Posted on 07/16/2007 9:40:55 AM PDT by 3AngelaD
Dina Temple-Raston, who covers the FBI for National Public Radio, did a story last week on objections by civil libertarians to the bureau's tactics in conducting surveillance without court orders. The first person she quoted was an official at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Temple-Raston is also the co-author of a new book titled "In Defense of Our America." The other author is Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU. The book "illustrates the dangerous erosion of the Bill of Rights in the age of terror," as the organization's Web site puts it.
Does being partners with such a prominent civil libertarian raise questions about an FBI beat reporter?
"When you see my name on the book, it's absolutely fair to wonder what the depth of participation was," Temple-Raston says. When she was hired by NPR six months ago while finishing the book, "we talked about whether there could be a conflict of interest."
Temple-Raston says that she signed on to the project after Romero got the contract and that they had mainly an "e-mail relationship." She says NPR editors came up with "common sense" guidelines that do not allow her to quote Romero or profile the ACLU, but that still allow her to use the organization as a source.
"I'm attuned to the problem that there could be a perception issue," she says. "The ACLU and other civil liberties groups are going to be part of my beat. It's something I think about, it's something I'm aware of, just like I worry about being too sympathetic to the FBI. I'm trying to be really, really balanced."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Howie is their token conservative.
Other than Volvo driving brie and Birkenstock liberals, who listens to NPR?
“Bias identified”
Where’s the evidence she’s been biased as an NPR reporter?
Is it that she “did a story last week on objections by civil libertarians to the bureau’s tactics in conducting surveillance without court orders”? Surely that can’t be it. There’s a lively and important political debate about where to make tradeoffs between liberty and security. I’d expect every news organization to cover it.
Or is it that “the first person she quoted was an official at the American Civil Liberties Union”? If you’re doing a story about X’s objections to Y, you’d typically start with a quote from X and then move on to a reply from Y.
The ideal would be to find someone knowledgeable who can manage to do a fair-minded job as a journalist notwithstanding his or her prior involvement on one side or another of the issues they’re covering, and so far you haven’t shown any evidence that Dina Temple-Raston is anything less than ideal.
I don’t know why NPR even attempts to claim neutrality now. No one buys that.
“Other than Volvo driving brie and Birkenstock liberals, who listens to NPR?”
If it’s only Volvo driving brie and Birkenstock liberals who listen, we have no need to fear if NPR has a liberal bias because they’re only preaching to their choir, and the many Freepers who despise NPR need therapy to get over their irrational fears.
“I don’t know why NPR even attempts to claim neutrality now. No one buys that.”
There’s some empirical evidence that they do a good job. For example, at the time of the invasion, something close to a two-thirds majority of people who watch Fox news thought the 9-11 hijackers were from Iraq, whereas a huge majority of people who listen to NPR knew that wasn’t the case.
Maybe there’s overwhelming evidence to the contrary, in which case I’m all ears if you want to share with me. But that does count as some evidence in their favor as a news organization.
When you're watching NBC News, any business story on a GE subsidiary is joined by a disclaimer, "The company is a subsidiary of GE, the parent company of this network."
There was no such disclaimer in this case. Indeed, it would be difficult to imagine a story involving this reporter where a disclaimer wouldn't be required, much less this story.
The standard to follow, of course, is simple: Would knowledge of the fact create an "aha!" moment in the mind of a reasonable observer? In this case, obviously so.
But why should one dime of my taxes go to pay for this, which is, despite your spirited defense of taxpayer-supported propaganda radio, bias? No one who is in bed with the ACLU can claim to be an objective reporter on law enforcement matters. The ACLU opposes the enforcement of most laws. This situation stinks so bad that even Howard Kurtz can smell it. Now, then, allow me to refill your glass of Kool-aid.
Failure to disclose that fact is evidence of bias.
Whether the majority or reporters are liberal or conservative has no relevance whatsoever when it comes to determining whether or not a news organization is an accurate and reliable source of information about the world. It might be grounds for reserving judgement or being skeptical, and it might help explain _why_ they’re reporting is biased—if indeed it is. But it doesn’t provide evidence _that_ it is biased. That can only be established by tracking what they publish.
For example, The Economist is a very conservative magazine but everyone acknowledges their reporting is first rate.
Notice how liberals with “Conflict of Interest” problems really only have “Perception Problems”? Might just be me....
I'll bet they've got a lot more "token" blacks than token conservatives.
Then again, they've got soooooo many reader they can afford to give the finger to the half of their potential subscribers who happen to be conservative.
If you would be willing to quickly jot down the disclaimer you think should accompany _her_ every on-air report, I’d be interested to read it, because I’d like to see what would think needs to be said in her case that wouldn’t need to be said by virtually every other reporter at every other news organization.
I'll bet they've got a lot more "token" blacks than token conservatives - or for that matter any "token" group.
Then again, they've got soooooo many readers they can afford to give the finger to the half of the population that's conservative.
Kurtz is their media critic -- I don't think there's a lot of basis to label his column liberal or conservative, because he generally doesn't take positions on political issues. He's covering the coverage.
“No one who is in bed with the ACLU can claim to be an objective reporter on law enforcement matters.”
So you say. Bu I’m still waiting why you think so.
My own claim quite modest compared to yours. For all I’ve said, they are biased. I’m only pointing out that evidence of bias would require actually looking at the reporting they do for NPR.
Would the NPR Reporter covering immigration issues co-author a book with, say, the founder of the Minuteman?
“But why should one dime of my taxes go to pay for this”
THAT’s an excellent question.
I often finding myself wondering the same thing about farm subsidies.
But I think it’s fair to say that the level of animus towards NPR can’t be explained by a concern lowering the deficit—otherwise we’d see the same level of animus towards a lot of government agencies, but of course we don’t.
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