Politico: NPR Summons Mara Liasson
[Guest post by DRJ]
MD in Philly points out today’s Politico report that NPR asked Mara Liasson to reconsider her appearances on Fox News:
“According to a source, Liasson was summoned in early October by NPR’s executive editor for news, Dick Meyer, and the network’s supervising senior Washington editor, Ron Elving. The NPR executives said they had concerns that Fox’s programming had grown more partisan, and they asked Liasson to spend 30 days watching the network.
At a follow-up meeting last month, Liasson reported that she’d seen no significant change in Fox’s programming and planned to continue appearing on the network, the source said.
NPR’s focus on Liasson’s work as a commentator on Fox’s “Special Report” and “Fox News Sunday” came at about the same time as a White House campaign launched in September to delegitimize the network by painting it as an extension of the Republican Party.”
Both NPR and former White House communications director Anita Dunn denied that there was a relationship between the Liasson request and the White House’s criticism of Fox News.
— DRJ
NPR is supposedly concerned about being viewed as liberal (as they should be) and that she was appearing on Fox to offer the ‘liberal’ point of view.
steve sturm (369bc6) — 12/7/2009 @ 1:49 pmLiasson points out that she doesn’t appear on commentary shows, only on news shows, so her appearances aren’t partisan.
DRJ (dee47d) — 12/7/2009 @ 1:53 pmWho you goin’ to believe…
AD - RtR/OS! (e77d9d) — 12/7/2009 @ 1:55 pmMe, or your lying eyes?
Steve
where do you get that? i see not a word about it. instead all of the concern is that fox is supposedly right wing.
i say take all public money out of NPR and PBS. if they can survive with their telephons, more power to them, but no more taxpayer money.
And, btw, if we are going to be concerned about bias, why not start with NPR?
A.W. (e7d72e) — 12/7/2009 @ 1:59 pmComment by DRJ — 12/7/2009 @ 1:53 pm
Except, her appearances are within a panel discussion of the day’s/week’s events, and are commentary on the news.
AD - RtR/OS! (e77d9d) — 12/7/2009 @ 2:00 pmI get it here
steve sturm (369bc6) — 12/7/2009 @ 2:06 pmOf course NPR is who you call when you want the dirty socialist party line. That’s not a secret. But it would be nice to see terribly unfortunate things happen to Mara’s career, in whatever combination of ways it might go down.
happyfeet (71f55e) — 12/7/2009 @ 2:08 pmLiasson seems to have more integrity and I salute her for it.
SPQR (26be8b) — 12/7/2009 @ 2:21 pmIntegrity would involve calling out NPR as the dirty socialist propaganda whores they are. Mara is not a woman of integrity. She’s spent over a decade in the service of what is hands down the most corrupt dirty socialist propaganda organ in our whole little country.
She’s a bad person.
happyfeet (71f55e) — 12/7/2009 @ 2:24 pmIf NPR is worried because its employees repeatedly espouse liberal viewpoints when appearing on other networks, the answer isn’t to stop them from appearing on those networks. The answer is to hire people with a broader range of viewpoints.
DRJ (dee47d) — 12/7/2009 @ 2:28 pmBut I doubt that’s what NPR is worried about.
DRJ (dee47d) — 12/7/2009 @ 2:30 pmI doubt it too, DRJ. Instead, I suspect that NPR is doing the bidding of the White House.
SPQR (26be8b) — 12/7/2009 @ 2:31 pmGive it a rest happyfeet. I know that Ms. Liasson can be counted on to bat from the left side of the plate. And you’re going to have to do that, if you work at what you call “the most corrupt dirty socialist propaganda operation in the country.”
That said, she generally seems like a pretty straight shooter to me. You’re always going to have both left handed and right handed batters at the plate of public opinion.
Mike Myers (3c9845) — 12/7/2009 @ 2:32 pmThe left is all about compulsion and the authoritarian temptation. Read “Liberal Fascism” sometime. Mussolini was the editor of a socialist newspaper before he founded the Fascisti.
Mike K (2cf494) — 12/7/2009 @ 2:34 pmThis is an organization that hijacks taxpayer monies and uses it to espouse dirty socialists propaganda… including a huge commitment of resources to abetting the climate change fraud… and it does so under an extremely and garishly false pretense of neutrality. They are a distillation of the essence of the rampant corruption of journalism in our little country and Mara Liasson is complicit in that.
She’s a bad person.
happyfeet (71f55e) — 12/7/2009 @ 2:38 pmI think DRJ is spot on at #10.
happyfeet (71f55e) — 12/7/2009 @ 2:39 pmFor instance, NPR should point out how it also has employees who regularly appear on MSNBC and CNN panels as the conservative counterweight. They should do that, but they can’t.
DRJ (dee47d) — 12/7/2009 @ 2:40 pmoh. just dirty *socialist* propaganda not socialists… I think we should recall this…
happyfeet (71f55e) — 12/7/2009 @ 2:41 pmthis seems not unrelated, really…
Our media is an uncommonly whorish one I think.
happyfeet (71f55e) — 12/7/2009 @ 2:52 pmi say take all public money out of NPR and PBS.
Bingo – felt that way for years, and I know a few folks from my radio days that have been working at NPR for eons. They’re mostly paleo – liberals and refugees from the halls of academia, and think that someone like David Brooks is a far Right – Wing nutjob. Most have forgotten that Ken Tomlinson was brought in by the Bush administration to try to get PBS and NPR on a more equal footing in viewpoints – he didn’t get very far and was gone after less than 4 years, and he couldn’t even get Moyers off the air.
Dmac (a964d5) — 12/7/2009 @ 3:08 pmHas any other network been given the same scrutiny by NPR?
jim2 (96d10c) — 12/7/2009 @ 3:34 pmIn other news, King Henry II denied that his question about “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” was in any way related to the murder of Thomas Becket.
Kevin Murphy (805c5b) — 12/7/2009 @ 3:53 pmI think the message is clear, though: Anyone who has anything to do with Fox News can expect their career to suffer setbacks. And not just at NPR.
Kevin Murphy (805c5b) — 12/7/2009 @ 3:55 pmDon’t forget the treatment of Juan Williams.
Once is a coincidence. Twice is not.
Ed from SFV (1333b1) — 12/7/2009 @ 5:01 pmThe NPR executives said they had concerns that Fox’s programming had grown more partisan, and they asked Liasson to spend 30 days watching the network.
Funny how Fox didn’t ask Liasson to listen to NPR for 30 days because they were concerned about how partisan it has become…
Fox isn’t concerned because they get the top ratings from their intentional presentation of differing views. And they have the high ratings to prove that this formula works.
Funny how the left, who are indeed all about control and authoritarianism, see censorship, in it’s various shapes and forms, as an acceptable tool to use in order to arrive at their desired outcome.
Dana (e9ba20) — 12/7/2009 @ 5:58 pmIt’s different when they do it, Dana. Always.
Eric Blair (c8876d) — 12/7/2009 @ 6:04 pmNotice how the liberals’ rebuttals to criticism are consistently presented to the American people as fact, while the denials of conservatives are presented as… well, actually they are not usually presented at all, are they?
sherlock (e1e91e) — 12/7/2009 @ 6:36 pmI predict when this thing is over Mara Liasson is going to end up looking much better and more ethical than NPR. As the Powerline guys put it, it’s really up to invividuals to decide how they want to make their living. I bet most journalists would agree with that sentiment regardless of their politics. Say, anybody know how this story got leaked in the first place? Hmmmm.
elissa (7fa9fb) — 12/7/2009 @ 6:37 pmI applaud Mara Liasson for refusing to cooperate with the Obama attempt to ostracize Fox, and to go against NPR’s plans to comply with it. Her act is one of integrity I wish more journalists would emulate.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (0ea407) — 12/7/2009 @ 7:00 pmSo, basically, NPR wanted one of their liberal commentator to stop going to FoxNews to express her point of view… because they believe FoxNews is one-sided and never presents a liberal point of view. Do I have that right?
V the K (a99f44) — 12/7/2009 @ 7:00 pm…and apparently Fox’s outrageous behavior of inclusiveness is simply unacceptable. After all, it might foster dialogue, debate, and discussion!
Dana (e9ba20) — 12/7/2009 @ 7:08 pmI don’t see how her act isn’t one of self-interest, really. There’s nothing to say she doesn’t have a mortgage scaled to her net NPR/Fox income.
happyfeet (71f55e) — 12/7/2009 @ 7:08 pmYes, after a while NPR would not let Juan Williams identify himself as an NPR commenter.
Patricia (b05e7f) — 12/7/2009 @ 7:52 pmWhich is larger – the percentage of employees who are liberal at Fox or the percentage who are conservative at NPR?
Have Blue (854a6e) — 12/7/2009 @ 9:33 pmThe answer is to take over the WH and Congress, then fire EVERYONE at NPR and PBS and start over.
PCD (1d8b6d) — 12/8/2009 @ 6:01 am