NPR Watch
I have, for a variety of reasons, been remiss in listening to NPR for bias lately. However, today I caught about 20 minutes of it. The reporter was talking about one of Bush’s various campaign stops. Bush was referring to his tax cuts when the reporter (Robert Smith, if I recall) chimed in that Bush’s message sounded like an infomercial. Nope no bias there.
March 12th, 2004 at 11:37 am
Well, it’s not an ideological bias. On cable news channels I heard Senator Edwards described as an infomercial salesman at least half a dozen times.
March 12th, 2004 at 11:49 am
You have a really weird idea of what constitutes “bias.”
March 12th, 2004 at 11:55 am
Tom,
Apparently I do, which is why no one will win your challenge :^)
March 12th, 2004 at 11:57 am
Uncle:
Okay, the story you reference is here. Among other things, the piece gives sound bite quotes from four different New Yorkers — three of them pro-Bush, one anti-Bush. But oooh, scary, he uses the word “infomercial,” the damn Commie — by whipping out that word, he’s slanted the story so far to the left, it’s a wonder the whole thing didn’t fall into the Pacific Ocean… 😉
March 12th, 2004 at 12:04 pm
Who said he was a commie. I take issue with the phrase sounds like an infomercial because it is a subjective criticism that is not, you know, a fact.
I could say:
Sounds like a fart
Sounds like a nazi
Sounds like cuddly kittens.
And they all have subjective connotations that don’t relay, uhm, factual information.
March 12th, 2004 at 12:07 pm
Nobody will win my challenge because the bias simply isn’t there. You act as though my definition of “bias” is a moving target. It’s not; I’ve clearly defined it. In what way does the use of the word “infomercial” prejudice listeners? Are terms like that only used to describe Republicans? Was the use of the term unjustified? (He goes on to expalain HOW it resembled an infomercial, after all…)
If you’re willing to take a narrow enough view, you can find any bias you want in this sentence or that. It ain’t bias unless it’s unbalanced and persistently so.
March 12th, 2004 at 12:09 pm
Huh? Since when is saying that something sounds like an infomercial inherently a criticism? Methinks you’re reading a lot more into it than was actually there.
March 12th, 2004 at 12:20 pm
SU
There are two problems with your call for bias on this piece. First, you are assuming that infomercial has a negative bias. I do not necessarily think that is the case — its a description, not a value judgement, in my opinion.
Second, to establish bias you need to show that Bush is treated differently than the Dem candidates. If infomercial is in fact a vlaue judgement, and the Dems are never refered to in the same manner (same manner meaning with terms that have a similiar connotation as infomercial) then and only then can you point to bias.
March 12th, 2004 at 12:24 pm
Second, to establish bias you need to show that Bush is treated differently than the Dem candidates
No, I don’t. The way I address someone or their actions can indicate a bias. This is the same as the taking shots issue.
March 12th, 2004 at 12:51 pm
SayUncle:
The way I address someone or their actions can indicate a bias.
OK, so then explain just exactly what bias is evidenced by the reporter using the term “infomercial,” and how it is an inherently leftist one, and how it outweighs the fact that the story quotes Bush supporters 3:1 over his detractors.
March 12th, 2004 at 12:54 pm
Have you ever seen an infomercial?
March 12th, 2004 at 1:05 pm
I think the point is, when people hear “infomercial,” they think “snake oil.”
Right?
March 12th, 2004 at 1:06 pm
Yeah. I’ve seen the Shotime Rotisserie infomercial innumerable times. You know, “Set it, and forget it.” One of the things they do is interview people in the audience about how they’ve used the product they’re being sold. Not unlike Bush’s tactic in trying to sell his tax cuts. (And unless you’re completely anti-capitalist, there’s nothing inherently biased about the term “sell”).
I also guess I never realized that infomercials were slanted leftward.
Hypothetical question for you: if that segment of Bush’s spiel did, in fact, resemble an infomercial (we’ll use the “reasonable person” standard for now), would it constitute bias for the reporter to report that?
March 12th, 2004 at 1:10 pm
I also guess I never realized that infomercials were slanted leftward.
Who says has to be slanted leftward to be bias? After all, i have stated that it minimizes the impact of bush’s sale (yes, he is selling tax cuts) by equating it with (as thibbie said) snake oil.
March 12th, 2004 at 1:16 pm
Thibodeaux:
I think the point is, when people hear “infomercial,” they think “snake oil.”
People think “snake oil” when we use the term “politician,” too. Should we stop using “politician” for fear of bias?
Even if you buy the idea that “infomercial” is somehow biased (and I don’t), you have to completely ignore the context and the rest of the story to whine or cry that the story is somehow prejudicial, biased against Bush, or otherwise unfair in any meaningful sense.
Let’s look at the definition of bias and see which one the use of “infomercial” fits. If you stretch it, it could fit definition 2a, but even then only if you ingore the part after the comma.
What we have here is a lack of common reference point. Since the definition of “bias” that Uncle is apparently going by isn’t a mainstream definition (and certainly not one that’s relevant to news reporting), there’s little point in discussing this further.
But from where I sit, the use of that one term in a story that is overall slightly more pro-Bush than anti-Bush, isn’t in the same ballpark or even the same sport as, say, Fox News inexplicably singling out the French for attack when such selectiveness is in no way warranted.
Even if these things weren’t different in kind (they are), they would still be hugely different in degree.
March 12th, 2004 at 1:21 pm
I don’t know that i have ever denied foxnews’ bias. But it is in the ballpark.
March 12th, 2004 at 1:22 pm
Uncle:
Who says has to be slanted leftward to be bias?
Context is important. The “rap” on NPR is that they have a pervasive liberal bias, which is why I’ve challenged people to actually demonstrate this. And the best anybody can do is little nitpicky stuff like this that you really have to contort yourself to construe as “leftist bias,” and which you now claim isn’t necessarily even leftist.
If you weren’t bringing this up to point out some inherently leftist bias, then why WERE you bringing it up?
Overall, NPR is admirably and remarkably impartial and balanced in its reporting. Where there are minor instances of bias in one direction, they are balanced out by minor instances of bias in the other direction. You’ll never stomp out every last trace of bias, but as long as you try, and as long as you are “fair and balanced” (in the literal sense, not the Fox News sense), you cannot fairly be categorized as a “biased” source.
March 12th, 2004 at 1:25 pm
But it is in the ballpark.
By virtue of what? I suppose, technically, a 400 pound fan at a Giants game is in the same ballpark as Barry Bonds. So by that standard, I guess these two examples of “bias” are also in the same ballpark.
March 12th, 2004 at 1:27 pm
People think “snake oil” when we use the term “politician,” too. Should we stop using “politician” for fear of bias?
Maybe not for fear of bias, but in the interest of honest labeling, I would DEFINITELY agree to drop “politician” for “snake oil salesman.”
In fact, I’ll see if I can setup my spell checker to do so right now.
March 12th, 2004 at 1:28 pm
Perhaps i should write the message on a baseball bat and hit you with it since I can find no other way for it to get lodged in your brain 🙂
A jab like infomercial indicates a bias against right/conservative/republican/bush (pick one). Bias is not always for something, it can be against it too.
March 12th, 2004 at 1:50 pm
Two interesting things I see here:
March 12th, 2004 at 3:42 pm
FWIW, Newsday has a piece (which is very biased) that notes the infomercial nature of this appearance, too. From what I gathered both from the NPR piece and the newsday piece is that the event looked like an infomercial. Bush was going around interviewing people and asking them what they did with their taxcut and asking them how great it was, similar to what you see in an infomercial.
March 12th, 2004 at 4:25 pm
Manish:
You re-raise the question I asked Uncle earlier, which he still hasn’t answered: If the event really did look like an infomercial, does it constitute bias to report that it did?
March 12th, 2004 at 4:29 pm
if it did? I’d say depends. Because when I think of infomercials i think of bad actors reading from queue cards. Also i think of phrases like:
act now and we’ll throw in XXXX
Does this sound to good to be true, it’s not
etc.
March 12th, 2004 at 4:40 pm
By the way, this is not the first time a Bush appearance has been described as resembling an infomercial by the mainstream media.
March 12th, 2004 at 4:46 pm
I think these stories are consistent in comparing to infomercials in the “staged interviews of carefully selected people who have benefited from your product” aspect, and that as such, the shoe pretty much fits.
March 12th, 2004 at 4:48 pm
I also found this NRO article which uses the term “infomercial” as part of an attack. But in this case, the surrounding context is what makes it an attack moreso than the term itself. Again, context is important. 🙂