| I think the myth of any "balanced" news source is exactly that, a myth. All human organizations have an internal culture, and that produces bias. My view on public broadcasting is that its culture is CLEARLY left-leaning. That is, I don't think you could get hired and build a career in that world if you were known to be politically conservative or libertarian. Subconcious bias is worn on their sleeves, and they do tend to ensure that it always gets the last word (e.g. see virtually any interview segment involving gun control or illegal immigration). However, I also think they TRY to be objective in their content. Even if there may be bias in story selection or story structure, I think they try to provide the building blocks so that you can think for yourself. One POV might consistently get the last word, but the other perspective(s) are represented in a segment. Anyway, this topic and thread were on my mind, because I happen to be in the middle of reading the book "Listener Supported", a book on NPR history from longtime insider Jack Mitchell. The last section in the book deals with criticisms of bias that NPR has received over the years. Mitchell is pretty candid in acknowledging public broadcasting's progressive roots and culture. However, I was surprised that most of the discussion involved attacks on NPR from the LEFT! A lot of people feel the same way as parent comment. Not that NPR is culturally right-wing, in the same manner as Fox News. But rather that its bias is not sufficiently left-wing. Or that it's a "trojan horse", appearing leftist yet subject to manipulation and too much a servant of the status-quo. This perspective is interesting to me, if a bit frightening. Particularly reading the claim "they're mostly funded by the Koch's", and not seeing a SINGLE person on Hacker News counter that 8 hours later. In reality, David Koch has only made donations to the PBS show "Nova", has never donated a dime to NPR, and this is such a prevalent fake news trope that Snopes has had to cover it: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/koch-brothers-buy-npr/ You think about this sort of thing being right-wing material, spread by old people on Facebook. It's sobering to see its inverse here. |