propaganda on NPR radio (in US)

SlavaOn

Jedi Master
NPR is the only station that I listen to during my commute to and from work.
One would have thought that National Public Radio, which boasts of its independence since it exists on public donations, is not taking sides... Wrong.
Ever since last year, it is all Trump, Trump, Trump. I remember in early November, right before presidential elections, they went through a poll about Trump's popularity. I do not recall who were they polling from (or who were the pollsters), but Trump was compared to some ridiculous things - like vomit or head lice. And they said head lice won - a couple weeks later Trump won the presidential election!

This was the lowest point that a public radio station could get down to, in my opinion.
From that point on, Trump became the punch bag for anything that happens in the US. My conclusion: NPR is a propaganda radio...
 
SlavaOn said:
but Trump was compared to some ridiculous things - like vomit or head lice. And they said head lice won - a couple weeks later Trump won the presidential election!

This was the lowest point that a public radio station could get down to, in my opinion.
From that point on, Trump became the punch bag for anything that happens in the US. My conclusion: NPR is a propaganda radio...

That is BAD!

I used to listen to NPR years ago before I starting learning about propaganda news (thanks to SOTT and the forum.)

Every once in a great while I'll turn on NPR during my drive to work just to hear the latest lie they are spinning. It isn't long before I roll my eyes and turn it off!
 
SlavaOn said:
NPR is the only station that I listen to during my commute to and from work.
One would have thought that National Public Radio, which boasts of its independence since it exists on public donations, is not taking sides... Wrong.
Ever since last year, it is all Trump, Trump, Trump. I remember in early November, right before presidential elections, they went through a poll about Trump's popularity. I do not recall who were they polling from (or who were the pollsters), but Trump was compared to some ridiculous things - like vomit or head lice. And they said head lice won - a couple weeks later Trump won the presidential election!

This was the lowest point that a public radio station could get down to, in my opinion.
From that point on, Trump became the punch bag for anything that happens in the US. My conclusion: NPR is a propaganda radio...

I think your hunch is correct. I was also an adherent listener as well back in the day. NPR has morphed, or maybe I was just plane ignorant and lazy to investigate there dictation, for an alternative perspective as to there storytelling.

I listen less now, but I do feel it's important to hear there distortions, implying truth. It serves me as means of reference, and as a means of understanding how many souls, are so very deceived.

Current listening statistics (via wiki):
_https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Audience
According to 2009, NPR statistics, about 20.9 million listeners tune into NPR each week.[46] According to 2015 figures, 87% of the NPR terrestrial public radio audience and 67% of the NPR podcast audience is white.[47] According to the 2012 Pew Research Center 2012 News Consumption Survey, NPR listeners tend to be highly educated, with 54% of regular listeners being college graduates and 21% having some college.[48] NPR's audience is almost exactly average in terms of the sex of listeners (49% male, 51% female).[48] NPR listeners have higher incomes than average (the 2012 Pew study showed that 43% earn over $75,000, 27% earn between $30,000 and $75,000).[48] The Pew survey found that the NPR audience tends Democratic (17% Republican, 37% independent, 43% Democratic) and liberal (21% conservative, 39% moderate, 36% liberal).[48]

And as you are becoming more aware, you may be unable to find very few mainstream connections in the states actually practicing any form of real Journalism, like in the old days.

According to wiki:
"The National Public Radio serves a.s a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations". NPR's flagships are two drive time news broadcasts, Morning Edition and the afternoon All Things Considered; both are carried by most NPR member stations, and are two of the most popular radio programs in the country.[3][4]
One can understand they too have an agenda, considering there columns such as the daily "Opinion's":
Hosted by NPR: Jan. 6 2017
How Russia's Disinformation Campaign Could Extend Its Tentacles
_http://www.npr.org/2017/01/06/508032496/how-russias-disinformation-campaign-could-extend-its-tentacles

So to me, it's just another rag on the listening dial with very little to say about reality, and more about how to be hypnotized. And negatively polarized to and by the Deep State agenda.

NPR Disinformation on Venezuela
August 25, 2017 by Stephen Lendman
http://stephenlendman.org/2017/08/npr-disinformation-venezuela/
Snip, lead paragraph:
National Public Radio (NPR) operates like other media scoundrels – reporting disinformation, Big Lies and fake news on major issues, suppressing or sanitizing what listeners most need to know.
NPR long ago betrayed the public trust. Established in 1971, it promised to be an alternative to commercial media, “promoting personal growth rather than corporate gain…speak(ing) with many voices, many dialects.”

Instead it’s a voice for wealth, power and privilege, polar opposite its public pledge.Corporate funders demand no less. So do dark forces in Washington.

Your instincts serve you well SlavaOn.
 
I more or less grew up on NPR and probably internalized their viewpoint for a number of years. Then in the late 90s/early 2000s I started to tune in to even more "left" radio like Democracy Now! before later realizing it was just a slightly different crock (or "gatekeeper" if you will, while NPR is more of a foundational mainstream pole).

I still listen while driving now and then but it often involves yelling at the radio. Many of my family and friends still subsist on it and I try to point out to them that NPR is just (occasionally) trying to "sound" objective as compared to something like MSNBC but the actual content is usually far from objective.

My personal rules for NPR and other similar public radio listening are as follows: If it is some sort of human interest story, it might be OK although possibly embedded with some substrate of a political agenda. Ditto for the "science" content although it becomes noticeably less objective whenever they touch on something like "climate" science. The quiz shows might be tolerable if you're into that sort of stilted, egghead humor, which I'm usually not, but they will often be full of jabs at Trump or anything remotely "right"-leaning. Coverage of domestic politics is mostly worthless except as a type of median gauge of where propaganda stands, although one might learn "facts" in between the propaganda if listening carefully. And foreign policy coverage does seem to be even worse than domestic as far as just pushing the PTB/Western Empire line. Of course, at times there may be exceptions. General "current events" like flooding in Texas may contain decent content that is harder to politicize, although I can imagine them doing a lot of blaming it all on "climate" this and "climate" that, everyone needs to stop driving cars so they don't have to listen to their awful stuck-up radio programs :P etc etc

This seems like it has been going on for a number of years if not decades but it does seem to have gotten worse since Trump was elected. I don't remember them ever being too critical of Obama but they may have sort of kind of pretended to be against the Iraq war at times during the Bush years.
 
The firing of Juan Williams annoyed me. Soon after that, I was listening when a main female correspondent started ragging on Maxway stores. "People really ought to understand the sort of person that owns the store so they know better than to shop there." The owner is a Libertarian, and you know, Libertarians just hate poor people...
Anyway, just a smear on a decent store that caters to those that can't afford K-mart because the owner was conservative. Interesting that I never heard them ragging on Whole Foods (philosophically similar ownership back then), but then again I quit listening right after that.


Canine Wisdom:

https://youtu.be/kQSO0RbmHBI
 
When someone doesn't like a radio or TV channel and bitch about it, a typical advice would be: why don't you switch to another one.
It would work if it is a channel broadcasting stupid music - there are hundreds of them to choose from. There are not too many "news" stations available on FM radio. Can someone, who owns a satellite radio, suggest a less biased news station? I suspect that, since I am in US, I will only have a selection of US-based radio channels.

What about the stations that do streaming over Internet!? What is news-worthy there?

SlavaOn
 
I don't have any suggestions, except to try to listen to a variety of viewpoints if you must listen to talking on the radio. A lot of people I know listen to radio, so I get to hear some of it without trying. The different viewpoints are interesting, but feel like propaganda. There is a huge array of talking channels on satellite radio. You can find most anything on there from dark humor to upbeat dating advice call in shows. I have come to enjoy the SOTT podcasts when in the car as these cover some news stories from a variety of sources. Mostly, I like silence as it is so hard to come by these days.
 
SlavaOn said:
When someone doesn't like a radio or TV channel and bitch about it, a typical advice would be: why don't you switch to another one.
It would work if it is a channel broadcasting stupid music - there are hundreds of them to choose from. There are not too many "news" stations available on FM radio. Can someone, who owns a satellite radio, suggest a less biased news station? I suspect that, since I am in US, I will only have a selection of US-based radio channels.

What about the stations that do streaming over Internet!? What is news-worthy there?

SlavaOn

I sometimes stream SputnikNews.com, or RT.com. Both have "live" links on their site, Sputnik is audio only, RT is video only. I got a connector thingy for my phone so I can plug it into the car radio, if you're interested in that you can find cassette tape deck adapters if necessary, and also mini FM transmitters that plugin into the phone then you tune your radio to the transmitter's frequency.
 
The Corporate Dictatorship of PBS and NPR

Wednesday, May 22, 2013
By The Daily Take Team, The Thom Hartmann Program | Op-Ed
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/16538-the-corporate-dictatorship-of-pbs-and-npr

...When public broadcasting in America was first established, the intent was that Congress would provide funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which would in turn divide that funding up among the various public television and radio stations across the country.

This worked great for years.

The Public Broadcasting System and National Public Radio brought educational programming, and independent news and political analysis to millions of Americans.

But, with the onset of “Reaganomics” 33 years ago, federal funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been slashed.

As a result, public broadcasting institutions now rely more and more on corporate and billionaire cash to operate, which is probably why PBS and NPR now filter what they play on their airwaves, so that they don’t anger their wealthy backers.

Typical pathological/ponerization process - why we can't have nice things.


take a look at NPR's major donors - why do they need us little guys to donate big bucks for discount rack CD's and coffee mugs?
http://www.npr.org/about/annualreports/NPRSponsorsDonors08.pdf

Of course, Bill and Melinda Gates have to get in on the action...
https://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database/Grants/2009/11/OPPad17

BTW, Bill and Melinda are: "Guided by the belief that every life has equal value..." We are all created equal but, not sure... sounds
like they are trying to standardize a monetary value for humans on the stock market, sorta like pork bellies.
 
BTW, Bill and Melinda are: "Guided by the belief that every life has equal value..." We are all created equal but, not sure... sounds
like they are trying to standardize a monetary value for humans on the stock market, sorta like pork bellies.

Good catch. No doubt their vaccine initiatives are leveling the playing field, too. YAY.
 
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