More NPR Curiosities
So i was listening to NPR today and heard a curious thing.
Julie Rovner was reporting on a CBO official saying that the House health care bill might increase medical outlays in the long run because it didn't include enough fundemental changes of the health system to control costs.
The thing that jumped out at me was that she used the modifier "Democrat" saying something like "Democrat plan".
This jumped out at me immediately because outside of some more partisan outlets i don't recall having heard the term used by an NPR reporter.
"Democrat"-for-"Democratic" is a well known shibboleth amongst partisans which is intended solely for the sound of its discordant meter and awkward pronunciation.
The question then is does NPR have a policy on this? If not, who is the reporter hanging out with to let this slip in; nothing seems particularly egregious in Rovner's bio.
I really dislike name-calling. It's childish and unbecoming, even name-calling in kind. So i can't say i enjoy the thought of having to pronounce Republicans /repub lick' cuns'/
Of course, i hate the "rethug*" label even more. I mean do people really have to be such immature retardo poop-faces? Let's have a little decorum.
I didn't catch the story, here, but I'm guessing it is just a tired reporter slipping. Innocently.
Nonetheless, I think e-mailing the Ombudsman (http://help.npr.org/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=5670&task=ticket) is in order. I did that several mths ago about a similar reference and did get a response. Also, calling into the show's response line may be effective.
July 17, 2009 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Unfortunately, the NPR Ombudsman is worse than useless. Did you hear her appearance on Talk of the Nation when she defended NPR's policy of not referring to waterboarding as torture? She said there is a diversity of opinions on whether or not waterboarding is torture, so NPR must take a neutral stand. None of the callers that got through the screening process asked the obvious question: "There's a diversity of opinion about whether Iraq had WMD's too. Does NPR take a neutral stance on that issue?"
She really seemed to feel victimized by the whole affair, too, which is odd.
July 17, 2009 11:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed, she has been very bad on the "torture" "issue". But, disagree that she is ergo "worse than useless" on everything.
July 17, 2009 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I heard this or read a transcript, and i agree that it was quite pathetic.
They seem to put thin-skinned PR people in the ombudsman's job; so rather than critically looking at their organization through the lens of (ideal) journalistic integrity, they end up with these whiny, defensive, and pathetic apologetics.
I don't have a feel for what the best way to deal with poor journalists is. Such that they actually feel chastised as opposed to feeling morally justified because both sides are equally mad at them.
The options i can think of off-hand are by example (tpm does a good job of showing how poor journalists are both by spotlighting it, and juxtaposing it with good journalism), en masse barrage (like what the conservatives did through the 80's and 90's), or extremely loud scholarly reproach.
July 17, 2009 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
parody and satire too might be effective too (consider daily show and colbert but with more emphasis on the media itself)
July 17, 2009 2:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've heard it before, from NPR.
It's a creeping virus, even some Democrats are succumbing to the usage error. But it was deliberately started by some GOP cabal to sound like "bureaucrat", or just "rat".
July 17, 2009 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ahhh. The insidious nature of propaganda. Even after the Reich has been defeated, their petty, superficial creations still live. The GOP did a mighty fine job of renovating NPR when they had the Whote House. It is thoroughly depressing the breadth and depth of the corrosive actions taken by the Reich. BUt, if they were able to get all that done in 8 years, we should be able to turn it all back in the same amount of time. Then get another 8 years to make real progress again.
July 17, 2009 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
One issue is that i have heard zero pushback from Democrats (in office) concerning this. They do not seem to be playing a media savvy game.
And leave Robert Reich out of this!
July 17, 2009 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have sent them emails about the fact that they refer to Maura Liasson and Juan Williams, simply as "NPR News Analysts" when they are also Fox News regulars. Whenever they are introduced, which is quite often, since they are the only NPR "regulars" it should also be noted, their status on Fox News.
Juan has an entirely different take on things in NPR than he seems to on Fox, (the few times that I see him there), but it is dishonest to leave out their other major affiliation since it is such an obvious right-wing, and prejudiced site.
The term "Democrat" as an adjective absolutely sends me up the wall. I disagree that it could be "innocent," since it was never used before Newt Gingritch dreamed it up as a pejorative. To use it now has to be intentional.
I did see Chris Matthews rise to the challenge once, and it made me like him for a little while--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR7MphuhEwc
It is great! (and rare)
July 17, 2009 7:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Luckily for us with Newt, we can just call him "Newt" or "Gingrich" or worse yet "Newt Gingrich" if we want to make up an awful sounding descriptive phrase for him. Maybe he's just driven by bitterness about his name.
Rove does the same thing as when he was going on TV attempting to trash Kaine as a choice for VP during the elections.
To diminish his executive credentials, he tried to argue that Richmond was a small city. First among the list of cities larger than Richmond was Chula Vista.
I think the simplest reason that Chula Vista was named was because it's kind of silly sounding. He wanted the viewer to hear the name, laugh at it sounding dumb, and then associate or transfer some of that scorn over to Kaine/Obama.
It's actually reasonably savvy in an underhanded way. The problem is, that was pretty much all Rove/GOP had: underhanded parlor tricks.
July 18, 2009 12:18 AM | Reply | Permalink