3/10/2011 @ 1:24 pm
You’ve shown us an exchange of e-mails trying to correct an outrageous lie or “spin”–sometimes the two are the same thing–by the NPR omsbudsman.
But arguing with an NPR person is like mudwrestling with a pig. You get covered in pig dung and the pig enjoys it.
Comment by Mike Myers — 3/10/2011 @ 1:30 pm
“Alicia is a professional journalist”
Well, nobody’s perfect.
Comment by Dave Surls — 3/10/2011 @ 1:33 pm
My biggest concern, if NPR goes down the tubes, how will our cab drivers learn any English?
Comment by daleyrocks — 3/10/2011 @ 1:37 pm
Thanks, Vermont Neighbor.
Oh, Ouch. Just yesterday they were bragging about turning down the check. I suppose that can be backed up by the NPR ombudsman if she finds a transcript which reads:
“NPR (unintelligible) list MEAC as an anonymous donor in our database, which (unintelligible) mean we would (unintelligible) disclose the organization’s name,”
Comment by MayBee — 3/10/2011 @ 1:42 pm
http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/10/new-video-npr-was-going-to-accept-muslim-education-action-center-donation-and-hide-it-from-the-government/
Comment by narciso — 3/10/2011 @ 1:50 pm
Facts never matter to lefties. Only perception and narrative do.
Comment by SamIam — 3/10/2011 @ 2:14 pm
This is the part where she reviewed the video, apologized for her misstatement, and quickly and cheerfully issued a prompt correction. Right?
What would count as “quickly” and “prompt”, Patterico?
In the past, you haven’t always been particularly prompt in correcting your own errors that I’ve pointed out.
Comment by Foo Bar — 3/10/2011 @ 2:16 pm
At about the 10:33 mark, Lilley throws the new NPR CEO into the whole mess
Comment by narciso — 3/10/2011 @ 2:19 pm
“In the past, you haven’t always been particularly prompt in correcting your own errors that I’ve pointed out.”
Foo Bar – Many of the things you point out are not promptly accepted as errors. Can you provide examples.
Comment by daleyrocks — 3/10/2011 @ 2:30 pm
We should show the trolls a picture of Keith Ellison in a bikini.
Comment by DohBiden — 3/10/2011 @ 3:29 pm
Poos Far never fails to disappoint with it’s asshattery – what rock did you just crawl out from, sweetie? Still got that hard – on for the evil Joooooooooos?
Fair point, Beldar, but sometimes you have to work with what you have.
Treach! Kaaaaaark! Khaaaaaan!
Comment by Dmac — 3/10/2011 @ 3:41 pm
By the way… which Tea Party platform wants the government involved in people’s lives? What was he talking about?
Comment by Breitbartfan77 — 3/10/2011 @ 3:53 pm
That’s not the work of an ombudsman — that’s the work of a flack doing PR for the company.
Comment by shipwreckedcrew — 3/10/2011 @ 4:01 pm
The tea party wants government involved in our lives………Says a big government kind of guy
Comment by DohBiden — 3/10/2011 @ 4:04 pm
You gotta love that transcript though:
I grew a Republican….
****
btw-NPR is patting themselves on the back for unanimously bailing on him. How much do you want to bet that the only reason that happened so fast was because they thought he was a Republican….or “grew” one. Whatever.
Comment by madawaskan — 3/10/2011 @ 4:05 pm
How will she spin Ms Betsy trying to solicit that $5,000,000 and telling them that she will help shield the donation from an audit?
Comment by JD — 3/10/2011 @ 4:08 pm
b-but the world has an eleventy billion dollar surplus stop hurting our children you bushitler drones sniff sniff NPR helps fund food for 3rd worlders you meanies sniff sniff
/Kturdman
Comment by DohBiden — 3/10/2011 @ 4:08 pm
NY has a surplus because taxes have been raised wanna see how this scrunt acts when someone walks up to her and tells her this.
Comment by DohBiden — 3/10/2011 @ 4:12 pm
daleyrocks:
Can you provide examples.
In this post, Patterico made a mistake about Medicare funding that I pointed out on a Sunday evening. He said (in comment 34) that he would fix the post “when I get home” but he didn’t, unless he stayed out all night and the entire next day. He didn’t fix it until Monday evening, about 24 hours after I pointed it out. I can’t prove that he waited a while based on what you can read now in the blog post, but I I have email evidence.
If there was some kind of emergency or urgent matter Sunday night, then I can understand waiting that long to make the fix. When he finally emailed me on Monday to indicate it had been fixed, though, he didn’t make any excuse for waiting so long. Barring an emergency, if you’re committed to preventing your readers from being misinformed, you’d find a minute before going to bed that night to make the fix, so that all the readers during the day on Monday don’t get misinformed.
Comment by Foo Bar — 3/10/2011 @ 5:14 pm
Good Allah, you are a douchebag.
Comment by JD — 3/10/2011 @ 5:21 pm
And Mr O’Keefe has released yet another NPR tape! (Shameless link whoring there.)
Comment by The blogger Dana — 3/10/2011 @ 5:30 pm
Ah, I found out what the problem is — ‘@ombudsman’ is a Boomer. They’re not known for their technical or social network literacy. Or their humility.
I mean SERIOUSLY, who names themselves @ombudsman? Of ALL of Twitter? The Twit folks should take her name away on that basis and she can be ‘npr_ombudsman’ or something.
Let’s not get into definitions of the term, as obviously she’s just another PR flack. Fancy title tho’ I like it!
But really really… you can’t even THINK that this gal even knows what a TIMECODE is, let alone how to access the video from her ‘Crackberry.’
She probably has an assistant for that.
-Drunken Economist
http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/drunk_economist
Comment by Drunken Economist — 3/10/2011 @ 5:31 pm
Oops, I see narciso neat me to ot.
Comment by The abashed Dana — 3/10/2011 @ 5:31 pm
This is NPR’s regard for facts??
When NPR loses its Federal funding, it is obvious where they can save some money in their budget.
Perhaps their Ombudsman will work pro bono?
Comment by AD-RtR/OS! — 3/10/2011 @ 6:05 pm
Thanks MayBee. I noticed on Drudge, looks like Obama still supports funding for NPR. Sort of funny to see everyone working from different scripts!
Comment by Vermont Neighbor — 3/10/2011 @ 6:55 pm
So I started my stopwatch, took a deep breath, clicked on the link you provided, let the video load, turned down the TV, scrolled to about 12:51:30, started the video, clearly heard him say “mostly Democratic”, backed up and played again to confirm. All this took less then 4 minutes. It is exceedingly lazy on her part not to do this herself and in fact took less time than she spent blowin’ smoke in the email exchange. I can see why she has such busy days. Sure wastes a lot of time needlessly.
Comment by Confused Taxpayer — 3/10/2011 @ 6:58 pm
And Michael Moore. Someone tell this guy the unions are not the middle class… they’re the privileged protected class! I think it was Allah Pundit who said it best. If unions were so great how did we lose steel and coal to overseas. They helped kill the golden goose.. wasn’t just big business..
Comment by Vermont Neighbor — 3/10/2011 @ 7:07 pm
The subtitle on her twitter page for NPR Ombudsman says:
“News and ETHICS for NPR Listeners”
One of her two main responsibilities then is to address breaches of ethics at NPR.
For an Ombudsman to engage in such blatant parsing of the truth of what Mr. Schiller said on film is just, well, unbelievable.
I hope Patterico forwards this exchange to her boss. Perhaps she will learn something about “ethics”.
Comment by sgi — 3/10/2011 @ 7:16 pm
Forget everything else, this woman is clearly ret*rded.
Anyone with more than five working brain cells can see that Schiller’s use of the phrase “even though” means that what follows will be the opposite of being raised a Republican.
Because what kind of dip sh*t would say “In fact, I grew a Republican and, you know, proud of that, even though I voted most of the time [for Republicans].”
The rest of the sentence gives more than enough context for her to figure it out.
Only through active, willful ignorance could she not tease out what was said, “(unintelligible)” or not. She chose to get it wrong. There is no other possible explanation.
Comment by Scott Jacobs — 3/10/2011 @ 7:26 pm
Her boss? You mean the one at NPR?
Dude, are you high? Where the f**k do you think she learned the ethics she’s got??
Comment by Scott Jacobs — 3/10/2011 @ 7:27 pm
Foo Bar @135 – That was clearly a tragedy for all involved and it is unfortunate that Patterico did not live up to your high expectations. I hope that you chastised him severely.
Comment by daleyrocks — 3/10/2011 @ 7:32 pm
Drunken Economist -
This publicist probably wants to sound flexible. NPR ombudsman today. TGIF waitress tomorrow.
Comment by Vermont Neighbor — 3/10/2011 @ 7:59 pm
Probably repeating someone above ..
The usual “Fake, but accurate” take.
Comment by JAL — 3/10/2011 @ 9:03 pm
More accurate than fake.
Schiller’s comments are perfectly consistent with what would be said by someone who has voted Democratic for at least the last several years, and who intends to vote Democratic for the foreseeable future–but who has never changed their party registration at the elections office from Republican to Democrat or Independent. Call them RINO or (as in comment 49 above) DIABLO, they have the right to say they are Republicans. (I remain a registered Democrat even though it’s been more than ten years since I voted for one in the general election.)
Is there any way of checking what his party registration is at the local elections office.
The real issue here is not what was said on the tape, but the ombudsperson’s refusal to actually listen to the tape.
Comment by kishnevi — 3/10/2011 @ 9:21 pm
Kishnevi – if that guy was a conservative, he underwent a metamorphosis like Chuckles Johnson, ie was never really a conservative.
Comment by JD — 3/10/2011 @ 9:24 pm
Nobody has asked the question that is burning for me.
Shiller (according to the transcript presented here) stated that, “He grew a Republican…”
What kind of fertilizer do you use to grow Republicans?
I know that you use bull manure to grow Democrats, but being a gardener I wonder what is best for growing Republicans.
Comment by Have Blue — 3/10/2011 @ 9:33 pm
Foo Bar:
I am not an ombudsman or a paid professional blogger, which means I have a day job during which I cannot post. Months later I do not recall specifically what happened, but I can make an educated guess: I was out with the family until late Sunday night, took longer to get the kids to bed than I realized, and went to bed late and exhausted. Got up Monday morning, threw together a quick post so something would be up on the site as (I believe) I had no guest bloggers then, WENT TO WORK, came home, immediately did the update, read your whiny e-mail berating me for not jumping quick enough, and wrote you (at 5:40 p.m.) saying the update was already done.
Sorry I didn’t grovel before you and take extra time out of my busy like justifying my failure to conform to your standards.
Actually, I’m not.
Comment by Patterico — 3/10/2011 @ 10:11 pm
Here is the comment I made shortly after Foo Bar left his comment:
(Emphasis added.)
Foo Bar didn’t note that I mentioned the error immediately in my comment, nor that I explained the technological reason why I could not correct it while out with my family.
I went back and scrolled through comments from those two days. It does not appear that I left a single other comment between the comment quoted above and the time I made the correction. I did not write another post on 8-8-10 after receiving Foo Bar’s correction (8-8 is my twin sisters’ birthday, incidentally) and tossed up a super-quick post at about 8:20 a.m. on 8-9, probably published on my iPhone as I was walking from the parking lot to my office, judging from the time stamp and lack of any links. That was my only post until the correction, which I had made by 5:40 p.m. according to the e-mail I sent to Foo Bar.
In short, I am sometimes VERY busy, and the evidence corroborates my educated guess about what was going on those two days.
As usual, Foo Bar is a priggish pedant with a hyperfocus on irrelevant details and little to no humanity. A great asset to the comment section, he is.
By the way, notice how it took me until now to respond to Foo Bar’s latest crap? Guess what? I was busy tonight. I’d better say so now, or Foo Bar will accuse me in 6 months of not having had an excuse.
Comment by Patterico — 3/10/2011 @ 10:32 pm
Shorter Patterico – Good Allah, you are a douchebag, Foo Bar.
Comment by JD — 3/10/2011 @ 11:02 pm
Foo Bar…upholding the highest standards and traditions of trolldouches.
Comment by AD-RtR/OS! — 3/10/2011 @ 11:04 pm
Not to take away from bashing Foo Bar, but I live in Connecticut, about the bluest state you can get. We could really use more Republicans so if anyone knows what elixir Schiller used to grow his I would much appreciate it.
(DohBiden at 131 – How do you do the animated emoticon?)
Comment by Have Blue — 3/11/2011 @ 12:14 am
Thread winners: #56 & #94
How CONVENIENT that the most relevent passage was “unintelligible”. Pathetic.
This Ombudshoochie (you’re welcome, happyfeet) should be the next person to resign from NPR.
Comment by Icy Texan — 3/11/2011 @ 12:22 am
Comment by Machinist — 3/11/2011 @ 12:31 am
Comment by Have Blue — 3/11/2011 @ 12:14 am
(colon)roll(colon) Have a space before it.
Comment by Machinist — 3/11/2011 @ 12:35 am
Our neighbor from Vermont wrote:
At least the waitress at TGIFriday’s brings you something you can stomach.
Comment by The Dana who appreciates good food — 3/11/2011 @ 4:09 am
A great asset to the comment section, he is.
Among commenters who have not been given privileges to write guest blog posts, how many of your commenters have influenced the content of the main body of your posts as many times as I have? Not many. I’m not twisting your arm to make any of the changes you’ve made. I may nag you, but if the observations didn’t have merit, you wouldn’t make the changes.
Anyway, I have another example of your slow updating. In this post, you encouraged your readers to contact the LAT regarding where its usage of the phrase “collaborative relationship” came from:
You knew the answer to that first question by 9:06pm on 3/23, because I told you.
However, you let at least 24 hours go by without updating your post to indicate the answer to that question. During all that time, in the main body of your post you were encouraging your readers to ask the LAT rep a question (where did “collaborative relationship” come from?) to which you knew the answer, instead of sharing that answer with your readers. You can see from my comment at 9:14 on 3/24 and your reply in the next comment that you hadn’t yet updated your post.
Well, as you say, sometimes you are VERY BUSY. In this case, you were VERY BUSY in the intervening 24 hours debating me and other commenters in the comments section, submitting roughly about 20 comments or so. Yes, I’m sure you were working, too, but you obviously had time in the evenings on 3/23 and 3/24 for arguing in the comments section. This is time you could have spent updating your post to tell your readers where the phrase “collaborative relationship” came from, instead of continuing to encourage them to ask the LAT rep a question whose answer you already knew.
Comment by Foo Bar — 3/11/2011 @ 4:24 am
Treacher is the only one who seems to have picked up on the true significance of this. Schiller was an NPR employee, he said these things while representing NPR, so why would it matter what party he belonged to? NPR is supposed to be nonpartisan, right? So why does the ombudsman try to score a point by saying that Schiller is a Republican? Why, if I didn’t know any better, I might even think that she sees herself and NPR as being aligned with the Democratic party, with Republicans as the enemy.
Comment by Fatty Bolger — 3/11/2011 @ 4:52 am
Foo Bar is VERY BUSY in trying to make this all about himself (“how many of your commenters have influenced the content of the main body of your posts as many times as I have? Not many”), as well as some sorta “gotcha” accusation of hypocrisy against our host.
One might wonder if he truly thinks that he can equate Mr. Frey ‘delaying’ an update — while he lives his life — with a woman’s blatant disregard for basic competence in the job she is paid for within her chosen profession.
Comment by Icy Texan — 3/11/2011 @ 5:24 am
One more reason NPR should receive no public funding…even if it is a minor percentage…
Free them from our purse strings and they can do or say whatever they want without the suggestion that they lack bias because of their “National” designation…the nation is more diverse than the liberal left they love…
Comment by Hoyle Broome — 3/11/2011 @ 6:44 am
Foo Bar,
Yes, I was busy in the comments explaining to you why your point didn’t matter. As usual, it was an attempt at a trivial gotcha by you. During which you pretended at times that a statement issued by the staff to the 9/11 Commission had been issued by the Commission itself.
And no, I am not redebating that here. The argument is at the link.
I did update the post once I had written the Readers’ Rep, with a hat tip to you. I did not consider it a correction and still don’t. If I had I would have issued it immediately. Instead I considered your issue to be quite beside the point, and I believe every spectator involved agreed. (To forestall another gotcha, it might be 99 percent of spectators as opposed to 100. I didn’t check.)
Immaterial pedantry from you as per usual.
Comment by Patterico — 3/11/2011 @ 7:07 am
By the way, Foo Bar never goes away and always must have the last word. So if I give it to him, it is not a concession, but an acknowledgement that I do not have his endless store of time to debate trivia.
Comment by Patterico — 3/11/2011 @ 7:09 am
Finally, Foo Bar, you have less influence than you think relative to other readers. DRJ, whether posting or not, always has an outsized influence here, as do Dana, daleyrocks, aunursa, jimboster, and a host of others who have regularly provided excellent tips. I consider that more valuable than a guy who ignores the blog but strains to find some irrelevant area of impeachment when there is an Instapundit link — and if he can’t find one, repeatedly trots out some golden oldie.
Comment by Patterico — 3/11/2011 @ 7:15 am
Can we impeach foobar?
Comment by DohBiden — 3/11/2011 @ 7:25 am
To forestall another gotcha, it might be 99 percent of spectators as opposed to 100. I didn’t check.
For the record, you asked other commenters“does any regular reader find Foo Bar’s point remotely significant to the post?”.
Commenter jim2, who has commented hundreds of times, actually did express some agreement with me.
So you went to the trouble of asking the opinions of your other commenters, and then you didn’t retain the fact that actually, somebody agreed with me. Sadly, I’m not surprised!
Anyway, it’s good to know that you have a policy of encouraging your readers to email newspapers and ask them questions whose answer you already know.
Comment by Foo Bar — 3/11/2011 @ 7:45 am
Was I “ignoring the blog” when I gave you 2 tips you used in your fight with Mark Levin?
Comment by Foo Bar — 3/11/2011 @ 7:48 am
Hey Dana, haven’t tried TGIF. I take it for granted it’s alway’s there. Bet their menu wouldn’t make it past Mo’s radar!
Comment by Vermont Neighbor — 3/11/2011 @ 8:54 am
Foo Bar at 171 – Don’t recall the incident you are currently talking about but I should point out that that you don’t ask the reader representitive of a major newspaper a question only when you do not know the answer.
The extreme view of this philosophy is the legal ‘dictum’ that one should never ask a question, the answer to which you do not already know.
Comment by Have Blue — 3/11/2011 @ 9:17 am
“…when I realized that Liberalism sounds great but so often results in effects fully opposite to those intended.”
That’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
Comment by 5th Level Fighter — 3/11/2011 @ 9:56 am
Amen 5th level.
Comment by DohBiden — 3/11/2011 @ 10:03 am
“Was I “ignoring the blog” when I gave you 2 tips you used in your fight with Mark Levin?”
Foo Bar – Given your penchant for derailing threads over minute unimportant issues, I believe most commenters here would be more than happy if you ignored the blog, but I do not want to speak for anybody else.
Comment by daleyrocks — 3/11/2011 @ 10:19 am
Was i ignoring the blog?
Yes because obviously your blow-up doll has needs.
Comment by DohBiden — 3/11/2011 @ 10:21 am
No, I’d be ok with it daley…
Comment by Scott Jacobs — 3/11/2011 @ 10:57 am
Foo Bar, just because you may have helped out once or twice does NOT mean that everything you do is helpful.
Comment by Icy Texan — 3/11/2011 @ 11:31 am
OP:
Well, he sure sounds like a lot of Republicans I meet in Orange County.
Whether he said it or not, Mr Schiller could be a Republican and have issues with the current direction of the GOP, which hardly makes him an aberration.
If this is not a case of his Republicanism being on the record and downplayed by Mr O’Keefe, then Mr O’Keefe doesn’t deserve criticism for that, but much of the what I’ve been reading about this is making Mr Schiller out to be a GOP-hating liberal like the rest of NPR, so it is relevant if he is actually a GOPer disaffected by the Tea Party.
Comment by kushibo — 3/12/2011 @ 2:08 pm
Since the direction the party has been moving is one of actually meaning what it says, and actually carrying out the policies that distinguish Republicans from Democrats instead of just talking about them, it is impossible for a genuine Republican to be disaffected by it or have issues with it. Either one believes in liberty and small government or one doesn’t.
Comment by Milhouse — 3/13/2011 @ 11:12 pm
Among commenters who have not been given privileges to write guest blog posts, how many of your commenters have influenced the content of the main body of your posts as many times as I have?
Comment by Foo who??
Comment by MD in Philly — 3/14/2011 @ 4:11 am
If I want to determine if my comments have any impact, I ask, I don’t tell.
Comment by MD in Philly — 3/14/2011 @ 4:13 am
Ron Schiller is no GOP member you race baiting ninny.
Comment by DohBiden — 3/14/2011 @ 5:10 am