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Comment by xref | Hacker News Reader

If you want a contrary take on NPR and particularly how their political coverage is awful, Erik Loomis, a professor of union labor history and about as far left as you can get, has a number of articles on how NPR fails the national discussion

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/07/our-worthless-me...

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The only political coverage worse than public radio is every other media outlet.

And people wonder why twitter is popular for politics.

I assumed twitter is popular for politics because it's a self perpetuating loop of outrage. If only we could harvest such outrage into electricity...

I think the main problem with NPR news is they always play dumb. If somebody tells them "2+2=5," they just repeat it, if even it's been proven a lie, even if they've been saying the same lie for 30 years. It's not objectivity, it's just enabling liars.

This problem is not exclusive to NPR.

No, but other outlets also aren't put on a pedestal and given public funding.

Yes. Recently they've been corrolating the deaths from bootleg THC cartridges with the banning of flavored nicotine vapes, which is nonsensical but they've parroted it multiple days in a row. There's clearly a propaganda campaign against vaping by big tobacco, with anti-vaping ads everywhere, Trump speaking about it, etc. they are playing along.

Big tobacco owns a hefty minority share of the major nicotine vape companies.

They could just be hedging their bets.

Maybe I missed something, but my impression was that this guy's beef with NPR is that they attempt to be unbiased?

I give them major props just for attempting. It's obvious on many of their interviews with more right wing guests that the reporters are more or less gritting their teeth to get through it, but they do attempt to let both sides make their voices heard.

I'd say his beef is that the NPR refuses to call a spade a spade, using euphemisms instead. And furthermore that using such soft language protects ignominious people.

This guy is a professor? Kind of ironic right off the bat he dismisses his wife's opinion and then claims journalism that refrains from labels is toxic.

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