I wish someone would invent TiVo for my car radio so I wouldn't ever again be tempted to listen to NPR in hopes that their political coverage had unskewed itself.
So I'm driving home from work yesterday afternoon, minding my own business on the northbound 405 in west L.A., along with about 50,000 of my closest personal friends. I'm not in the mood for music so my new default station, KCSN, is out. Being a slow learner, I punch the button for an NPR station. Having passed beneath the Getty Center, I'm going through the Sepulveda Pass, where my KPCC reception is spotty so I switch to KCRW.
I was a KCRW subscriber for a long time, all during the '90s and into the start of the new millennium. Then, when NPR came down with a bad case of the Scaifes - an illness which it has shown no evidence of shaking - I did a quick calculation and determined that with his money they didn't need mine, so I switched allegiances.
One of the symptoms of that regrettable Scaife malady reared its head as I listened yesterday.
NPR reporter David Greene was doing a story on the Pennsylvania Senate race between Joe Sestak and Pat Toomey. In his intro, Greene broke an astonishing bit of news, which somehow has been overlooked by all other major media of which I am aware:
I wonder about this visit by President Obama [to campaign on Sestak's behalf]. When some Democratic candidates are trying to avoid any appearances with the president, this Democrat brings in Mr. Obama. What's the thinking?
Whoa. Did I miss something? Where are the major media on this? I remember late in George Bush's tenure, when it seemed every Republican candidate in the country was busy washing their dog every single time the Preznit wanted to come visit - and they would gather up the women and children if God forbid Dick Cheney threatened to help them - but I haven't heard of a single instance of that happening with our current chief executive.
Someone clearly is dropping the ball here.
Then, to further confuse matters, Greene goes on to demonstrate an even keener political acumen when he divines hidden meaning in a Toomey quote. Greene first plays part of a Sestak ad which features a clip of a Toomey speech:
Mr. PAT TOOMEY (Former Republican Congressman, Pennsylvania; Senatorial Candidate): Let's not tax corporations. I think the solution is to eliminate corporate taxes altogether.
GREENE: So that's Joe Sestak, running an ad against his Republican opponent, Pat Toomey. Is that fair, painting the Republican as someone who doesn't support taxes on corporations at all?
Wait - what?? "Is that fair?" You mean, is it fair to play a clip of Pat Toomey himself saying,
"Let's not tax corporations. I think the solution is to eliminate corporate taxes altogether."
and then to infer something completely crazy like, "Pat Toomey doesn't support taxes on corporations"? I guess Greene is trying to play Stephen Colbert here, implying that Sestak is "unfairly smearing Toomey with words he said".
Seriously. A regular Edward R. Murrow you are, Mr. Greene.
It's all Greene's expert guest, Jim O'Toole of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, can do not to blurt out, "WTF??" To his credit, O'Toole simply points out the obvious:
Mr. O'TOOLE: I think it is. I mean, it's using his own voice, his own quote.
Then, in the interest of (the modern "journalistic" meaning of the word) "fairness," Greene plays a Toomey ad which attacks Sestak. In it, some guy (who's not Joe Sestak, or even Pat Toomey, for that matter) makes assertions about Sestak.
Unidentified Man #2: Congressman Joe Sestak voted for the Wall Street bailout. Then Sestak took thousands of dollars from the same Wall Street banks he bailed out. Joe Sestak: too liberal with our money.
Now - does intrepid "reporter" Greene question the "fairness" of Some Guy Saying Stuff About Joe Sestak?
Uhh, NO.
The fact that the Toomey ad doesn't have the advantage of Sestak himself saying, "I'm too liberal with your money" doesn't deter the intrepid Greene - no, no, not at all.
Quite the contrary: Whereas with Toomey's direct quote in the Sestak ad, Greene wonders whether Toomey might've meant something else, something less, ahh, shall we say, bats**t crazy, with Toomey's ad attacking Sestak - containing broad assertions and no backup - Greene sees no such hidden meaning - and then, not content with merely not challenging the assertion as perhaps not "fair," he repeats the assertion himself:
GREENE: Too liberal with our money. Well, that's certainly a refrain we're hearing from a lot of Republicans this year.
Yeah - and from NPR "reporters," too, I guess.
This is what is known on NPR as "journalism."
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