Posted on 03/14/2016 5:31:23 AM PDT by Drango
NPR is acting to clarify the role of longtime analyst and commentator Cokie Roberts after she co-wrote a syndicated newspaper column calling for "the rational wing" of the Republican Party to stop Donald Trump's march toward its presidential nomination.
NPR has a policy forbidding its journalists from taking public stances on political affairs. She has not been a full-time employee for decades, and several years ago Roberts officially was named a commentator. (The timing was confirmed in separate interviews with Roberts, NPR officials and the former senior vice president for news who made the decision.) The role gives Roberts more latitude to express opinions than the network's reporters or hosts.
"[Trump] is one of the least qualified candidates ever to make a serious run for the presidency," Roberts wrote late last month in a syndicated column with her husband, the journalist Steven Roberts. "If he is nominated by a major party — let alone elected — the reputation of the United States would suffer a devastating blow around the world."
Roberts, often described as a "founding mother" of NPR, left her position as a full-time staffer in 1992 for ABC News. She continued to appear regularly on NPR as a news analyst for almost two decades on a contract basis. After the change in title from news analyst to commentator, listeners may have noticed little, if any, difference in her role.
Roberts remains closely identified with NPR and presents commentary most Mondays on Morning Edition.
Roberts' column was published Feb. 26, and she did not flag its contents to NPR executives. It came to their attention after Roberts sharply questioned Trump during a March 9 appearance on MSNBC.
NPR's senior vice president for news and editorial director, Michael Oreskes, said the opinion column indicates Roberts has not been sufficiently identified to listeners as a commentator. Additionally, he wrote in a memo to staffers that news executives would work with her to refine the contours of her job.
The very public evolution of Roberts' status occurs against the backdrop of an earlier episode in which an NPR analyst's remarks in another news outlet sparked a firestorm. NPR drew a backlash when it terminated Juan Williams' contract in fall 2010 because of comments he made about Muslims on Fox News.
The greater context involves Trump himself.
As Oreskes has noted, the news media continue to wrestle with how to respond to Trump's spectacular rise. Trump's criticism of the political establishment has at times appeared to incite violence and racial tensions.
Oreskes directed Roberts to explain her reasoning behind her column — both the substantive case and Roberts' conviction she had a right and need to articulate it — in a conversation with Morning Edition host David Greene broadcast early Monday.
"Our journalists have clear instructions," Oreskes wrote in his memo, sent to staffers Monday morning. "We do not support or oppose candidates. We don't advise political parties. We gather the news and seek as many points of view as we can. Cokie's role has evolved into being one of those points of view."
In the Morning Edition interview for broadcast Monday, Greene asked Roberts: "Objectivity is so fundamental to what we do. Can you blame people like me for being a little disappointed to hear you come out and take a personal position on something like this in a campaign?"
"If I were doing it in your role, you should be disappointed," Roberts said. "Or if I were doing it covering Capitol Hill every day. I can't imagine doing that. But the truth is [that commentary] is a different role. And there are times in our history when you might be disappointed if I didn't take a position like that."
Roberts is not the only veteran journalist to take unusual exception to Trump. In a pointed commentary that aired on NBC Nightly News in December, retired NBC anchor Tom Brokaw denounced Trump's "dangerous proposal" for Muslims to be prevented from entering the country. Brokaw, now a senior news analyst for NBC, said it "overrides history, the law and the foundation of America itself."
In an interview granted Sunday night for this article, Roberts was asked whether she had approached her job any differently with the title "commentator" rather than "analyst." She replied, "The answer has got to be, 'No.'
"Here is my basic approach to life," Roberts continued. "I am a totally unpartisan human being. I don't care which party has the right ideas — or which party has the wrong ideas. I am very, very, very interested in civility. I am interested in government working."
Roberts cited her family's own dedication to public service — not just the congressional careers of both of her parents but, she said, a family tradition reaching back to the American Revolution. Roberts particularly pointed to Trump's sharp rhetoric on Mexicans and Muslims and his seeming encouragement of violence toward protesters.
"We are in a time where we have the possibility of going backward instead of forward," Roberts said. "What's so incredibly wonderful about this country — which I believe is great and does not need to be made great — is our constant infusion of new people with new energy and new ideas.
"I know about the dark times in our history where we have gone backwards," Roberts said. "Those have not been useful times in our history. Not to point out that this is a moment in history where we could be backward instead of forward might be a disservice."
What a nasty, ugly facist er woman.
Civility means “Do what I say, peon”.
Well Cokie, so far it isn't working. That's way I am interested in destroying people like you and the very government we have now. Except for the defense of the country, nothing else really matters now does it.
Cokie has spent her entire life inside the beltway. She never had a chance to be anything else.
De-fund NPR
Yep
She’s mastered the grumpy granny look for sure.
She and all like her, are unable to perceive how disconnected from reality they are. Unpartisan? (is that even a word?) Cokie Roberts is obviously a partisan Democrat to anyone that is not a Leftist journalist. Her career has proven it.
NPR is their safe place, where they can live out their Utopian/Orwellian fantasies uninterrupted by want or need. So it all seems obvious to them.
You will not find a bible believing Christian among them, except in effigy.
These arrogant, puffed up mouthpieces living the cushy cocktail circuit in the Capital forget the many times in our history that the U.S. has limited immigration in any number of very specific ways, including nation of origin. Trump spoke of a period of time in which we limit incoming from the islamic state, which has sworn to kill us. So?
A sure sign of self-righteous self-delusion right there.
She was out of line. But your comment was not very nice to say.
And yet Gwen Ifill was allowed to actively cheerlead for Barack Obama in 2008 while writing a book about him and moderating his debates.
How stupid does NPR think we are?
Less qualified than Obama...?
Less qualified than Rubio...?
It's like the Demomedia saved up all the moral outrage their suppressed consciences knew they should have expressed in '08 and '12, and are spewing it now at a man who is standing against those very things on our behalf.
Cokie Roberts reminds me of a delusional June Lockhart.
Can’t believe that fossil is still reporting and that anyone listens to her.
And Cokie, as a democrat operative who everyone KNOWS is a democrat operative, was very calculating in co-authoring this column. Her real agenda is to further solidify support for Trump in the GOP race, as the national polls show he is the candidate Hillary has the best chance of beating in November.
Is cokie on the NPR payroll? I thought she had retired, but saw her on abc.
Roberts has "rove-colored glasses? That is a laugh. She knows that her commentary against somebody in the GOP race will be taken by the GOP as a glowing endorsement. She is hoping for Trump vs Hillary because the dems know that is Hillary's best chance at winning in November.
“I am very much interested in civility”
ie, I am very supportive of the globalist agenda for America to slide into third world status.
Hah! During that terrible FoxNews debate, when Cruz went on his rant about Marco being the son of a bartender and Kasich being the son of a mailman, and everyone laughed when he got around to Trump, I couldn't help thinking of this old joke American conservatives used to tell in the 1950s, when the threat of Soviet communism was very real in this country:
Two acquaintances run into each other in 1919 while attending a Revolutionary music concert in the town hall."Hello, there, Ivan!" bellows Kasmir, grabbing his arm. "How glorious is our Revolution! Here I am the son of a farmer and you are the son of a prince, but now we attend the same concert as equals!"
Kasmir nodded politely.
After the concert, the men of the town made their way to the tavern. There, once again, Ivan smiled broadly and clapped Kasmir on the back, bragging to his friends, "Comrades! Let us toast to the Glorious Revolution, we who are sons of tinkers and farmers, freely drinking here with Comrade Kasmir, the son of a prince!" To which Kasmir lifted his stein and again, nodded politely.
Many beers later, Ivan and Kasmir found themselves side by side in the dark, facing the urine-stained wall behind the tavern.
"Will you look at this!" Ivan boomed. "I am the son of a farmer and you are the son of a prince, and yet here we stand, unbuttoned together, pissing freely to the glory of the Revolution!
"But, Kasmir, my pee sounds like the rushing of the great Volga River over the rocks, but from you I hear nothing!"
To which Kasmir quietly replied, "That's because I am peeing on your coat, peasant."
O realli?
A møøse bit my sister once...
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