NPR ombudsman: 'Sense of outrage growing in the country'

[quaoar]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?columnId=2781901

Widespread Outrage

At a public meeting in Jackson, Miss., last week, a listener to NPR programs on Mississippi Public Broadcasting asked me if I had detected a sense of outrage growing in the country.

If my inbox is anything to go by, I certainly have. The reasons for this cyber-outrage might be worth pondering.

NPR's correspondent on religious issues, Barbara Bradley Hagerty, and I spoke this past weekend at a church in the Washington, D.C., area. The topic: how NPR covers religion and spirituality and the response it gets from the listeners.

Barbara made the observation that, in her experience, conservatives are increasingly concerned that they are losing the "culture wars" in the United States. That anxiety, Barbara said, keeps growing even though Republicans control the White House and Congress and might soon control the Supreme Court. Even so, courts keep ruling against displays of Judeo-Christian symbols in publicly funded places, sex education is taught in schools and homosexuality appears to be increasingly accepted in the cultural mainstream.

From the left, I sense that some of the e-mail nastiness has to do with frustration over the re-election of President Bush. These listeners feel that the media was unwilling or unable to stop Bush's ascent to victory.

[Nothing Without Hope]

1. The other major point in this story was to give advice on how to write

emails that will be listened to. He gives a list of pointers that is quite reasonable. After quoting nasty examples of both a RW and a LW vituperative email, he goes into first WHY people on both sides seem more angry than before (he missed the boat on the progressives - it's the stolen election and the horror of the policies, not the media's failure to keep Bush from "winning" ) - he instructs in how to do it right. He also admits that they are to some extent guided by the response from the audience they serve, so let's keep those (non-vituperative but firm an clear) emails and letters going out!

[PROGRESSIVE1]

2. kick

[lonestarnot]

3. May it continue! n/t

[Erika]

4. Main Stream US citizens do not want a theocracy shoved

down their throats by splinter groups of right wing fanatics who claim Bush owes them and he better deliver.

As far as the "election" goes, there are strong doubts as to its credibility. When the Diebold CEO previously stated that he will do everything he can to get Bush elected.

[quaoar]

5. There is a good analysis of these comments

at this site:

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/

Calling for a more civil dialogue, as Dvorkin does, is perfectly well-intentioned. But it is not a reply to a sense of outrage growing in the country. Complaints about bias have mutated into something far more serious today: a campaign to discredit the liberal media, marginalize the national press, and deny professional journalism any hold on the public interest. I've been writing about it-- and objecting. So have others. David Shaw of the Los Angeles Times says we're paranoid.

A whole front in the Culture War is now devoted to these activities of disqualifying the traditional press, and raising substitutes like Jeff Gannon. That is action from the Right, but the Left often feels equally enraged at the failures of Big Journalism, and it is stupified by the success of the "liberal media" charge. What Liberal Media? as Eric Alterman put it (2003). Oh That Liberal Media, as the "reply blog" says back.

[DeepModem Mom]

6. kick

[BiggJawn]

7. A *LOT* of my "outrage" is over the crap NPR calls "reporting"...

Mara Liason, Cokie Roberts, Juan Williams, top 3 contenders in the "George Bush Media Suck-Off" contest. I don't think even Wulf Blither can suck Bush as well as the other 3 can.

Well, at least I learned from this that it's a waste of bandwidth to send National Propaganda Radio a "Dear Sir, you cur" letter.

"Political reporting on NPR is made possible through a grant from the Republican National Committee, who reminds us that 'Sooner or later, you'll all be Republicans', and the Soylent Corporation, makers of Soylent Green, and the whole family of fine Soylent "food" products...This is NPR, National Propaganda Radio...."

[quaoar]

8. Instead of a general complaint, which might be written off

Send an email about a specific story and why it is biased or inaccurate.

[tom_paine]

9. Yo, where can I try out that Soylent Green stuff. Its sounds Bushlicious!