Posted on 10/23/2017 12:03:03 PM PDT by drewh
Kenneth Stern, a former CEO at National Public Radio, has a shocking new book out called Republican Like Me: How I Left the Liberal Bubble and Learned to Love the Right. After spending extensive time with conservatives, Stern realized that the national media are reporting from inside a liberal-dominated culture. He summarized his discoveries in the New York Post:
Most reporters and editors are liberal — a now-dated Pew Research Center poll found that liberals outnumber conservatives in the media by some 5 to 1, and that comports with my own anecdotal experience at National Public Radio. When you are liberal, and everyone else around you is as well, it is easy to fall into groupthink on what stories are important, what sources are legitimate and what the narrative of the day will be.
It seems only former executives admit national newsrooms "anecdotally" are liberal bubbles, where most journalists don't tend to trip over a conservative viewpoint inside their supposedly objective environment. Stern worked at NPR from 1999 to 2007, but before that worked as deputy counsel for the 1996 Clinton-Gore reelection campaign and as chief counsel to the 1997 Clinton inaugural committee. Here's how Stern came to realize he hadn’t learned enough about conservatives:
Spurred by a fear that red and blue America were drifting irrevocably apart, I decided to venture out from my overwhelmingly Democratic neighborhood and engage Republicans where they live, work and pray. For an entire year, I embedded myself with the other side, standing in pit row at a NASCAR race, hanging out at Tea Party meetings and sitting in on Steve Bannon’s radio show. I found an America far different from the one depicted in the press and imagined by presidents (“cling to guns or religion”) and presidential candidates (“basket of deplorables”) alike.
Stern spent time with evangelicals and went to the Urbana conference (sponsored by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship) with thousands of college-age Christians. He discovered they weren’t caricatures of bitter, selfish racists: “ I certainly didn’t expect the intense discussion of racial equity and refugee issues — how to help them, not how to keep them out — but that is what I got...it left me with a very different impression of a community that was previously known to me only through Jerry Falwell and the movie “Footloose.”
Then he met the hunters:
None of my new hunting partners fit the lazy caricature of the angry NRA member. Rather, they saw guns as both a shared sport and as a necessary means to protect their families during uncertain times. In truth, the only one who was even modestly angry was me, and that only had to do with my terrible ineptness as a hunter....
Gun control and gun rights is one of our most divisive issues, and there are legitimate points on both sides. But media is obsessed with the gun-control side and gives only scant, mostly negative, recognition to the gun-rights sides.
Take, for instance, the issue of legitimate defensive gun use (DGU), which is often dismissed by the media as myth. But DGUs happen all the time — 200 times a day, according to the Department of Justice, or 5,000 times a day, according to an overly exuberant Florida State University study. But whichever study you choose to believe, DGUs happen frequently and give credence to my hunting friends who see their guns as the last line of defense for themselves and their families.
Stern still found President Trump’s attacks on the liberal media to be “inappropriate coming from the head of government,” but he concluded:
At the same time, the media should acknowledge its own failings in reflecting only their part of America. You can’t cover America from the Acela corridor, and the media need to get out and be part of the conversations that take place in churches and community centers and town halls.
To be fair, reporters spent a lot of time trying to understand the mysterious species known as the Trump voter. But that doesn’t mean they won’t stop inundating those voters with their own biased journalism.
Leftist anthropologist goes on safari in the darkest parts of America and discovers strange customs and rituals not heretofore documented by the leftist media ...
Ministry of Propaganda drone discovers real America exists and that’s shocking.
middle-aged, self-righteous, leftist metrosexual finally steps outside his thick bubble, and sees the real world.
Its quite pathetic, really, and a statement to intellectually shallow he was/is.
“Demagogue in chief”?
Portions of this article are refreshing, showing a modest measure of appropriatemea culpa. However this quote reveals he doesn’t get it. The democrats and the press (redundant, I know) demagogue every policy and statement of all political and cultural and economic elements of conservatism, daily.
Heretofore, conservatives have not had the testicular fortitude to respond and defend, let alone go on offense or try to actually win the narrative.
Then, along came Trump. He never hits first; but he always hits back. 50 times (at least) the dems and the press (OK, I repeat myself) have put forth a canard which they were sure would most definitely unhorse Trump, or, at least, separate him from his support base. Previously, conservative leaders have shriveled under the onslaught. Not Trump. He always hits back.
The hitback factor is what this nabob is calling demagoguery. Nope. He saw evidence, but he still doesn’t git it.
5 to 1? More like 99 to 1.
It’s not about who’s likable or not.
The folks at my old job were VERY generous when I got sick and then had to leave.
All liberals. NYC, the worst kind. Great get well cards and one year gifts of netflix, generous checks, calls etc.
That was great.
Doesn’t change the fact that their thinking will destroy the country. And that my thinking is almost the complete opposite on every big issue.
Dont know if this guy’s views have changed, but if they didn’t, well then, now he respects his enemy but it’s still the enemy.
Just like many people who I genuinely liked were still my enemy because their ideas would bring the downfall of this country.
Crazy paradox, but the truth.
>>“Demagogue in chief”?
That caught my eye as well. Defending yourself against a partisan media establishment is not demagoguery, it is self-defense, plain and simple. This guy is waking up a little, but he still has a long way to go.
Bet he still calls illegal aliens “undocumented immigrants”.
Fraudulently documented foreigners is closer to the truth.
It is a start..
FU NPR
By complete coincidence, I’ve been scrolling through the day’s threads on FR and just hit this one after watching the guy on the replay of Tucker Carlson shortly after 10:30pm C.
The guy seems to be honestly disclosing his awakening to the differences he experienced by immersing himself in Conservative Republican activities, as compared to the liberal bubble at NPR and most other media outlets.
He spent time with John Lott, attended TEA Party gatherings, went hunting with others for feral hogs, spent time with a NASCAR pit crew, etc.
His very liberal family can’t believe how he has changed.
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