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• Wednesday, November 7, 2007 10:28 AM

  On NPR

  Maybe a better way to look at the difference between Fox News and NPR is to say that Fox viewers take unfortunate pride in their biases and NPR viewers take false pride in not being biased.

  Here are some of the subjects that NPR approaches, quite openly, with a chosen view: immigration (anti-immigrant advocates are villified and described as being automatically prejudiced and out of the mainstream; illegal immigrants are depicted only as the victimized and virtuous, and difficult subjects like the real cost of providing healthcare, education and social services to illegals is often simply ignored); crime (all incidents designated "hate crime" are valorized as serious, important events and those who criticize the concept of hate crime laws are silenced, as NPR has actively participated in promoting these laws in the states; other crime is, in sharp contrast, minimized, and fear of non-"hate crime" is routinely depicted as prejudice or hysteria); punishment (NPR takes a consistent stand against incarceration in general, reporting in a very one-sided way on issues like three-strikes, minimum sentencing, and the death penalty); affirmative action (as with immigration, reporting is positive regarding pro-AA catchphrases like "the value of campus diversity," and often downright misleading regarding the material outcome of ending preferences). Need I list more issues dear to the liberal's heart?

  NPR does great work in the hard sciences, I'll admit, and despite all those dollars from Dow. And they try to be fair, or at least inclusive, regarding religion and elections, perhaps because it's easy to see the ideological divides there -- one segment for each candidate, one show for each religious holiday, etc. But when they wander into the social sciences, or, everything else in the news, their version of norms, research and outcomes is often pretty representationally and ideologically skewed, and many points of view are automatically excised from their coverage. That's bias, albeit more sophisticated than some guy just shouting "fair and balanced."

  —Tina Trent Read Tina Trent's other letters
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