NPR recently announced significant changes to its ethics handbook which promises an end to "he said, she said" journalism that tries to be fair to both sides of an issue. From now on, the network pledges to ask its reporters to be fair to the truth.
They may already have their first casualty and it's completely in house.
This morning in a news story on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday, host Rachel Martin was talking with NPR's Mara Liasson about the week ahead in politics, which includes the 10 Republican contests of Super Tuesday. Martin then steered the conversation over to the despicable matter of Rush Limbaugh slandering Sandra Fluke. You can listen to the exchange here. It begins at the 2:40 mark.
Martin: “Late yesterday Mara, Rush Limbaugh apologized to the Georgetown law student that he had called a quote “slut” on his radio program after she testified before Congress that the cost for her birth control should be covered by her university’s health care plan.”
Really? …..Hold on to that thought!
Mara Liasson puts the controversy into the GOP’s current electoral social context.
Liasson: “Well this is really an amazing episode and it shows you how far the election debate has veered away from the economy and onto social issues.”
And then she volunteers a little more detail.
Liasson: “Rush Limbaugh called her, by the way, a prostitute as well as a slut and he did issue a statement where he said at the end of it that his choice of words was not the best and he sincerely apologizes to Ms. Fluke.”
Liasson blathers on with her opinion on how this has become a wedge issue for Republicans and Democrats….blah…blah…blah. Speaker John Boehner had to distance himself from Limbaugh…blah…blah..blah. Republicans are usually apologizing to Rush Limbaugh and not the other way around…blah…blah…blah.
So Mara Liasson thinks it’s important for us to know that Limbaugh also called Ms. Fluke a prostitute in addition to a slut. What is remarkable is that Liasson lets the rest of the story stand on the wobbly legs Martin set it up on.
Rachel Martin has an important detail of serial misogynist Rush Limbaugh's outrageous hate filled screed directed at Sandra Fluke's congressional testimony completely wrong. In her statement, Ms. Fluke never discussed her personal contraceptive needs or sexual habits. Martin's inaccurate reporting obscures the point that Ms. Fluke was advocating for access to contraception and women's reproductive well care services on behalf of other women.
Apparently Liasson either does not recognize, or chooses not to touch Martin’s error. Without correction, NPR lets the story play into the pig of propaganda's gasbag meme that his attack is an ad hominem, directed at Ms. Fluke personally when in fact it is toward all women in general.
It makes me wonder if Rachel Martin actually listened to the tapes of Ms. Fluke’s testimony and Limbaugh's two days of irrational personal attacks. There are abundant examples of this story being reported correctly this week. I would expect Martin should be sufficiently informed on topics she is covering so as not to distort such an important aspect of this story. Sheesh! Even Fox News got this one right.
Mara Liasson is a veteran Capitol Hill reporter and it is inconceivable that she would not be fully versed right down to the minutiae of such a huge controversy. Maybe thinking that she would dissect Limbaugh’s apology as being less of an apology and more of a GOP talking point, given that Speaker Boehner and Mitt Romney have used surprisingly similar language to distance themselves from Limbaugh, would be expecting too much. But to give Martin's error a pass is inexcusable.
Does NPR’s “Fair to the Truth” policy have an exception to rescue its staff from the uncomfortable position of having to correct a colleague on air? In this story Rachel Martin, Mara Liasson and the policy have all failed the true Ms. Fluke.
Be sure to read JohnKWilson’s excellent rec listed diary: Rush's 53 Smears Against Sandra Fluke, if you haven’t already. He brilliantly captures all the evidence for Ms. Fluke’s 53 count slander suit against Jabber the Hutt.