NPR's abortion audio reveals its ugly smugness
NPR doesn't have anyone in its own circle to point out its bias
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}When National Public Radio recently aired audio of a Michigan woman undergoing the abortion of her child, it was both remarkable and obvious.
A laugh-line I have employed for many years when speaking before conservative audiences has been to say: "I listen to NPR regularly… as penance for my sins."
Aside from the joke, the fact is that I have listened to NPR virtually daily for close to 40 years. And during this midterm election season, the penance has intensified.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Over the past five years or so, I have observed a narrowing of a clash of opinion from NPR. To be sure, NPR's political orientation would be hard to deny. But it seems to have become rather more smug about it. Its coverage simply assumes out of existence the perspectives of others. It reminds me of the story that went around about a progressive New Yorker’s bewilderment in the face of Ronald Reagan's 1984 landslide victory. "No one I know voted for him," he said.
This has gone into high gear with the overturn of Roe v. Wade this year which prompted a relentless series of profiles on NPR: doctors with sinister warnings about the consequence of the Supreme Court’s ruling; generous abortion providers portrayed like missionaries pouring out their compassion to ensure "reproductive health care"—a euphemism employed repeatedly, even in the ballot initiative. And so on.
Anyone who listens to NPR as much as I do knows that this goes well beyond politics; it is woven throughout the hagiographic profiles of musicians, poets, novelists, or comedians so that the listener comes to expect some politically correct and left-of-center credential. Within this world, thoughtful, creative, or erudite thinkers are rarely right-of-center. Or if they are, it rarely ever makes it into the story.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}I grew up in an environment where opinions were strongly expressed over long meals and where, despite my parents having been union members and Democrats as far as I could tell, my father nonetheless regularly watched William F. Buckley’s Firing Line with me seated beside him, to, as he would say, "learn something."
In formulating of my own philosophy of life, I was not only accustomed to, but have actually come to enjoy hearing and weighing opinions outside my own. This curiosity may explain my library, which upon seeing it, a friend remarked that it would be difficult to tell what I believed on the basis of the collection.
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I am not so open-minded so that my brains might fall out, but in the process of coming to conclusions, I think it is critical to hear those of others.
I have made no systematic study of NPR, though it would be simple enough to do. But any honest person, inside or outside NPR, cannot deny that in terms the topics selected, NPR's slant, the guests booked, the priorities set, and the questions asked, there is an obvious culture among public radio editors, journalists, and producers who evidence no awareness that other opinions even exist or are permitted to be expressed in a convivial manner like that of Buckley's Firing Line.
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NPR can try to refute this contention by simply surveying its colleagues and asking their opinions on any range of topics. It would, no doubt, find a diversity of ideas—but it would be a range on the left. NPR might say it doesn't ask such questions of its employees which is irrelevant to professional journalism. And that’s precisely where the smugness comes in: they don’t have anyone in their circle to point out their bias.
If you are running a professional news operation without that kind of diversity in mind, the results will be evident—as indeed they are on NPR.
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