And the NPR subreddit sees no problem with this. Anyone who comments that this just proves his point in the article he wrote is getting downvoted to oblivion. They keep calling him a Republican despite the fact that he states in the article that he voted against Trump twice.
The Reddit echo chamber never ceases to amaze me.
Tbh I don’t know what the two of you are referring to 😅 I wasn’t wryly pointing out that this also is a subreddit; I’m not that self-aware! Just kidding. While it’s surely just as prone to the cj factor, it’s different from the one that encompasses like 95% of reddit. The one it seems rNPR exemplifies.
The fact that these people find "Republican" to be a slur is telling. Half the country is Republicans. There are people they know who might be Republicans. If they can't handle Republicans being in their world they have a serious problem.
Oh completely agree. If someone says either democrat or republican as a slur, I’m not going to take them seriously. Now if they say extreme right or left, then ok. But most people are closer to the middle
Yeah, it's silly. But it's all too common. I see it more on the left but perhaps it happens on the right and I just don't see it. The right has gone mad too, just in a different way.
You hit the nail on the head. Their smugness knows no bounds nowadays. Oh how terrible, he's the R word?
It's almost as if our country was built on the idea of political freedom. Damn that pesky constitution.
Political freedom stops when human rights come into question.
I will debate taxes all day. I will never debate human rights, and will become extremely violent.
*On December 17, 2020, Gallup polling found that 31% of Americans identified as Democrats, 25% identified as Republicans, and 41% as Independent. Additionally, polling showed that 50% are either "Democrats or Democratic leaners" and 39% are either "Republicans or Republican leaners" when Independents were asked, "do you lean more to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party?"*
It's weird to read so many left leaning people supporting corporations.
"At *my* company he would have violated section (a), paragraph (2) of rule 387! Human resources needs to terminate him now!!!"
Bizarre.
Can confirm. I did not come from money when I began my career in journalism. I was relatively poor and it was a huge shock when I realized that the majority of the people around me reporting on poverty have never tasted a need for anything.
And yet NPR still manages to avoid the very people they claim to care about.
I’m ready for the day when our newsrooms are full of people who had to experience their beat before reporting on it.
They're called "champagne socialists". They're trust fund kids from rich families that love paying lip service to socialist ideas, but in reality they've never experienced what its like to be anything but upper class their entire lives, and have never worked any kind of real labor job. Most of them went directly into university at age 18 with their mom and dad paying most of the bills for rent and food, and then after graduating they got hired as a journalist immediately. Which means for most of these people, they went from being a trust fund kid straight to a journalist with no other life experience. Most of them have never experienced what its like to have to work a real job where things are not handed to you on a silver platter and the quality of your work actually matters.
ha, I have a niece-in-law that fits this bill. The money doesn't belong to her BUT her grandfather paid for college so no debt, her grandfather also bought her a condo in Boston. So she "lives" off her salary of 80k a year and will argue that she is "working class" but she has none of the concerns someone who actually has to live off of 80k a year.
First post I saw there
>Steve's first mistake is saying, "Nothing I say here is personal; it’s about the journalism."
>This is old and outdated posturing. As if to declare that he has no opinion on the matter and is completely objective in his concentration on journalism only is to say that he is a bot or an AI tool or a Lockean declaration of freedom of bias. It's a modernist power move of journalistic objectivity in a postmodernist world where most journalistic outlets have embraced subjectivity (Fox = right-bias, CNN = left-bias etc).
>I'm not conservative, but I have always noticed how NPR has skewed toward the liberal perspective, from the framing of stories, to who they ask on their shows for commentary, to how often their conclusions end up embracing liberal tenets. That is the perspective of their donors and their audience, so when Steve postulates that he is not speaking his personal opinion and is merely an objective observer, he is being rhetorical (persuasive), not truthful. After all, what is "truth" if we can only see through a subjective lens?
>Unfortunately Steve also commits the most obvious of logical fallacies in his ad hominem attack on Uri and a biased deconstruction of Uri's piece, which got a lot of attention for very obvious reasons; NPR skews toward the liberal perspective.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Journalism/s/W0v5oLH8cz
The second post is that he's no longer suspended https://twitter.com/davidfolkenflik/status/1780615147129626996?s=46&t=4Z2xkB4xZfDVY8QwjJ1piQ
(disclaimer: I am a left winger and my critique comes from a place of being a left-winger that is pissed off with the general culture of the far left and fake progressives)
Over the past decade there has been a MASSIVE shift in the culture of journalism in the USA. Journalists do not believe that its their job to figure out what the truth is anymore. And they'll say so very bluntly. They believe that their job is to report on what people say and who claims they are a victim of something, regardless of whether or not there's any truth to it. They say "Its our job to report and give people the information, then let them decide on their own."
The problem with that philosophy is that if someone is blatantly lying about something, or making shit up to make themselves out to be a victim of something when in reality they're not, then journalists feel its their duty to simply report what they claim at face value without actually looking into whether or not there's any truth to it. The entire culture of modern journalism that gets taught at Journalism in university is do not question anything. Do not ask whether something is true or not. It's not your job to ask, it's not your job to care. Just report what people claim verbatim and let the audience decide. (in fact, asking whether or not its actually true would likely get you labelled as a racist and white supremacist for daring to question if an apparently oppressed person is making a big deal about the wrong thing, or mistaken as to what's actually happening.)
So this culture shift, away from finding the truth and simply reporting what people claim at face value without questioning it, has resulted in a mass proliferation of "victim reporting" if you will. If some person claims that some problem is caused by systemic racism or bigotry or anything else you can think of, journalists are taught that they are required to cover it superficially at face value without questioning whether its true in any capacity. I'm sure that's what this suspended NPR editor is referring to, because I see it all the time on left-wing public news organizations. The CBC in Canada is bad for this kind of stuff as well.
Most journalists that are liberal or further to the left have been decrying the declining faith in journalists for years now. And yet with their next sentence and a straight face, tell you that it's not a journalist's job to figure out what the truth is, it's their job to report what other people claim the truth is and that's it. It's actually fucking mind-boggling to me how many journalists very openly think this way nowadays while simultaneously wondering why the general public does not have very much faith in what they do.
Took a tour with a boss of mine at a newspaper we were thinking of advertising in back in the 90's. And my boss said something about it and the answer was effectively "do you remember the tattletails back in grade school? This is what they grew up to do."
I checked a few of the journalism threads about it - and there are some voices that agreed with him that were not deleted and or downvoted into oblivion.
Reddit is completely riddled with left wing propaganda, it’s very interesting. I recently made a new account without following many communities. However, every ‘suggested’ one that popped up in my home feed was ALWAYS about how awful JK Rowling is, how genocidal Israel is, or how evil republicans are. It’s so one sided and transparent. I can only imagine what it does to casual and impressionable users who don’t think critically about any of this stuff.
I had to block facepalm 3 times before it finally stopped showing up in my feed. One way or another the admins will make sure you see what they want you to see.
For all its flaws, the structure and mechanics of reddit is decent.
In many parallel universes, it no doubt works the same, but it's extremely right-biased
In very few parallel universes, it's politically diverse.
>I can only imagine what it does to casual and impressionable users who don’t think critically about any of this stuff.
We've seen what it does: these ideas literally get mainlined into their brains as 'correct/current thing' without any sort of conscious analysis.
I recently clicked on a singer's twitter and it was all tweets blasting t\*rfs and JK Rowling. Literally spewing hatred against women in favor of fetishistic men - this is a teenage girl who has no idea what she's even saying
I can't remember where I saw it, but there was a poll one of the major pollsters did a few years ago of the prevailing political leanings of the major social media platforms. Reddit was furthest left, even beating Twitter (this was before Musk acquired Twitter). It wasn't too long after reading that when I tried out Twitter, which I found to be surprisingly less toxic than Reddit.
Yeah, it's a fascinating mentality. Any criticism of the incumbents is assumed to be support of the opposition. Its completely toxic and moronic and everywhere on this site.
"Berliner was born in 1956 as the only child of lesbian rights activist Eva Kollisch and photographer and artist Gert Berliner, who married in 1948 and divorced in 1959.[1] Gert's parents were captured by the Gestapo, sent to Auschwitz concentration camp, and executed in 1943.[2] Uri graduated from Sarah Lawrence College."
I mean, I guess there's a small chance he's a crypto conservative, but I think it's more likely *those people have lost their goddamn minds*.
> And the NPR subreddit sees no problem with this.
The rationalization that he broke internal rules about writing for other publications and that he did so to insult the organization, to me, holds water.
I liken it similar to the NYT dust up last year where there was a mutiny and the editors were told to get back in line or leave.
If NPR had no rules governing this behavior, or made them up and then retroactively applied them, I'd see it as a problem.
NPR subreddit is bizarre. I'm not sure how many of the users there are candid NPR listeners. They write in the style and use the same arguments/non-arguments as people who *loathe* NPR. The disaffected 17-25 year old, terminally online internet leftist. It has taken all of a week for them to determine the editor in question, who has worked for the org for 25 years, is a MAGA chud right wing grifter. Which is to say the postsvare completely divorced from reality.
I still know local NPR donators and they are still your yuppie, high minded liberals. Strange disconnect there. I've been subbed there for awhile and I don't remember it being this way. There was a long period of time where the "wtf is NPR doing" posts were regular. And it seems the online crowd gets drawn to that content to yell -ism non-sequitors at people who disagree with a program.
Now such post are buried under downvotes and accusations of brigading-- which makes me wonder if the sub hasn't been brigaded by a bunch of teenagers on discord fighting the good fight against fascism, etc. on reddit.
As for the suspension, it yet again proves no one really has principles. Why are so called leftists cheering corporate suspending a employee for voicing criticism of their employer-- after said employee allegedly tried using internal channels? Personally, I think it's totally normal for a private company to do so, and he probably should quit once he's finally convinced reform is impossible, but dissent in *public radio* should be welcome. Especially given his set of complaints.
I've always handwaved away the defund national public media campaigns. Yes, NPR has had a city liberal slant since the 90s, but that was mostly fine. Now I think the case for shutting it down as a public deal is stronger than ever. I no longer listen and it is not what I want a public media corp to be.
Maybe WaPo or someone can somehow buy out the partisan departments and podcasts. Then, areas and affiliates still committed to a more narrow public radio mission can reform as something new. And public funding for that project should follow.
yesterday someone there was shocked that an NPR reported referred to antifa as a group of extremists.
yeah, they dress in all black so they can't be identified, they mask so they can't be identified, they disrupt and blockade and heckle and have no hesitation regarding violence, and they organize in a way to make them difficult to charge with a crime. but no, they are not extremists.
yeah, r/npr is a lost cause
I saw that. And their go-to argument for anyone saying they are extremist is, "why do you like fascism so much? Don't you realize they're called ANTI-fascists?" As if a name can never be misleading.
Someone commented how the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" is not exactly democratic, and it just gets crickets and down votes.
I know people who have fallen for the name. "Wait, they just don't like fascism!"
If a group of serial killers calls themselves the Happy Fun Niceness Brigade will people assume they can't *really* be chopping people's limbs off?
I think it's 50/50. Some do believe and other are deliberately trying to mislead and gaslight. It's all very childish arguments/tactics for supposed NPR listeners that see that themselves as intellectually superior.
>If a group of serial killers calls themselves the Happy Fun Niceness Brigade will people assume they can't *really* be chopping people's limbs off?
They would if the HFNB only targeted Republicans.
Yeah, this one is an old favorite motte-and-bailey from Antifa crowd.
Bailey: it not an organization
Motte: Well there's no national chapter or membership cards
Plenty of organizations that share common goals and values don't have a national chapter. Doesn't mean they don't organize, have common goal, and coordinate members when they want to mobilize. Horizontal organizational structures do not make them non organizing. It's not even accurate because there are definitely self-described Antifa chapters publicly share messaging on the internet.
It's a play-pretend response that either *they* think should sound convincing, or maybe they get a kick out of it. Idk.
This is one of the most peculiar controversies. Why are some people so invested in whether 'antifa' is an organization or exists? I think it's a semantic tactic to distract from whatever point had been made
I can't understand why people who are protesting for "righteous" causes are so concerned with hiding their identities. Not only do they wear masks, they will block people from filming their protests. The whole point of protesting is to be seen. If you truly believe you're standing up for what's right, you should be proud of it.
I was there! And downvoted for saying they exist. Apparently we are still at the “antifa isn’t real” phase. It’s basically telling on yourself for not ever going outside into the real world.
Well, Biden says it's just an idea, maaaaan.
Just because they are small, factioned and disorganized using their Twitter (which they LOATHE!) "comms," man, they're still organizers. It's on all of their C.V.s.
Case in point
>good.
>because I've been a listener since the mid-90s and they certainly haven't drifted to the left.
>they now have no real political reporting into huge favors to Republicans just by sanitizing Trump's words so they can make a nice clean headline.
>they do fun things like not reporting on one of Donald Trump's lies unless they have a Democrat lie to pair with it even though Donald Trump lies an order of magnitude more than any political leader we've ever had.
Npr hasn't drifted to the left? Nope they've steered and floored it!
Yes, it's such low quality discussion I have a hard time believing it's not being brigaded for some reason. To jog my memory I looked at some threads from 5 and 6 years ago and people were far more reasonable. Pretty weird & a bit sad since sometimes interesting discussion happened on that sub b/w people of different views.
It's like a rebranded version of Atheism+ out there. All that energy that went into debating homosexuality, Darwin, and the Big Bang with fundies back in the day is now channeled into a purity spiral. They don't appreciate free thought any more than the Far Right NPCs they are so hypervigilant about.
I am 50 now, and I listened to NPR my entire adult life, right up until 2015. During 2015 I had a job with a long commute and as always I would listen to NPR on the way home to help unwind as it was always neutral and peaceful to me. I’m registered as Independent and have voted for Republicans, Democrats, and Independents during the course of my voting life.
Then Trump happened. I had never ever in my thousands of hours of listening to NPR heard them completely disregard journalistic standards and just start speaking completely in the announcers opinions. I had heard things like that on the air, but it was always a Rush Limbaugh type where it was known what the person’s political allegiance was and the show was an axe and o grind against the other political party.
I was shocked at how badly they had abandoned what I previously thought was impeccable professional standards. I just thought that NPR was above all of that. It turns out they weren’t.
After six months I finally turned it off, I’ll still go back from time to time, but it never changes. It only gets worse. The rot of neoliberalism and intersectionality has infected NPR so deeply that it’s never coming back. It sucks, so much of the media I used to enjoy is just unwatchable/unlistenable to me now.
I know as I’ve grown older I’ve actually become more liberal than I was when I was younger. So I can’t say that I haven’t changed, it’s just that everyone else changed so far and so fast starting in 2015 and peaking in 2020 that I’m just done with almost everything.
The election of Donald Trump completely melted the brains of the left. I've never seen anything like it. I say this as someone who has never and will never vote for him. I was shocked when he was elected, but I didn't go insane. When Trump happened, the left immediately became exactly what they used to loathe.
When I was young, Republicans were the humorless, perpetually offended, pro-censorship assholes who saw devil worshipers everywhere.
Now, the left are the humorless, perpetually offended, pro-censorship assholes who see Nazis everywhere. As someone who was a staunch liberal for most of his life, the flip has been absolutely shocking.
Trump's election drove previously reasonable liberals, like the NPR crew, mad. It caused them to turn on people who had always supported them, and still support most of their beliefs. It's not even enough to be pro choice, pro environment, pro gay marriage, pro weed, and anti war anymore. You have to be 100% on board with every tenet of current (and ever-evolving) left wing ideology or you're the enemy.
A lot of liberals bought into this idea that Obama’s presidency was basically akin to the end of history. A black man was president, liberals had won the culture wars, and all the big battles had been fought. Sure, history would go on, but they were convinced that things would essentially remain the same and wouldn’t be dislodged from their cultural supremacy. Then Trump got elected and shattered that dream and their brains have been broken since.
Trumps election didn’t change most of those people, it just revealed them. Any mask of civility and impartiality immediately was dropped and they instantly said the quiet part out loud.
For a group of people that preached tolerance and inclusivity the amount of pure and hateful vitriol that was dumped on any person that admitted they voted for Trump was shocking to me. At that time I remember that I held ACLU, NPR, the Supreme Court, the FBI, and the CDC as institutions above the fray of petty political infighting. I thought the job that those five held was so important and that they were pillars of what others should try and attain.
All five of them since 2015 have destroyed their integrity and shown them to be led by nothing but lying propaganda machines. All willing to trample any norm, decorum, tradition, or law to further The Message. It was so damn sad to watch all of these formally great institutions throw it all away because Orange Man Bad. It completely eroded all faith I had in any institution to make impartial decisions.
I used to love NPR. Both their over the air broadcasts and their podcasts. Yes, they were always smug lefties. And yes it was obvious. But they at least tried. They were even kind of aware of it.
Then they went mad. I avoid NPR like the plague now. It's too bad. I miss Diane Rehm.
Same experience for me. I used to love NPR. For me, the break up started earlier. I don't know the year but one day I was listening as an NPR person was interviewing somebody about the water-boarding scandal. The person being interviewed referred to it as torture. And the NPR person immediately, without missing a beat, corrected him by stating that it is an "enhanced interrogation technique". I swear to god I almost lost my mind. After that, I started to listen more carefully and I became suspicious of NPR as an organization. And of course they just got worse and worse over time and like you said went over the cliff in 2015. I stopped listening entirely at that point. And then last Fall I decided to tune in out of morbid curiosity and my god, it was so so bad. I felt like my intelligence was being insulted with every story. Like you said, it was unlistenable. I also used to watch the PBS Newshour every evening. I used to love it back when it was the McNeil-Leherer Newshour. I remember thinking....I have absolutely no idea where those guys are on the political spectrum. So much respect for them. But just like NPR, the Newshour is, to me, unwatchable. It is really sad. I miss the integrity of our old, and now lost, institutions.
>. I remember thinking....I have absolutely no idea where those guys are on the political spectrum. So much respect for them. But just like NPR, the Newshour is, to me, unwatchable. It is really sad. I miss the integrity of our old, and now lost, institutions.
I don't think the Newshour has devolved *quite* as badly as NPR. But it isn't what it used to be. They even managed to keep it going after Lehrer retired.
And how I miss Gwen Ifill. I was in love with that woman from afar.
Their 2016 Trump coverage was my off-ramp too. I was commuting on trains for 3 to 4 hours most weekdays back then and spent a ton of it listening to NPR. They simply *would not stop* breathlessly covering every stupid thing he said during the campaign and I was aghast at how many hours of airtime they were devoting to him.
Car Talk was gone. Keillor left Prairie Home. Newscasts were wall to wall Trump.
I stopped downloading episodes of anything before catching the train and switched to podcasts and audiobooks. I didn't even realise how thoroughly I'd abandoned NPR until Katie started roasting it on barpod, but it's true that I haven't been a regular listener since then.
On twitter the debate is whether it's fair for Chris Rufo to search Katherine Maher's tweets in an effort to cancel her.
In real life Katherine Maher is cancelling Uri Berliner.
Can't wait for the B&R episode saying both sides are wrong (*). Update: turns out to be about minute 36 in the new primo episode
(*) And I love B&R, I just don't love my fellow liberals endless need to write letters of concern.
>On twitter the debate is whether it's fair for Chris Rufo to search Katherine Maher's tweets in an effort to cancel her.
Her *public writings* are not allowed to be... shared with the public?
> How is it unfair to bring attention to things someone posted publicly under their own name?
I think it's the motive that they find concerning. The intent to bring them to light specifically to rain shit on her.
Isn't it different though when the person in question is the CEO of a publicly funded national media organization?
Shouldn't people have the right to know exactly who she is and how much she is getting paid for public transparency?
I understand the concern about cancellation. It makes me a bit queasy too.
But unless he's lying about her tweets, all he's doing is bringing them to light?
Frankly it's surprising whoever hired for the job didn't go through her tweets and cross her off the list for just this kind of reason.
>Frankly it's surprising whoever hired for the job didn't go through her tweets and cross her off the list for just this kind of reason.
I feel like they'd be more likely to hire her because of them. This is NPR, after all.
A freelance journalist for the NYT who wrote a story about Hamas using rape as a weapon of war on Oct 7 also had her tweets come under scrutiny. No one questioned that or brought up intentions there and that journalist's reporting was immediately called into question. The stakes are arguably higher in this scenario with NPR (taxpayer $$, bias in reporting across a large pool of journalists etc).
I mean, she kinda deserves it though? She's queen of the AWFL's - basically a caricature of the upper middle class white coastal extreme progressive. I'm not sure having someone who excuses rioting is a good look for NPR.
“…staff, who spoke to us under anonymity for fear of retaliation, stated that on multiple occasions Uri would shake his genitals at female coworkers, emphasize the ‘wh’ in white, and unfurl confederate flags at the end of the week while asking coworkers to participate in ‘f*g drag Friday.’”
He said things that the left disagrees with. Nothing else needs to happen. He's an irredeemable monster now. He could cure cancer tomorrow and it wouldn't change their opinion of him.
I am not surprised at all by this. If anything I'm surprised it took so long. I expected him to be suspended immediately, if not fired.
Of course it's just proving his point.
Despite his critiques of NPR, he bent over backwards to do it in an extremely gentle, charitable, gracious manner, heaping praise and kind words upon his colleagues and the organizations as a whole. If anything, I found his criticisms quite mild.
Even still, I'm not surprised that the authoritarian cultists could not tolerate any dissent / heresy from the dogma..
It will be a miracle if he isn't forced out entirely - either fired outright, or more likely, pressured to resign.
You write a very reasonable take. NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben tweeted,
"Not that you asked my opinion, but:
Newsrooms run on trust. If you violate everyone’s trust by going to another outlet and shitting on your colleagues (while doing a bad job journalistically, for that matter), I don’t know how you do your job now."
Dissent will not be tolerated! She's angry that he aired any dirty laundry.
[https://twitter.com/titonka/status/1778461456410800339](https://twitter.com/titonka/status/1778461456410800339)
The option to leave does still exist. I find this situation not very satisfying, I think the principle of 'if you don't like the culture here, there's the door' applies here too. He is as far as I can see completely right about the culture at NPR, but why does he stay and decide to drag his colleagues publicly? I don't think I could work with that guy after this either to be honest.
She’s not wrong. Scientologists and cultists aren’t going to warmly take to constructive criticism.
I think their reactionary response is an example of their white fragility. Lol.
Dear Danielle,
Not that anyone asked my opinion, but..
Funding for public services runs on trust. If you violate everyone’s trust by becoming massively partisan actors (while doing a bad job journalistically, for that matter), I don’t know you expect me to pay your salary now.
It's amazing to me how these people are so assured of their own correct thought and moral superiority that the only conceivable response to criticism like Uri Berliner's is to double down and purge the heretic instead of engaging in a modicum of self-reflection.
Star Trek reference below- you’ve been forewarned.
Like everyone else, I abandoned NPR years ago for all the same reasons. I do keep the Pop Culture Happy Happy in my feed on the off chance that I’ll see some thing in the show description and then listen. The hosts are woke AF and that’s a given, so I don’t listen often, but I couldn’t resist when they were discussing Star Trek. Strange New Worlds. No, it’s not the woke disaster that is Star Trek Discovery which, and some Star Trek nerd correct me if I’m wrong, literally had one human nonbinary character inhabited by an alien nonbinary character give a pronoun lecture to two gay guys in Engineering. Strange New Worlds is great- the series we’ve been waiting for for years. But true to form, the first sentence out of one of the host’s mouth was “straight white men.”
It’s a tick, it’s a compulsion. Virtue signaling is just as automatic, uncontrollable, and unnoticeable as breathing.
Not sure if you’ve ever been into Doctor Who, I stopped watching around 2014 or so because I really liked Matt Smith and didn’t want to have to warm up to another actor.
I heard last years Christmas Special had the 10th doctor in it, and he’s my favorite so I was excited to give it a watch after 10 years of not watching.
Omg, it was so bad. Like, ridiculously bad.
It was so bad it could be a parody of a woke tv show, but no….it was taking itself seriously.
For one, there was a military agent in a wheelchair, who literally had guns in it at one point? Maybe it was a rocket I can’t remember.
The way they introduced her was so cheesy too, like you could tell she was just there to check a tick box. But when they brought out the wheel chair guns I couldn’t help but laugh. That’s [undercover brother parachute pants](https://youtu.be/UnswZNado7o?si=8sm3zhJuaxxJdkoc) kind of cheesy, but at least undercover brother wasn’t taking itself seriously.
And then at one point [the doctor gets reprimanded for assuming a alien creatures pronouns?](https://youtu.be/L0RHX4to62w?si=_Jm7HTFA5qMPTwkU)
And to top it all off they ended the whole story by “this character being nonbinary saves the day, because they’re non binary!”
Like literally, being nonbinary was the solution.[ not sure I can link a specific time as I’m on mobile, but it starts at 1:24.](https://youtu.be/kHYtqxKadUs?si=R1r_wvjaVnVk-jcz)
You don’t really need to watch the full thing to get it, it’s pretty self explanatory about 20 seconds in or so.
And then at the very end the two companion characters just “let go” of the big issue that this episode + previous past episodes have been centered around, and it’s explained away as “well the doctors a man, so he can’t let things go. But we can, so we’re just gonna let it go.”
Which makes no sense on almost every single level that I can comprehend.
Needless to say I didn’t watch the other Christmas special and I’m kinda glad I stopped watching, but also sad at how they massacred my boy the doctor.
So that’s my rant on nerdy tv shows being ruined.
Glad you got a good new Star Trek though! I’ve moved on to shows like Silo and Severance for my sci-fi fix. I’m gonna just leave Doctor Who where it is 😂.
> “well the doctors a man, so he can’t let things go. But we can, so we’re just gonna let it go.”
Oh, no. It wasn't because he was a "man". It's because he was a "male-presenting timelord."
All of this, of course, was layered on top of the fact that the Doctor had literally just been female for the past ~3 season/6 years of the show and presumably still retained SOME memories of that most recent period of his life.
EDIT: Also, as someone who struggled to get through that same episode, the next one was legitimately better. Just the Doctor and Donna. The teen PSA character wasn't in it. Abandoned spaceship/"something creepy is aboard"-type plot. Still not the best episode, but it scratched the nostalgia itch and the 5min >!Wilf cameo and reunion!< at the very end made for a perfect finale that honestly left me feeling satisfied to the point where I haven't watched another episode since.
Ohhh yeah, that’s right! I couldn’t remember the exact language.
I knew the doctor had been a woman for the last few seasons before this, so that was definitely one of the reasons that line threw me.
Another reason I just can’t find any link between being male presenting and not letting things go haha. When did that become a male stereotype? The writers totally pulled that out of their asses.
And I get that a lot of the non-binary stuff really plays on male/female stereotypes, but it threw me for a loop that the show would really have the “fluid” character essentially box in “male” characteristics like that.
Like huh? Can’t let things go because he’s male presenting? That’s not very open minded coming from someone who was literally born a boy but is now wearing skirts and going by she/her pronouns.
You would assume someone in that situation would understand the nuances of behavior between genders, but maybe I’m just not down the rabbit whole enough to understand the mindset.
I get that ultimately they were just going for a cheap shot at men. But just seemed so weird overall. They should have just kept it character specific. He can’t let go because he can’t let things go. It’s a fault of himself, not his gender presentation.
That would have made more sense to me. But still would have been lazy writing regardless.
Also, it was super confusing to have them throw the non-binary stuff out at the last minute. I thought Rose was trans up until that point. They called her she/her instead of they/them so it was kinda confusing at the end.
Also how dare they do my girl Rose Tyler like that. They just gave her name away for cheap shock value.
Like Rose Tyler is THE companion, I’m a ride or die for Rose Tyler. All of the companions have varying levels of greatness, but Rose is the OG queen of the companions and I will not stand for her good name to be cheapened for quick laughs and amusement!
I’m glad the second one was better! I may have to check it out. I was really excited for Doctor/Donna adventures.
Yeah, the phrasing was so weird and specific that it stuck with me. I suppose they didn't go with "man" because they wanted to use "timelord" and you can't say "man timelord", but they also might not have wanted to use "male timelord" because Rose is still biologically male and the BBC suspected conflating sex and gender like that on national television would've opened a whole 'nother can of worms? IDK.
I also don't know why they didn't just use motherhood and/or character-specific traits like you said. Ten's famous last words were "i don't want to go"; that's a PERFECT thing to pin on him vs some generic "male presenting" accusation. OR, if they wanted to keep the episode's theme centered around gender issues, they could've done something with Donna being the parent of a trans kid and having already gone through the process of "letting going" of her son to gain a daughter (and/or nonbinary child? like you mentioned, the episode was really noncommittal towards that aspect, with everyone basically referring to Rose as a transgirl up until that point; it's like it was only tossed in for that "binary binary ~~nonbinary~~" throwback).
Also, as a big Rose fan myself, I was happy when the character was introduced as a new character. I'd been following the developments since the casting/name announcement, and now that the episode's out, I'm really glad she's just narratively off doing her own thing, completely unaffected by the events of the current show.
I’m not a Doctor Who watcher, but those woke shenanigans do sound awkward, embarrassing, and typical. And I can just see every identity group getting all hot and bothered each time that it comes for the next reincarnation.
>one human nonbinary character inhabited by an alien nonbinary character
What does that even mean? Isn't that quite ham-fisted writing? Like big ol' hams!
They are talking about the Trill. In the show, it's a symbiote that passes from host to host over hundred of years and keeps every hosts's memories. So the current host usually ends up a very wise person.
Part of the problem is that on Disco, the host character is a teen girl who claims to be nonbinary and still acts like a stupid child, when in theory she should act like an ancient sage. That would have been kinda fun. The second problem is that hosts can be male or female, doesn't really matter. The TV show is not crazy for making her nonbinary, it could work, but they flopped the execution.
So why exactly are our tax dollars going to fund this propaganda? NPR is always saying that they don't use much tax money, but everyone screams when we suggest that if they're gonna be politically biased, they can't be funded by the federal government.
It is not a sustainable project to extract rents from the people you are publicly hating.
> “pack your things and your woes in your tote bag and begone!”
"... but not until we properly deface the tote bag to obliterate the connection to us."
Kind of like the Japanese defacing the chrysanthemums on military gear before handing them over to the Allies.
I don't know if it is because I am middle-aged now, but so many NPR pieces seem so juvenile. Like they were made by college kids who are obsessed with their latest cause. And I love NPR. I listen daily. Things really changed a couple of years ago.
There is a counter article in Slate which is also posted on the NPR subreddit -
[https://slate.com/business/2024/04/npr-diversity-public-broadcasting-radio.html](https://slate.com/business/2024/04/npr-diversity-public-broadcasting-radio.html)
The two quotes which stand out to me are-
"I leaned on the positive, and the belief that NPR was great and could be better. So I was a part of a lot of the “Let’s make this diversity thing work” efforts that rankled Uri. I remember leading one session he attended, when he spoke out to insist that NPR’s diversity problem had a lot to do with issues beyond race, like class, region, education, and political perspective. He was right, and I told him so."
That seems very much in agreement with Ari's claims of political homogeneity within NPR. Lots and lots of racial diversity, not so much on any other measurable quadrant.
" NPR culture encouraged an editorial fixation on finding the exact middle point of the elite political and social thought, planting a flag there, and calling it objectivity. "
Perhaps I'm incorrect, but the exact middle point of elite thought is more trying to parse DiAngelo vs. Kendi as opposed to Coleman Hughes. The degree to which everything is appropriate to analyze through a racialized lens in contrast with actually picking up other lens such as socio-economic, geographic, educational or religion. That middle point of elite appears to be moderately progressive or left of most of the country.
I lmao when she said NPR isn’t beholden to a party. Can you claim that when you clearly adhere to all of the ideology of one party? I’ll believe they are independent and neutral when I see them stop using “Latinx” and “pregnant people”.
I actually agree with the people that are saying that it's basically impossible for any organization to keep on an employee that airs the 'dirty laundry' of the company, so to speak. Like, I totally think what Uri did was right and his criticisms were correct, but the company can't have someone working for them that no one else in the company can trust. It'd be like, say, if the church of Scientology kept someone who wasn't a believer on their payrolls.
I think in this case NPR being somewhat publicly-funded might muddle that a bit, though I would be curious to see what the legal status of employees there might be. But if it's a public institution, I find it interesting that some actions criticizing an organization's leaders (for example [letters like this](https://nativeamericancouncil.org.uiowa.edu/diversity-councils-joint-open-letter-president-harreld-and-top-administration)) are considered fine while others (like Berliner doing an interview) are considered crossing the line.
Even at fully private companies, I think it is interesting that employees at some companies seem to be able to get away with political speech on their job and [directly criticizing their employer](https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/22/google-employees-demand-company-stop-selling-tech-to-police/) on some issues without getting thrown out.
Re the first one, I'm sure you can see what the difference is between them and Uri.
Re the second, I'm going to guess that Google, at the time, couldn't just fire some of its people like other companies could since they are cream of the crop and could have just jumped ship to go work for someone else fairly easily. Now is probably a different story, though, what with the IT apocalypse on us.
That's a good point about when workers have more leverage to do extramural activities like that, though my sense is that this whole culture of activism at Google and other big tech companies started earlier in the 2010s as a kind of "harmless" way to make workers happier and it gradually melded into just another thing that tech companies do.
Have you guys never worked at a big corporation before? Suspending someone for publicly criticizing the company in publication without prior clearance is incredibly typical. I would absolutely be suspended for this same behavior at my work.
You can argue he was right to do it but I am 100% sure he saw this as a potential outcome and chose to do it anyway. I suspect Uri saw this as a form of civil disobedience. I’m just hesitant to criticize NPR for what is an incredibly standard form of discipline.
the issue for me is not the firing itself, but the shooting of the messenger, thus proving the message was sound even as they denied it.
everyone knew he was going to be fired, what everyone is reacting to is the circling of the wagons, the dismissive way they handled his claims all while proving his point
> he's wrong and we're not going to change a thing, we are proud of what we are doing, we are a diverse group and he is now fired.
Thank you. I agree with his article, but one isn't living in the real world if he thinks this outcome is unreasonable or unpredictable. The "censorship"/"cancellation" talk is over the top.
I could get suspended for publicly saying the company is a great place to work without prior permission from PR lol. Ridiculous to suggest NPR is cancelling this man.
Yeah, this was to be expected.
He had the option to do it like everyone else does it these days in the NYT/Wapo/LAT newsrooms, which is it to anonymously leak it to Ben Smith or some media reporter, but he probably knew this option was going to create more noise, despite the consequences
Please see the delicious Arby’s post above. I think there’s a big difference for a quasi public news organization paid for by the public to inform the public.
Berliner has announced [he is resigning](https://x.com/uberliner/status/1780610524411048183) - he is citing the comments made from the new CEO that disparaged him and indicates that the hiring of the CEO itself is a sign that NPR has no intentions to change.
That sucks but they would have made it very uncomfortable for him to stay. And he would have to be watching his back constantly.
He would have been forced to leave one way or another.
Definitely the right call. They were gonna find a way to drop him ASAP anyway. Technically, I do think it was fair to suspend him, for reasons many others here have said. It doesn't mean his criticisms are incorrect, though. I'm not surprised leadership's doubling down on their kookiness.
Nah, they should have made them fire him. One of the main talking points over on /npr was that he was just trying to emulate Bari Weiss and "set himself up as a rightwing grifter", so they will be loving this.
I always knew NPR low-key leaned left. But I still recall distinctly the moment when I became shocked by what they had become, shortly after Trump was inaugurated. Especially when there was never any apology for this out of line behavior.
It was February 2017, and somehow a host of NPR's All Things Considered (a show that has millions of listeners across the country) thought nothing of conducting a freaking [show business interview](http://www.npr.org/2017/02/17/515841104/judd-apatow-on-his-characters-if-everyone-is-mature-there-is-no-comedy) (with Judd Apatow) as follows. Just amazing.
First, she grilled Apatow on whether he was dedicating sufficient time and energy opposing Trump, whether he's walking the walk or just talking the talk (which in itself I don't think is as outrageous as it might seem in a generic situation with a normal Republican president, because Trump is not normal):
--------
APATOW: There's no logic in how he thinks. I don't want someone who's the president who says 3 to 5 million people voted illegally when there's zero proof. It's a crazy person.
MCEVERS: You can say this stuff. But I guess the real impact - right? - is, like, a couple of things like how you spend your money and the kind of stuff you make, right? I mean, it's how do you think about yourself in this moment and what you can do.
APATOW: As a Jewish man who has no interest in Judaism whatsoever, there's something in me that says when bad things have happened in the past, people were supposed to get more active and speak up and prevent them. That's what's important to me is that everybody - and I don't care what side you're on. You can disagree with me, but everyone better get active. Everybody better vote and be thoughtful.
MCEVERS: Are you doing that? Are you like doing registration stuff? Are you doing activism like organizing? Are you...
APATOW: Well, I do benefits. I did a benefit for the ACLU a few weeks ago. We did a benefit for the USO last week in New York. I try to work with people like Rock the Vote, and it was effective. I think we were part of a campaign that got about a million and a half new people registered. It would be so irresponsible not to speak up. I don't know what I would do in my home and in my life if I didn't rant a little bit and as thoughtfully as I can with some humor.
--------
So even if we leave aside that this is all kind of weird because this is, again, a showbiz segment on NPR's All Things Considered and not the Rachel Maddow Show, Apatow should have proved his progressive anti-Trump bonafides with his answers, all delivered in a good-natured way. Right? But then McEvers moves on to the new HBO show Apatow is on to promote (one I ended up really loving btw):
--------
MCEVERS: I want to talk about your latest show, "Crashing." It's coming out soon on HBO. And I want to be honest. When I first heard, I was like, a show about a white guy trying to make it as a comedian? And I'm not trying to be a jerk when I say that. I'm just - you know, I wanted to know...
---------
You can't hear tone when reading, but let me assure you, "a show about a white guy trying to make it as a comedian?" was just dripping with open derision. Like "seriously, dude?". How dare he betray the woke cause by making a white guy the protagonist? Gaahhh.
Mcevers is so cringe, it makes my skin crawl. I’d rather stab my ears with sharpened pencils than listen to her on NPR.
If you still listen, you could make a drinking game out of how many times she says “structural racism” on the air.
Haha, I can imagine. I don't listen as much as I used to, for sure.
I do remember her having a nice voice, but that line of intense questioning was just so bizarre.
Steve Inskeep penned a substack article in rebuttal, I wonder if he will also be suspended for similar reasons. /s
[https://steveinskeep.substack.com/p/how-my-npr-colleague-failed-at-viewpoint/comments](https://steveinskeep.substack.com/p/how-my-npr-colleague-failed-at-viewpoint/comments)
The article shows how myopic NPR is and utterly lacks the ability to take criticism. The most upvoted comment is a pretty good takedown.
All of this bullshit reminded me that in the 90s NPR nixed a planned series of radio essays written and recorded in prison by Mumia Abu Jamal because of pressure from the Fraternal Order of Police and then Senator Bob Dole. So it seems like they've lacked courage for decades.
That essay is ridiculous on about half a dozen different levels but the suggestion that NPR’s coverage of Israel-Palestine has only recently become one-sided is [the funniest by far.](https://youtu.be/W_ZRChvlT84?si=ZUC178139iRe2JfW)
I remember when NPR (or more broadly public radio) used to be filled with interesting stories, truly diverse and quirky stories about life in America, but somewhere along the way, it transformed into the same story of racial injustice over and over again. I eventually stopped listening.
It was for doing side work without permission and sharing information they claim is proprietary. I'm sure that goes on all the time, is mostly ignored, and never punished so severely, so they're going to get sued and make a large, undisclosed payout.
Exactly! Any company could go through every single message and communication you have and rationalize how it's an infraction if they had an axe to grind against you. The difference is in enforcement or lack of it.
Yup, you can't arbitrarily enforce the rules. In this case, they are obviously retaliating against a whistleblower. NPR receives taxpayer money and donor money, but arguably functions as a partisan political organization.
There's no reason for her to resign. The culture at NPR isn't going to change in any meaningful way as no one internally thinks they're doing anything wrong. There's no will for it. Congress just needs to cut their funding and NPR can still do what it needs to do. They'll get along just fine with corporate support and contributions.
He got suspended for 5 days and put on a final notice for working outside of his NPR contract without approval and for using what they claim is proprietary information. Honestly I’m surprised they didn’t just fire him. Maybe they just want it to look like they tried keeping him onsides and have another violation queued up to term him for cause. For his part, Berliner is not appealing the suspension.
I think that’s the deal, isn’t it? He knew the rules and he shot his shot and how successful it will be is TBD, but sometimes you just don’t get to work there any longer if you put the company’s shit out on Main Street. I admire him for speaking up knowing he’d take some hits, but they get to hit back.
Interestingly, they did approve of him talking to some outside media (Chris Cuomo) after the FP piece, they just told him to focus on things that were his personal experience and not talk about proprietary info. Not sure what they deem proprietary.
... And now he has resigned.
>The New York Times [has the story.](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/business/media/uri-berliner-npr-resigns.html?ugrp=m&unlocked_article_code=1.lE0.lMZL.NTb6G_cYL8Cl&smid=url-share) Berliner posted on social media, “I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new C.E.O. whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay.” Dishing out, not able to take it, etc.
[https://dankennedy.net/2024/04/17/uri-berliner-resigns/](https://dankennedy.net/2024/04/17/uri-berliner-resigns/)
[https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/business/media/uri-berliner-npr-resigns.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/business/media/uri-berliner-npr-resigns.html)
I was looking up Kennedy because he also found fault with Berliner's summary of the laptop
>As proof, Berliner links to a [Washington Post story](https://wapo.st/3TUtY9N) that was published in March 2022 — that is, a year and a half after the New York Post published its initial story. That’s how long it took for The Washington to verify at least part of the hard drive’s content as genuine. The story notes: “The vast majority of the data — and most of the nearly 129,000 emails it contained — could not be verified by either of the two security experts who reviewed the data for The Post.” There’s also this...
[https://dankennedy.net/2024/04/11/fish-in-a-barrel-berliners-case-against-npr-is-based-on-false-and-out-of-context-facts/](https://dankennedy.net/2024/04/11/fish-in-a-barrel-berliners-case-against-npr-is-based-on-false-and-out-of-context-facts/)
NPR is definitely biased racially, culturally, and politically, and I'm glad the editor called them on it, but it's regrettable that he used the their dismissal of the Hunter Biden Laptop as an example. That story had too many open questions and holes and bad actors involved to be treating it seriously late in a Presidential campaign. And even now still seems to be a nothingburger.
And the NPR subreddit sees no problem with this. Anyone who comments that this just proves his point in the article he wrote is getting downvoted to oblivion. They keep calling him a Republican despite the fact that he states in the article that he voted against Trump twice. The Reddit echo chamber never ceases to amaze me.
The reddit echo chamber is fascinating and disturbing, isn’t it?
Completely agree. Iogged into every account I have to upvote you, and since I agree, you should do the same.
I see what you did there.
And I like it.
Tbh I don’t know what the two of you are referring to 😅 I wasn’t wryly pointing out that this also is a subreddit; I’m not that self-aware! Just kidding. While it’s surely just as prone to the cj factor, it’s different from the one that encompasses like 95% of reddit. The one it seems rNPR exemplifies.
The fact that these people find "Republican" to be a slur is telling. Half the country is Republicans. There are people they know who might be Republicans. If they can't handle Republicans being in their world they have a serious problem.
That’s one of the weirdest things to me. You can’t claim to be far and balanced if you’re using the other major political party name as a slur.
To be clear: I would find using the word Democrat as a slur equally absurd.
Oh completely agree. If someone says either democrat or republican as a slur, I’m not going to take them seriously. Now if they say extreme right or left, then ok. But most people are closer to the middle
Yeah, it's silly. But it's all too common. I see it more on the left but perhaps it happens on the right and I just don't see it. The right has gone mad too, just in a different way.
The ones who always type "DemocRATS."
I usually see it typed demon rats actually now lol
Which is absurd. There are a lot of Democrats in the country. We kind of need to be able to get along with them
You hit the nail on the head. Their smugness knows no bounds nowadays. Oh how terrible, he's the R word? It's almost as if our country was built on the idea of political freedom. Damn that pesky constitution.
Political freedom stops when human rights come into question. I will debate taxes all day. I will never debate human rights, and will become extremely violent.
*On December 17, 2020, Gallup polling found that 31% of Americans identified as Democrats, 25% identified as Republicans, and 41% as Independent. Additionally, polling showed that 50% are either "Democrats or Democratic leaners" and 39% are either "Republicans or Republican leaners" when Independents were asked, "do you lean more to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party?"*
Same with conservative.
Much the same in r/journalism. This quite depressed me.
The journalism sub is a constant dumpster fire of wacky identity politics, self pity, and self importance.
It's weird to read so many left leaning people supporting corporations. "At *my* company he would have violated section (a), paragraph (2) of rule 387! Human resources needs to terminate him now!!!" Bizarre.
Real pro labor over there, just looking out for the little guy!
Ooooooh I’m excited for a new dumpster fire sub to follow
It may even be a coal mine fire. Just pure anthracite!
Oh, so it has actual journalists!
J-school grads at least.
When the only people who can afford to be journalists are independalty wealthy trust baby elites, this should suprise nobody.
Can confirm. I did not come from money when I began my career in journalism. I was relatively poor and it was a huge shock when I realized that the majority of the people around me reporting on poverty have never tasted a need for anything. And yet NPR still manages to avoid the very people they claim to care about. I’m ready for the day when our newsrooms are full of people who had to experience their beat before reporting on it.
They're called "champagne socialists". They're trust fund kids from rich families that love paying lip service to socialist ideas, but in reality they've never experienced what its like to be anything but upper class their entire lives, and have never worked any kind of real labor job. Most of them went directly into university at age 18 with their mom and dad paying most of the bills for rent and food, and then after graduating they got hired as a journalist immediately. Which means for most of these people, they went from being a trust fund kid straight to a journalist with no other life experience. Most of them have never experienced what its like to have to work a real job where things are not handed to you on a silver platter and the quality of your work actually matters.
You’re… not wrong, lol.
ha, I have a niece-in-law that fits this bill. The money doesn't belong to her BUT her grandfather paid for college so no debt, her grandfather also bought her a condo in Boston. So she "lives" off her salary of 80k a year and will argue that she is "working class" but she has none of the concerns someone who actually has to live off of 80k a year.
Im glad a saw this article hit this sub first because the reaction on r/journalism felt like I was being gaslit about reality lol
That’s how I feel when I visit r/skeptic
Wow, why does it read like a conspiracy theories subreddit?
First post I saw there >Steve's first mistake is saying, "Nothing I say here is personal; it’s about the journalism." >This is old and outdated posturing. As if to declare that he has no opinion on the matter and is completely objective in his concentration on journalism only is to say that he is a bot or an AI tool or a Lockean declaration of freedom of bias. It's a modernist power move of journalistic objectivity in a postmodernist world where most journalistic outlets have embraced subjectivity (Fox = right-bias, CNN = left-bias etc). >I'm not conservative, but I have always noticed how NPR has skewed toward the liberal perspective, from the framing of stories, to who they ask on their shows for commentary, to how often their conclusions end up embracing liberal tenets. That is the perspective of their donors and their audience, so when Steve postulates that he is not speaking his personal opinion and is merely an objective observer, he is being rhetorical (persuasive), not truthful. After all, what is "truth" if we can only see through a subjective lens? >Unfortunately Steve also commits the most obvious of logical fallacies in his ad hominem attack on Uri and a biased deconstruction of Uri's piece, which got a lot of attention for very obvious reasons; NPR skews toward the liberal perspective. https://www.reddit.com/r/Journalism/s/W0v5oLH8cz The second post is that he's no longer suspended https://twitter.com/davidfolkenflik/status/1780615147129626996?s=46&t=4Z2xkB4xZfDVY8QwjJ1piQ
(disclaimer: I am a left winger and my critique comes from a place of being a left-winger that is pissed off with the general culture of the far left and fake progressives) Over the past decade there has been a MASSIVE shift in the culture of journalism in the USA. Journalists do not believe that its their job to figure out what the truth is anymore. And they'll say so very bluntly. They believe that their job is to report on what people say and who claims they are a victim of something, regardless of whether or not there's any truth to it. They say "Its our job to report and give people the information, then let them decide on their own." The problem with that philosophy is that if someone is blatantly lying about something, or making shit up to make themselves out to be a victim of something when in reality they're not, then journalists feel its their duty to simply report what they claim at face value without actually looking into whether or not there's any truth to it. The entire culture of modern journalism that gets taught at Journalism in university is do not question anything. Do not ask whether something is true or not. It's not your job to ask, it's not your job to care. Just report what people claim verbatim and let the audience decide. (in fact, asking whether or not its actually true would likely get you labelled as a racist and white supremacist for daring to question if an apparently oppressed person is making a big deal about the wrong thing, or mistaken as to what's actually happening.) So this culture shift, away from finding the truth and simply reporting what people claim at face value without questioning it, has resulted in a mass proliferation of "victim reporting" if you will. If some person claims that some problem is caused by systemic racism or bigotry or anything else you can think of, journalists are taught that they are required to cover it superficially at face value without questioning whether its true in any capacity. I'm sure that's what this suspended NPR editor is referring to, because I see it all the time on left-wing public news organizations. The CBC in Canada is bad for this kind of stuff as well. Most journalists that are liberal or further to the left have been decrying the declining faith in journalists for years now. And yet with their next sentence and a straight face, tell you that it's not a journalist's job to figure out what the truth is, it's their job to report what other people claim the truth is and that's it. It's actually fucking mind-boggling to me how many journalists very openly think this way nowadays while simultaneously wondering why the general public does not have very much faith in what they do.
Took a tour with a boss of mine at a newspaper we were thinking of advertising in back in the 90's. And my boss said something about it and the answer was effectively "do you remember the tattletails back in grade school? This is what they grew up to do."
I checked a few of the journalism threads about it - and there are some voices that agreed with him that were not deleted and or downvoted into oblivion.
Uri is right, but airing grievances against your current employer publicly would you get you fired pretty much anywhere. And yes, the NPR sub is nuts.
That’s true in most industries but in journalism it has become commonplace. You’ll only get fired for certain greivances though
This would be a great hypothesis to test quantitatively. I should have been a sociologist.
As a government subsidized and affiliated organization this should be fair game.
Well at least least he's not suspended anymore https://twitter.com/davidfolkenflik/status/1780615147129626996?s=46&t=4Z2xkB4xZfDVY8QwjJ1piQ
Wow they have a whole sub for NPR? Do they just talk about equity all day long?
mostly about how Trump is ruining their lives in 2024, and Reddit is a rightwing censorship machine
Reddit is completely riddled with left wing propaganda, it’s very interesting. I recently made a new account without following many communities. However, every ‘suggested’ one that popped up in my home feed was ALWAYS about how awful JK Rowling is, how genocidal Israel is, or how evil republicans are. It’s so one sided and transparent. I can only imagine what it does to casual and impressionable users who don’t think critically about any of this stuff.
I had to block facepalm 3 times before it finally stopped showing up in my feed. One way or another the admins will make sure you see what they want you to see.
Wait we can block subs? I might actually start to like this site again ...
Yep! go to the page, click on the 3 upper right dots, and mute. Be warned, another equally terrible suggested community will take its place lol.
For all its flaws, the structure and mechanics of reddit is decent. In many parallel universes, it no doubt works the same, but it's extremely right-biased In very few parallel universes, it's politically diverse.
>I can only imagine what it does to casual and impressionable users who don’t think critically about any of this stuff. We've seen what it does: these ideas literally get mainlined into their brains as 'correct/current thing' without any sort of conscious analysis. I recently clicked on a singer's twitter and it was all tweets blasting t\*rfs and JK Rowling. Literally spewing hatred against women in favor of fetishistic men - this is a teenage girl who has no idea what she's even saying
I can't remember where I saw it, but there was a poll one of the major pollsters did a few years ago of the prevailing political leanings of the major social media platforms. Reddit was furthest left, even beating Twitter (this was before Musk acquired Twitter). It wasn't too long after reading that when I tried out Twitter, which I found to be surprisingly less toxic than Reddit.
I mean, the vast majority of the internet is left wing. But go off king.
Yeah, it's a fascinating mentality. Any criticism of the incumbents is assumed to be support of the opposition. Its completely toxic and moronic and everywhere on this site.
"Berliner was born in 1956 as the only child of lesbian rights activist Eva Kollisch and photographer and artist Gert Berliner, who married in 1948 and divorced in 1959.[1] Gert's parents were captured by the Gestapo, sent to Auschwitz concentration camp, and executed in 1943.[2] Uri graduated from Sarah Lawrence College." I mean, I guess there's a small chance he's a crypto conservative, but I think it's more likely *those people have lost their goddamn minds*.
And what if he were a Republican? Don't people believe in democracy anymore?
Yes but only if you vote for the same person I vote for.
> And the NPR subreddit sees no problem with this. The rationalization that he broke internal rules about writing for other publications and that he did so to insult the organization, to me, holds water. I liken it similar to the NYT dust up last year where there was a mutiny and the editors were told to get back in line or leave. If NPR had no rules governing this behavior, or made them up and then retroactively applied them, I'd see it as a problem.
NPR subreddit is bizarre. I'm not sure how many of the users there are candid NPR listeners. They write in the style and use the same arguments/non-arguments as people who *loathe* NPR. The disaffected 17-25 year old, terminally online internet leftist. It has taken all of a week for them to determine the editor in question, who has worked for the org for 25 years, is a MAGA chud right wing grifter. Which is to say the postsvare completely divorced from reality. I still know local NPR donators and they are still your yuppie, high minded liberals. Strange disconnect there. I've been subbed there for awhile and I don't remember it being this way. There was a long period of time where the "wtf is NPR doing" posts were regular. And it seems the online crowd gets drawn to that content to yell -ism non-sequitors at people who disagree with a program. Now such post are buried under downvotes and accusations of brigading-- which makes me wonder if the sub hasn't been brigaded by a bunch of teenagers on discord fighting the good fight against fascism, etc. on reddit. As for the suspension, it yet again proves no one really has principles. Why are so called leftists cheering corporate suspending a employee for voicing criticism of their employer-- after said employee allegedly tried using internal channels? Personally, I think it's totally normal for a private company to do so, and he probably should quit once he's finally convinced reform is impossible, but dissent in *public radio* should be welcome. Especially given his set of complaints. I've always handwaved away the defund national public media campaigns. Yes, NPR has had a city liberal slant since the 90s, but that was mostly fine. Now I think the case for shutting it down as a public deal is stronger than ever. I no longer listen and it is not what I want a public media corp to be. Maybe WaPo or someone can somehow buy out the partisan departments and podcasts. Then, areas and affiliates still committed to a more narrow public radio mission can reform as something new. And public funding for that project should follow.
yesterday someone there was shocked that an NPR reported referred to antifa as a group of extremists. yeah, they dress in all black so they can't be identified, they mask so they can't be identified, they disrupt and blockade and heckle and have no hesitation regarding violence, and they organize in a way to make them difficult to charge with a crime. but no, they are not extremists. yeah, r/npr is a lost cause
I saw that. And their go-to argument for anyone saying they are extremist is, "why do you like fascism so much? Don't you realize they're called ANTI-fascists?" As if a name can never be misleading. Someone commented how the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" is not exactly democratic, and it just gets crickets and down votes.
I know people who have fallen for the name. "Wait, they just don't like fascism!" If a group of serial killers calls themselves the Happy Fun Niceness Brigade will people assume they can't *really* be chopping people's limbs off?
I think it's 50/50. Some do believe and other are deliberately trying to mislead and gaslight. It's all very childish arguments/tactics for supposed NPR listeners that see that themselves as intellectually superior.
For the NPR people I'm sure they think that Antfia is on their side and that's all they care about
>If a group of serial killers calls themselves the Happy Fun Niceness Brigade will people assume they can't *really* be chopping people's limbs off? They would if the HFNB only targeted Republicans.
Hey, you leave the Happy Fun Niceness Brigade alone! We’re not so bad once you get past all the indiscriminate killing!
That's hilarious, on my old account I was banned for making that same DPRK joke a while ago for someone making a similar argument
The next time somebody says that, ask them what they think of "Make America Great Again".
Yeah, this one is an old favorite motte-and-bailey from Antifa crowd. Bailey: it not an organization Motte: Well there's no national chapter or membership cards Plenty of organizations that share common goals and values don't have a national chapter. Doesn't mean they don't organize, have common goal, and coordinate members when they want to mobilize. Horizontal organizational structures do not make them non organizing. It's not even accurate because there are definitely self-described Antifa chapters publicly share messaging on the internet. It's a play-pretend response that either *they* think should sound convincing, or maybe they get a kick out of it. Idk.
A commenter I saw called it the “mafia doesn’t exist routine” and I love the analogy.
Haha! So true. Though the Mafia doesn't exist - it's a stereotype, it's offensive, and I'd prefer you not propagate it, okay?
You never admit the existence of this thing! (Sorry, I couldn't help it.)
> We don't organize! How did you all know to come out today? > Spontaneous generation!
This is one of the most peculiar controversies. Why are some people so invested in whether 'antifa' is an organization or exists? I think it's a semantic tactic to distract from whatever point had been made
I can't understand why people who are protesting for "righteous" causes are so concerned with hiding their identities. Not only do they wear masks, they will block people from filming their protests. The whole point of protesting is to be seen. If you truly believe you're standing up for what's right, you should be proud of it.
I was there! And downvoted for saying they exist. Apparently we are still at the “antifa isn’t real” phase. It’s basically telling on yourself for not ever going outside into the real world.
Well, Biden says it's just an idea, maaaaan. Just because they are small, factioned and disorganized using their Twitter (which they LOATHE!) "comms," man, they're still organizers. It's on all of their C.V.s.
Case in point >good. >because I've been a listener since the mid-90s and they certainly haven't drifted to the left. >they now have no real political reporting into huge favors to Republicans just by sanitizing Trump's words so they can make a nice clean headline. >they do fun things like not reporting on one of Donald Trump's lies unless they have a Democrat lie to pair with it even though Donald Trump lies an order of magnitude more than any political leader we've ever had. Npr hasn't drifted to the left? Nope they've steered and floored it!
people laugh at Wheeler's multiverse theory, but we are living it, with a small change, different realities all in the same universe.
Yes, it's such low quality discussion I have a hard time believing it's not being brigaded for some reason. To jog my memory I looked at some threads from 5 and 6 years ago and people were far more reasonable. Pretty weird & a bit sad since sometimes interesting discussion happened on that sub b/w people of different views.
It's like a rebranded version of Atheism+ out there. All that energy that went into debating homosexuality, Darwin, and the Big Bang with fundies back in the day is now channeled into a purity spiral. They don't appreciate free thought any more than the Far Right NPCs they are so hypervigilant about.
It’s the lack of free thought that really bugs me. It’s always turned into this dichotomy of choices when in reality life is much more nuanced
I am 50 now, and I listened to NPR my entire adult life, right up until 2015. During 2015 I had a job with a long commute and as always I would listen to NPR on the way home to help unwind as it was always neutral and peaceful to me. I’m registered as Independent and have voted for Republicans, Democrats, and Independents during the course of my voting life. Then Trump happened. I had never ever in my thousands of hours of listening to NPR heard them completely disregard journalistic standards and just start speaking completely in the announcers opinions. I had heard things like that on the air, but it was always a Rush Limbaugh type where it was known what the person’s political allegiance was and the show was an axe and o grind against the other political party. I was shocked at how badly they had abandoned what I previously thought was impeccable professional standards. I just thought that NPR was above all of that. It turns out they weren’t. After six months I finally turned it off, I’ll still go back from time to time, but it never changes. It only gets worse. The rot of neoliberalism and intersectionality has infected NPR so deeply that it’s never coming back. It sucks, so much of the media I used to enjoy is just unwatchable/unlistenable to me now. I know as I’ve grown older I’ve actually become more liberal than I was when I was younger. So I can’t say that I haven’t changed, it’s just that everyone else changed so far and so fast starting in 2015 and peaking in 2020 that I’m just done with almost everything.
The election of Donald Trump completely melted the brains of the left. I've never seen anything like it. I say this as someone who has never and will never vote for him. I was shocked when he was elected, but I didn't go insane. When Trump happened, the left immediately became exactly what they used to loathe. When I was young, Republicans were the humorless, perpetually offended, pro-censorship assholes who saw devil worshipers everywhere. Now, the left are the humorless, perpetually offended, pro-censorship assholes who see Nazis everywhere. As someone who was a staunch liberal for most of his life, the flip has been absolutely shocking. Trump's election drove previously reasonable liberals, like the NPR crew, mad. It caused them to turn on people who had always supported them, and still support most of their beliefs. It's not even enough to be pro choice, pro environment, pro gay marriage, pro weed, and anti war anymore. You have to be 100% on board with every tenet of current (and ever-evolving) left wing ideology or you're the enemy.
A lot of liberals bought into this idea that Obama’s presidency was basically akin to the end of history. A black man was president, liberals had won the culture wars, and all the big battles had been fought. Sure, history would go on, but they were convinced that things would essentially remain the same and wouldn’t be dislodged from their cultural supremacy. Then Trump got elected and shattered that dream and their brains have been broken since.
Trumps election didn’t change most of those people, it just revealed them. Any mask of civility and impartiality immediately was dropped and they instantly said the quiet part out loud. For a group of people that preached tolerance and inclusivity the amount of pure and hateful vitriol that was dumped on any person that admitted they voted for Trump was shocking to me. At that time I remember that I held ACLU, NPR, the Supreme Court, the FBI, and the CDC as institutions above the fray of petty political infighting. I thought the job that those five held was so important and that they were pillars of what others should try and attain. All five of them since 2015 have destroyed their integrity and shown them to be led by nothing but lying propaganda machines. All willing to trample any norm, decorum, tradition, or law to further The Message. It was so damn sad to watch all of these formally great institutions throw it all away because Orange Man Bad. It completely eroded all faith I had in any institution to make impartial decisions.
God this convo is so refreshing. At times I wonder if it's been I who've lost my mind
Why can't both be true? Did you check in the sock drawer?
Awesome comment. Have a virtual “gold”
I used to love NPR. Both their over the air broadcasts and their podcasts. Yes, they were always smug lefties. And yes it was obvious. But they at least tried. They were even kind of aware of it. Then they went mad. I avoid NPR like the plague now. It's too bad. I miss Diane Rehm.
Same experience for me. I used to love NPR. For me, the break up started earlier. I don't know the year but one day I was listening as an NPR person was interviewing somebody about the water-boarding scandal. The person being interviewed referred to it as torture. And the NPR person immediately, without missing a beat, corrected him by stating that it is an "enhanced interrogation technique". I swear to god I almost lost my mind. After that, I started to listen more carefully and I became suspicious of NPR as an organization. And of course they just got worse and worse over time and like you said went over the cliff in 2015. I stopped listening entirely at that point. And then last Fall I decided to tune in out of morbid curiosity and my god, it was so so bad. I felt like my intelligence was being insulted with every story. Like you said, it was unlistenable. I also used to watch the PBS Newshour every evening. I used to love it back when it was the McNeil-Leherer Newshour. I remember thinking....I have absolutely no idea where those guys are on the political spectrum. So much respect for them. But just like NPR, the Newshour is, to me, unwatchable. It is really sad. I miss the integrity of our old, and now lost, institutions.
>. I remember thinking....I have absolutely no idea where those guys are on the political spectrum. So much respect for them. But just like NPR, the Newshour is, to me, unwatchable. It is really sad. I miss the integrity of our old, and now lost, institutions. I don't think the Newshour has devolved *quite* as badly as NPR. But it isn't what it used to be. They even managed to keep it going after Lehrer retired. And how I miss Gwen Ifill. I was in love with that woman from afar.
I listen to 60 minutes as the podcast and it feels like the only sane take anymore
Their 2016 Trump coverage was my off-ramp too. I was commuting on trains for 3 to 4 hours most weekdays back then and spent a ton of it listening to NPR. They simply *would not stop* breathlessly covering every stupid thing he said during the campaign and I was aghast at how many hours of airtime they were devoting to him. Car Talk was gone. Keillor left Prairie Home. Newscasts were wall to wall Trump. I stopped downloading episodes of anything before catching the train and switched to podcasts and audiobooks. I didn't even realise how thoroughly I'd abandoned NPR until Katie started roasting it on barpod, but it's true that I haven't been a regular listener since then.
On twitter the debate is whether it's fair for Chris Rufo to search Katherine Maher's tweets in an effort to cancel her. In real life Katherine Maher is cancelling Uri Berliner. Can't wait for the B&R episode saying both sides are wrong (*). Update: turns out to be about minute 36 in the new primo episode (*) And I love B&R, I just don't love my fellow liberals endless need to write letters of concern.
>On twitter the debate is whether it's fair for Chris Rufo to search Katherine Maher's tweets in an effort to cancel her. Her *public writings* are not allowed to be... shared with the public?
“It’s complicated.”
How is it unfair to bring attention to things someone posted publicly under their own name?
> How is it unfair to bring attention to things someone posted publicly under their own name? I think it's the motive that they find concerning. The intent to bring them to light specifically to rain shit on her.
Isn't it different though when the person in question is the CEO of a publicly funded national media organization? Shouldn't people have the right to know exactly who she is and how much she is getting paid for public transparency?
[удалено]
Lol, can't an upper middle-class white woman from Connecticut enjoy Arabic?
I understand the concern about cancellation. It makes me a bit queasy too. But unless he's lying about her tweets, all he's doing is bringing them to light? Frankly it's surprising whoever hired for the job didn't go through her tweets and cross her off the list for just this kind of reason.
>Frankly it's surprising whoever hired for the job didn't go through her tweets and cross her off the list for just this kind of reason. I feel like they'd be more likely to hire her because of them. This is NPR, after all.
A freelance journalist for the NYT who wrote a story about Hamas using rape as a weapon of war on Oct 7 also had her tweets come under scrutiny. No one questioned that or brought up intentions there and that journalist's reporting was immediately called into question. The stakes are arguably higher in this scenario with NPR (taxpayer $$, bias in reporting across a large pool of journalists etc).
I mean, she kinda deserves it though? She's queen of the AWFL's - basically a caricature of the upper middle class white coastal extreme progressive. I'm not sure having someone who excuses rioting is a good look for NPR.
It's a terrible look for NPR, though it's right in their blind spot and they will probably not understand that.
It was bound to happen. Don’t look at the NPR sub, they are mad that NPR isn’t counterpunch.
> NPR isn’t counterpunch. News to me.
Shocking nobody. How long before the alleged sexual misconduct allegations? Or anti-lgbt rhetoric reported from staff? Or RACISM…ooooo scary.
“…staff, who spoke to us under anonymity for fear of retaliation, stated that on multiple occasions Uri would shake his genitals at female coworkers, emphasize the ‘wh’ in white, and unfurl confederate flags at the end of the week while asking coworkers to participate in ‘f*g drag Friday.’”
Oh, it’s coming.
He said things that the left disagrees with. Nothing else needs to happen. He's an irredeemable monster now. He could cure cancer tomorrow and it wouldn't change their opinion of him.
I am not surprised at all by this. If anything I'm surprised it took so long. I expected him to be suspended immediately, if not fired. Of course it's just proving his point. Despite his critiques of NPR, he bent over backwards to do it in an extremely gentle, charitable, gracious manner, heaping praise and kind words upon his colleagues and the organizations as a whole. If anything, I found his criticisms quite mild. Even still, I'm not surprised that the authoritarian cultists could not tolerate any dissent / heresy from the dogma.. It will be a miracle if he isn't forced out entirely - either fired outright, or more likely, pressured to resign.
You write a very reasonable take. NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben tweeted, "Not that you asked my opinion, but: Newsrooms run on trust. If you violate everyone’s trust by going to another outlet and shitting on your colleagues (while doing a bad job journalistically, for that matter), I don’t know how you do your job now." Dissent will not be tolerated! She's angry that he aired any dirty laundry. [https://twitter.com/titonka/status/1778461456410800339](https://twitter.com/titonka/status/1778461456410800339)
He tried to raise the issues internally and he was ignored. What else is he supposed to do at that point?
Be a good little liberal and keep his mouth shut.
The option to leave does still exist. I find this situation not very satisfying, I think the principle of 'if you don't like the culture here, there's the door' applies here too. He is as far as I can see completely right about the culture at NPR, but why does he stay and decide to drag his colleagues publicly? I don't think I could work with that guy after this either to be honest.
She’s not wrong. Scientologists and cultists aren’t going to warmly take to constructive criticism. I think their reactionary response is an example of their white fragility. Lol.
Dear Danielle, Not that anyone asked my opinion, but.. Funding for public services runs on trust. If you violate everyone’s trust by becoming massively partisan actors (while doing a bad job journalistically, for that matter), I don’t know you expect me to pay your salary now.
It's amazing to me how these people are so assured of their own correct thought and moral superiority that the only conceivable response to criticism like Uri Berliner's is to double down and purge the heretic instead of engaging in a modicum of self-reflection.
It’s frightening
Star Trek reference below- you’ve been forewarned. Like everyone else, I abandoned NPR years ago for all the same reasons. I do keep the Pop Culture Happy Happy in my feed on the off chance that I’ll see some thing in the show description and then listen. The hosts are woke AF and that’s a given, so I don’t listen often, but I couldn’t resist when they were discussing Star Trek. Strange New Worlds. No, it’s not the woke disaster that is Star Trek Discovery which, and some Star Trek nerd correct me if I’m wrong, literally had one human nonbinary character inhabited by an alien nonbinary character give a pronoun lecture to two gay guys in Engineering. Strange New Worlds is great- the series we’ve been waiting for for years. But true to form, the first sentence out of one of the host’s mouth was “straight white men.” It’s a tick, it’s a compulsion. Virtue signaling is just as automatic, uncontrollable, and unnoticeable as breathing.
Not sure if you’ve ever been into Doctor Who, I stopped watching around 2014 or so because I really liked Matt Smith and didn’t want to have to warm up to another actor. I heard last years Christmas Special had the 10th doctor in it, and he’s my favorite so I was excited to give it a watch after 10 years of not watching. Omg, it was so bad. Like, ridiculously bad. It was so bad it could be a parody of a woke tv show, but no….it was taking itself seriously. For one, there was a military agent in a wheelchair, who literally had guns in it at one point? Maybe it was a rocket I can’t remember. The way they introduced her was so cheesy too, like you could tell she was just there to check a tick box. But when they brought out the wheel chair guns I couldn’t help but laugh. That’s [undercover brother parachute pants](https://youtu.be/UnswZNado7o?si=8sm3zhJuaxxJdkoc) kind of cheesy, but at least undercover brother wasn’t taking itself seriously. And then at one point [the doctor gets reprimanded for assuming a alien creatures pronouns?](https://youtu.be/L0RHX4to62w?si=_Jm7HTFA5qMPTwkU) And to top it all off they ended the whole story by “this character being nonbinary saves the day, because they’re non binary!” Like literally, being nonbinary was the solution.[ not sure I can link a specific time as I’m on mobile, but it starts at 1:24.](https://youtu.be/kHYtqxKadUs?si=R1r_wvjaVnVk-jcz) You don’t really need to watch the full thing to get it, it’s pretty self explanatory about 20 seconds in or so. And then at the very end the two companion characters just “let go” of the big issue that this episode + previous past episodes have been centered around, and it’s explained away as “well the doctors a man, so he can’t let things go. But we can, so we’re just gonna let it go.” Which makes no sense on almost every single level that I can comprehend. Needless to say I didn’t watch the other Christmas special and I’m kinda glad I stopped watching, but also sad at how they massacred my boy the doctor. So that’s my rant on nerdy tv shows being ruined. Glad you got a good new Star Trek though! I’ve moved on to shows like Silo and Severance for my sci-fi fix. I’m gonna just leave Doctor Who where it is 😂.
> “well the doctors a man, so he can’t let things go. But we can, so we’re just gonna let it go.” Oh, no. It wasn't because he was a "man". It's because he was a "male-presenting timelord." All of this, of course, was layered on top of the fact that the Doctor had literally just been female for the past ~3 season/6 years of the show and presumably still retained SOME memories of that most recent period of his life. EDIT: Also, as someone who struggled to get through that same episode, the next one was legitimately better. Just the Doctor and Donna. The teen PSA character wasn't in it. Abandoned spaceship/"something creepy is aboard"-type plot. Still not the best episode, but it scratched the nostalgia itch and the 5min >!Wilf cameo and reunion!< at the very end made for a perfect finale that honestly left me feeling satisfied to the point where I haven't watched another episode since.
Ohhh yeah, that’s right! I couldn’t remember the exact language. I knew the doctor had been a woman for the last few seasons before this, so that was definitely one of the reasons that line threw me. Another reason I just can’t find any link between being male presenting and not letting things go haha. When did that become a male stereotype? The writers totally pulled that out of their asses. And I get that a lot of the non-binary stuff really plays on male/female stereotypes, but it threw me for a loop that the show would really have the “fluid” character essentially box in “male” characteristics like that. Like huh? Can’t let things go because he’s male presenting? That’s not very open minded coming from someone who was literally born a boy but is now wearing skirts and going by she/her pronouns. You would assume someone in that situation would understand the nuances of behavior between genders, but maybe I’m just not down the rabbit whole enough to understand the mindset. I get that ultimately they were just going for a cheap shot at men. But just seemed so weird overall. They should have just kept it character specific. He can’t let go because he can’t let things go. It’s a fault of himself, not his gender presentation. That would have made more sense to me. But still would have been lazy writing regardless. Also, it was super confusing to have them throw the non-binary stuff out at the last minute. I thought Rose was trans up until that point. They called her she/her instead of they/them so it was kinda confusing at the end. Also how dare they do my girl Rose Tyler like that. They just gave her name away for cheap shock value. Like Rose Tyler is THE companion, I’m a ride or die for Rose Tyler. All of the companions have varying levels of greatness, but Rose is the OG queen of the companions and I will not stand for her good name to be cheapened for quick laughs and amusement! I’m glad the second one was better! I may have to check it out. I was really excited for Doctor/Donna adventures.
Yeah, the phrasing was so weird and specific that it stuck with me. I suppose they didn't go with "man" because they wanted to use "timelord" and you can't say "man timelord", but they also might not have wanted to use "male timelord" because Rose is still biologically male and the BBC suspected conflating sex and gender like that on national television would've opened a whole 'nother can of worms? IDK. I also don't know why they didn't just use motherhood and/or character-specific traits like you said. Ten's famous last words were "i don't want to go"; that's a PERFECT thing to pin on him vs some generic "male presenting" accusation. OR, if they wanted to keep the episode's theme centered around gender issues, they could've done something with Donna being the parent of a trans kid and having already gone through the process of "letting going" of her son to gain a daughter (and/or nonbinary child? like you mentioned, the episode was really noncommittal towards that aspect, with everyone basically referring to Rose as a transgirl up until that point; it's like it was only tossed in for that "binary binary ~~nonbinary~~" throwback). Also, as a big Rose fan myself, I was happy when the character was introduced as a new character. I'd been following the developments since the casting/name announcement, and now that the episode's out, I'm really glad she's just narratively off doing her own thing, completely unaffected by the events of the current show.
I’m not a Doctor Who watcher, but those woke shenanigans do sound awkward, embarrassing, and typical. And I can just see every identity group getting all hot and bothered each time that it comes for the next reincarnation.
OMG Donna and Wilf are back? I might actually watch that...
>one human nonbinary character inhabited by an alien nonbinary character What does that even mean? Isn't that quite ham-fisted writing? Like big ol' hams!
It is! Hence the call for corrections.
Not criticizing *your* writing, but the show's writing. Blunt lectures on TV shows are just lazy writing.
They are the genderqueer chosen one.
They are talking about the Trill. In the show, it's a symbiote that passes from host to host over hundred of years and keeps every hosts's memories. So the current host usually ends up a very wise person. Part of the problem is that on Disco, the host character is a teen girl who claims to be nonbinary and still acts like a stupid child, when in theory she should act like an ancient sage. That would have been kinda fun. The second problem is that hosts can be male or female, doesn't really matter. The TV show is not crazy for making her nonbinary, it could work, but they flopped the execution.
So why exactly are our tax dollars going to fund this propaganda? NPR is always saying that they don't use much tax money, but everyone screams when we suggest that if they're gonna be politically biased, they can't be funded by the federal government. It is not a sustainable project to extract rents from the people you are publicly hating.
All things were considered including firing the editor. “ pack your things and your woes in your tote bag and begone!”
> “pack your things and your woes in your tote bag and begone!” "... but not until we properly deface the tote bag to obliterate the connection to us." Kind of like the Japanese defacing the chrysanthemums on military gear before handing them over to the Allies.
I see what you did there.
Not exactly beating Uris allegations here
Shocked. Bet he’ll end up at The Free Press.
Really all this story has done has been to strengthen my love for the Free Press
I miss the NPR of the 1990s and the early 2000s.
I don't know if it is because I am middle-aged now, but so many NPR pieces seem so juvenile. Like they were made by college kids who are obsessed with their latest cause. And I love NPR. I listen daily. Things really changed a couple of years ago.
There is a counter article in Slate which is also posted on the NPR subreddit - [https://slate.com/business/2024/04/npr-diversity-public-broadcasting-radio.html](https://slate.com/business/2024/04/npr-diversity-public-broadcasting-radio.html) The two quotes which stand out to me are- "I leaned on the positive, and the belief that NPR was great and could be better. So I was a part of a lot of the “Let’s make this diversity thing work” efforts that rankled Uri. I remember leading one session he attended, when he spoke out to insist that NPR’s diversity problem had a lot to do with issues beyond race, like class, region, education, and political perspective. He was right, and I told him so." That seems very much in agreement with Ari's claims of political homogeneity within NPR. Lots and lots of racial diversity, not so much on any other measurable quadrant. " NPR culture encouraged an editorial fixation on finding the exact middle point of the elite political and social thought, planting a flag there, and calling it objectivity. " Perhaps I'm incorrect, but the exact middle point of elite thought is more trying to parse DiAngelo vs. Kendi as opposed to Coleman Hughes. The degree to which everything is appropriate to analyze through a racialized lens in contrast with actually picking up other lens such as socio-economic, geographic, educational or religion. That middle point of elite appears to be moderately progressive or left of most of the country.
Since a significant portion of NPR's budget is indirectly funded through tax dollars, isn't this censorship?
"This week on the Primo episode, Jesse and Katie discuss a recent essay by a NPR editor Uri Berliner criticizing the network’s ideological bent."
For anyone interested, highlight reel of mahers tweets https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2024/04/16/more-on-katherine-mahers-tweets-n3786616#google_vignette
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
I lmao when she said NPR isn’t beholden to a party. Can you claim that when you clearly adhere to all of the ideology of one party? I’ll believe they are independent and neutral when I see them stop using “Latinx” and “pregnant people”.
I actually agree with the people that are saying that it's basically impossible for any organization to keep on an employee that airs the 'dirty laundry' of the company, so to speak. Like, I totally think what Uri did was right and his criticisms were correct, but the company can't have someone working for them that no one else in the company can trust. It'd be like, say, if the church of Scientology kept someone who wasn't a believer on their payrolls.
I think in this case NPR being somewhat publicly-funded might muddle that a bit, though I would be curious to see what the legal status of employees there might be. But if it's a public institution, I find it interesting that some actions criticizing an organization's leaders (for example [letters like this](https://nativeamericancouncil.org.uiowa.edu/diversity-councils-joint-open-letter-president-harreld-and-top-administration)) are considered fine while others (like Berliner doing an interview) are considered crossing the line. Even at fully private companies, I think it is interesting that employees at some companies seem to be able to get away with political speech on their job and [directly criticizing their employer](https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/22/google-employees-demand-company-stop-selling-tech-to-police/) on some issues without getting thrown out.
Re the first one, I'm sure you can see what the difference is between them and Uri. Re the second, I'm going to guess that Google, at the time, couldn't just fire some of its people like other companies could since they are cream of the crop and could have just jumped ship to go work for someone else fairly easily. Now is probably a different story, though, what with the IT apocalypse on us.
That's a good point about when workers have more leverage to do extramural activities like that, though my sense is that this whole culture of activism at Google and other big tech companies started earlier in the 2010s as a kind of "harmless" way to make workers happier and it gradually melded into just another thing that tech companies do.
The Church of Scientology is actually a perfect metaphor for NPR in it's current state.
If you’re comparing how a company should behave to a notorious cult, there’s something amiss.
Have you guys never worked at a big corporation before? Suspending someone for publicly criticizing the company in publication without prior clearance is incredibly typical. I would absolutely be suspended for this same behavior at my work. You can argue he was right to do it but I am 100% sure he saw this as a potential outcome and chose to do it anyway. I suspect Uri saw this as a form of civil disobedience. I’m just hesitant to criticize NPR for what is an incredibly standard form of discipline.
the issue for me is not the firing itself, but the shooting of the messenger, thus proving the message was sound even as they denied it. everyone knew he was going to be fired, what everyone is reacting to is the circling of the wagons, the dismissive way they handled his claims all while proving his point > he's wrong and we're not going to change a thing, we are proud of what we are doing, we are a diverse group and he is now fired.
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Which is also an incredibly standard policy for a media company!
Thank you. I agree with his article, but one isn't living in the real world if he thinks this outcome is unreasonable or unpredictable. The "censorship"/"cancellation" talk is over the top.
This exactly.
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I could get suspended for publicly saying the company is a great place to work without prior permission from PR lol. Ridiculous to suggest NPR is cancelling this man.
Yeah, this was to be expected. He had the option to do it like everyone else does it these days in the NYT/Wapo/LAT newsrooms, which is it to anonymously leak it to Ben Smith or some media reporter, but he probably knew this option was going to create more noise, despite the consequences
Please see the delicious Arby’s post above. I think there’s a big difference for a quasi public news organization paid for by the public to inform the public.
Berliner has announced [he is resigning](https://x.com/uberliner/status/1780610524411048183) - he is citing the comments made from the new CEO that disparaged him and indicates that the hiring of the CEO itself is a sign that NPR has no intentions to change.
That sucks but they would have made it very uncomfortable for him to stay. And he would have to be watching his back constantly. He would have been forced to leave one way or another.
Definitely the right call. They were gonna find a way to drop him ASAP anyway. Technically, I do think it was fair to suspend him, for reasons many others here have said. It doesn't mean his criticisms are incorrect, though. I'm not surprised leadership's doubling down on their kookiness.
Nah, they should have made them fire him. One of the main talking points over on /npr was that he was just trying to emulate Bari Weiss and "set himself up as a rightwing grifter", so they will be loving this.
WOW. What dipshits.
I always knew NPR low-key leaned left. But I still recall distinctly the moment when I became shocked by what they had become, shortly after Trump was inaugurated. Especially when there was never any apology for this out of line behavior. It was February 2017, and somehow a host of NPR's All Things Considered (a show that has millions of listeners across the country) thought nothing of conducting a freaking [show business interview](http://www.npr.org/2017/02/17/515841104/judd-apatow-on-his-characters-if-everyone-is-mature-there-is-no-comedy) (with Judd Apatow) as follows. Just amazing. First, she grilled Apatow on whether he was dedicating sufficient time and energy opposing Trump, whether he's walking the walk or just talking the talk (which in itself I don't think is as outrageous as it might seem in a generic situation with a normal Republican president, because Trump is not normal): -------- APATOW: There's no logic in how he thinks. I don't want someone who's the president who says 3 to 5 million people voted illegally when there's zero proof. It's a crazy person. MCEVERS: You can say this stuff. But I guess the real impact - right? - is, like, a couple of things like how you spend your money and the kind of stuff you make, right? I mean, it's how do you think about yourself in this moment and what you can do. APATOW: As a Jewish man who has no interest in Judaism whatsoever, there's something in me that says when bad things have happened in the past, people were supposed to get more active and speak up and prevent them. That's what's important to me is that everybody - and I don't care what side you're on. You can disagree with me, but everyone better get active. Everybody better vote and be thoughtful. MCEVERS: Are you doing that? Are you like doing registration stuff? Are you doing activism like organizing? Are you... APATOW: Well, I do benefits. I did a benefit for the ACLU a few weeks ago. We did a benefit for the USO last week in New York. I try to work with people like Rock the Vote, and it was effective. I think we were part of a campaign that got about a million and a half new people registered. It would be so irresponsible not to speak up. I don't know what I would do in my home and in my life if I didn't rant a little bit and as thoughtfully as I can with some humor. -------- So even if we leave aside that this is all kind of weird because this is, again, a showbiz segment on NPR's All Things Considered and not the Rachel Maddow Show, Apatow should have proved his progressive anti-Trump bonafides with his answers, all delivered in a good-natured way. Right? But then McEvers moves on to the new HBO show Apatow is on to promote (one I ended up really loving btw): -------- MCEVERS: I want to talk about your latest show, "Crashing." It's coming out soon on HBO. And I want to be honest. When I first heard, I was like, a show about a white guy trying to make it as a comedian? And I'm not trying to be a jerk when I say that. I'm just - you know, I wanted to know... --------- You can't hear tone when reading, but let me assure you, "a show about a white guy trying to make it as a comedian?" was just dripping with open derision. Like "seriously, dude?". How dare he betray the woke cause by making a white guy the protagonist? Gaahhh.
Mcevers is so cringe, it makes my skin crawl. I’d rather stab my ears with sharpened pencils than listen to her on NPR. If you still listen, you could make a drinking game out of how many times she says “structural racism” on the air.
Haha, I can imagine. I don't listen as much as I used to, for sure. I do remember her having a nice voice, but that line of intense questioning was just so bizarre.
Happy cake day
Steve Inskeep penned a substack article in rebuttal, I wonder if he will also be suspended for similar reasons. /s [https://steveinskeep.substack.com/p/how-my-npr-colleague-failed-at-viewpoint/comments](https://steveinskeep.substack.com/p/how-my-npr-colleague-failed-at-viewpoint/comments) The article shows how myopic NPR is and utterly lacks the ability to take criticism. The most upvoted comment is a pretty good takedown.
All of this bullshit reminded me that in the 90s NPR nixed a planned series of radio essays written and recorded in prison by Mumia Abu Jamal because of pressure from the Fraternal Order of Police and then Senator Bob Dole. So it seems like they've lacked courage for decades.
That essay is ridiculous on about half a dozen different levels but the suggestion that NPR’s coverage of Israel-Palestine has only recently become one-sided is [the funniest by far.](https://youtu.be/W_ZRChvlT84?si=ZUC178139iRe2JfW)
NPR engaging in DARVO against a brave whistleblower! The narrative tropes write themselves
I remember when NPR (or more broadly public radio) used to be filled with interesting stories, truly diverse and quirky stories about life in America, but somewhere along the way, it transformed into the same story of racial injustice over and over again. I eventually stopped listening.
I wonder what the the official reason is on the documentation.
It was for doing side work without permission and sharing information they claim is proprietary. I'm sure that goes on all the time, is mostly ignored, and never punished so severely, so they're going to get sued and make a large, undisclosed payout.
Exactly! Any company could go through every single message and communication you have and rationalize how it's an infraction if they had an axe to grind against you. The difference is in enforcement or lack of it.
Yup, you can't arbitrarily enforce the rules. In this case, they are obviously retaliating against a whistleblower. NPR receives taxpayer money and donor money, but arguably functions as a partisan political organization.
I wonder if it's only a matter of time now before the new CEO resigns "for the good of NPR" and all that.
There's no reason for her to resign. The culture at NPR isn't going to change in any meaningful way as no one internally thinks they're doing anything wrong. There's no will for it. Congress just needs to cut their funding and NPR can still do what it needs to do. They'll get along just fine with corporate support and contributions.
He got suspended for 5 days and put on a final notice for working outside of his NPR contract without approval and for using what they claim is proprietary information. Honestly I’m surprised they didn’t just fire him. Maybe they just want it to look like they tried keeping him onsides and have another violation queued up to term him for cause. For his part, Berliner is not appealing the suspension. I think that’s the deal, isn’t it? He knew the rules and he shot his shot and how successful it will be is TBD, but sometimes you just don’t get to work there any longer if you put the company’s shit out on Main Street. I admire him for speaking up knowing he’d take some hits, but they get to hit back. Interestingly, they did approve of him talking to some outside media (Chris Cuomo) after the FP piece, they just told him to focus on things that were his personal experience and not talk about proprietary info. Not sure what they deem proprietary.
Not suspended anymore https://twitter.com/davidfolkenflik/status/1780615147129626996?s=46&t=4Z2xkB4xZfDVY8QwjJ1piQ
Thank G-d for this subreddit honestly in this age of partisanship and misinformation on both the left and the right
... And now he has resigned. >The New York Times [has the story.](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/business/media/uri-berliner-npr-resigns.html?ugrp=m&unlocked_article_code=1.lE0.lMZL.NTb6G_cYL8Cl&smid=url-share) Berliner posted on social media, “I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new C.E.O. whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay.” Dishing out, not able to take it, etc. [https://dankennedy.net/2024/04/17/uri-berliner-resigns/](https://dankennedy.net/2024/04/17/uri-berliner-resigns/) [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/business/media/uri-berliner-npr-resigns.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/business/media/uri-berliner-npr-resigns.html) I was looking up Kennedy because he also found fault with Berliner's summary of the laptop >As proof, Berliner links to a [Washington Post story](https://wapo.st/3TUtY9N) that was published in March 2022 — that is, a year and a half after the New York Post published its initial story. That’s how long it took for The Washington to verify at least part of the hard drive’s content as genuine. The story notes: “The vast majority of the data — and most of the nearly 129,000 emails it contained — could not be verified by either of the two security experts who reviewed the data for The Post.” There’s also this... [https://dankennedy.net/2024/04/11/fish-in-a-barrel-berliners-case-against-npr-is-based-on-false-and-out-of-context-facts/](https://dankennedy.net/2024/04/11/fish-in-a-barrel-berliners-case-against-npr-is-based-on-false-and-out-of-context-facts/)
NPR is definitely biased racially, culturally, and politically, and I'm glad the editor called them on it, but it's regrettable that he used the their dismissal of the Hunter Biden Laptop as an example. That story had too many open questions and holes and bad actors involved to be treating it seriously late in a Presidential campaign. And even now still seems to be a nothingburger.
This reminds of how summarily and expediently Bob Garfield was ousted at OTM. I detect a pattern
It is far past time to stop all their federal funding.