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Comment by fortran77 | Hacker News Reader

This is NPR reporting. Why would they mislead on an issue like this? I think they're a very credible source, given their progressive bent, to be asking these questions.

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My guess is framing it as a $ per person per month came from whoever pointed the report out to the journalist, possibly one of the interviewees (Comptroller, Legal Aid, Councilmember etc). From there the comparison to rent is pretty natural.

I don't think this is bad reporting or anything, I was commenting to help people avoid getting into the trap of thinking in the most obvious framing after skimming a headline.

Because they're under the same competitive pressure in the attention economy as every other media outlet?

Not really. They're funded a bit differently.

True. But they will still fail if they lose too many eyeballs. And the world is increasingly overflowing with distractions.

A large portion of the funding comes from folks who give them attention.

Only 8% from government.

> Why would they mislead on an issue like this? I think they're a very credible source

Do you not agree the number is misleading?

No. Numbers are numbers.

But it’s not per-tent is it? It per-tent-and-services-and-meals-and-sanitation-and-project-overheads.

That’s misleading.

> Numbers are numbers.

But the number isn’t what they say it is.

The phrase per-tent either intentionally or unintentionally misleads you to think that’s the cost literally for the tent and should be compared against rent.

Agreed. It's room and board plus. It's also public safety.

That seems obvious, doesn't it??

Clearly not to someone in the chain of reporters and editors - since they compare it to rent, which doesn’t include these things.

Either describing the number as per-tent is misleading, or the comparison to rent is misleading. Either way, part of it is misleading.

They even basically acknowledge it’s a misleading comparison in the article!

I have no idea why people believe NPR to be progressive. The joke name "Nice Polite Republicans" exists for a reason. Liberal news coverage of homeless issues rarely takes a progressive framing, anyway.

> The Pew survey found that the NPR audience tends Democratic (17% Republican, 37% independent, 43% Democratic) and centrist (21% conservative, 39% moderate, 36% liberal).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR_controversies

I like NPR. But they're certainly progressive/left leaning. On the subject of homelessness, they've written many thoughtful stories:

https://www.npr.org/search?query=Homelesss&page=1

Yeah... I have a hard time imagining anyone in the US describing today's NPR as "nice polite Republicans"... Perhaps Bernie Sanders would possibly describe them as centrist?

People with extreme views believe that everybody who doesn’t pursue the extreme is against them.

The us vs them mindset. With us or against us.

Not good. It'll send us back in time if we let it.

They are small-c conservative progressives.

They are not into spectacles or aggressive populism, generally correct, a little effete, but are definitely progressive.

They are like the 'Vermont' or 'Nice Schoolteacher' or 'Librarian' of Journalism.

Promoting an author who’s book is literally titled, “In Defense of Looting”[1] isn’t progressive. It’s promoting the breakdown of the rule of law. That wasn’t an accident either.

[1]: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/27/906642178...

The book is about looting as a reaction to the breakdown of the rule of law.

The title of the piece is:

"One Author's Controversial View: 'In Defense Of Looting'"

To the extent that they identify that the view is labelled with the editorially appropriate moniker: 'Controversial' - I'm glad that people have a chance to speak their minds.

'Covering' a book or a perspective is not overtly 'promoting' it.

If they're drawing from a wide perspective (they don't quite though), then this would be a good thing.

Even NPR had to admit that it was wrong to publish that story, or at least do so without calling it out as factually inaccurate:

> This Q&A with a provocative author did not serve NPR’s audience. You and several other NPR fans pointed out that NPR’s own prior reporting contradicted some of the things this author was saying. On top of being wrong about recent events, the author’s characterization of the Civil Rights Movement is a distortion and oversimplification.

http://view.nl.npr.org/?qs=7c7fd141a65180ed1dafb8fed91fa4fa3...

The issue with the piece is not 'facts' - it's the characterization of 'looting' as effectively a form of 'legit revolutionary behaviour', actions which are necessary to invoke change.

That's not a completely irrational idea and is worthy of some discussion.

The bigger issue with NPR is not that they carried the piece, it's that they likely would not have carried too many alternative viewpoints. They are 'sided'.

Yeah NPR is largely for wealthy college educated liberals, who largely gesture towards helping the homeless but have no substantial interest in doing so. NPR has had numerous articles that take the small business owner’s perspective over the worker, and other such things. They are in no way left-leaning.

Surely you jest.

Source 1: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/01/americans-m...

Source 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-peZ7IeD2w

There’s an easy litmus test for news organizations - words. Do they use Latino or Latinx, for example? Illegal alien vs. undocumented immigrant vs refugee. Sex vs gender assigned at birth (usually when talking about a trans person).

NPR used to be fairly centrist, but these days they’re far to the left. If I turn on my car there’s about a 9/10 chance my local station will be talking about some form of identity politics.

That’s all the radio, though. I believe they at least try to approach the center in their online articles.

When you tune into public radio you're most likely not listening to NPR. Public radio stations draw their programming from many sources, including in many cases shows produced by the station. NPR does distribute more content to public radio stations than do APM, PRI/PRX, or WNYC, but their programs don't comprise a majority of public radio content.

Unfortunately your litmus test especially doesn't work that well for NPR, at least in one example. They distribute (but do not produce - partly because it wouldn't meet their editorial guidelines) a show about issues facing Latin Americans in the United States called Latino USA. Yet nobody who listens to it would deny the show takes quite a strong progressive stance on political issues.

I'd also add that NPR's most popular shows, the newscasts Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition, are all remarkably boring politically and take a sort of weaker sauce version of the BBC's neutral and somewhat hostile approach to interviewing, regardless of political bent.

The hosts of All Things Considered regularly use latinx, but at least the last time I heard them use a Hispanic reporter they used the word latino. I don't know if that was a change in policy or if the reporter doesn't like the word themselves.

All Things Considered may be "boring" politically, but they are far from neutral - I don't listen to the other two very often. Easy example - for weeks, if not months, they called what was going on at the border "Trumps Family (sometimes Child) Separation Policy," even though anyone informed knew the very first day that it was not his policy. It wasn't until the story finally started to die down did they used the (at least somewhat) correct phrase "The increase in family separations due to Trump's zero tolerance policy."

"undocumented immigrant" isn't necessarily the same as "refugee", likewise sex vs assigned gender. if you're going to critique word choice you should know what those words mean

I know what the words mean, but "refugee" usually means "someone who shouldn't qualify as a refugee but is going to try to use it/lie to get in to an economically favorable country" nowadays, but that's a bit of a mouthful.

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