NPR Watch
Yesterday I caught All Things Considered on the ride home. One of the stories was on Cheney and Kerry having a political skirmish. I noted that in most cases, the verb Attacked was frequently used to describe what Cheney would say. The word Criticized was used frequently to describe what Kerry would say. They did, at one point, use the word Belittle to describe what Kerry would say.
Nope, no bias there. Remember, Republicans attack and Democrats criticize.
March 18th, 2004 at 12:48 pm
Ever listen to Marketplace?
March 18th, 2004 at 12:55 pm
Never heard of it.
March 18th, 2004 at 1:07 pm
You might have a point, if it were true. But unfortunately, it’s really not.
In the intro to the piece, they do indeed use [paraphrase] “Cheney attacked Kerry” and “Kerry criticized Bush,” so there, in a vacuum, I’ll concede a slight appearance of bias.
But then let’s look at the stories, shall we? Here’s the Cheney portion of the story. Disregarding the intro, we have a piece reported by Don Gagne in which he uses the word “attack” twice, and “criticize” once, all three of them referring to what Cheney said about Kerry.
Now here’s the Kerry portion, reported by David Welna. He uses the word “attack” only once, and although it indirectly refers to something Cheney said, Welna is repeating a statement that was made to Kerry by other reporters who were present. So how does Welna characterize Kerry’s jabs at the Bush Administration? “Slammed” once, “belittled” once, and he never uses “criticize.”
Gagne describes what Cheney says with negatively connoted terms twice, and less negative terms once (net -1). Welna describes what Kerry says using negatively connoted terms twice (net -2), and, indirectly what Cheney says with a negative term once (bringing the Cheney total to net -2). Looking at the tone of Gagne’s report versus the tone of Welna’s report, it’s about as balanced as you can possibly get. Especially considering that both sides get their say, and both sides get roughly equal time (about three minutes each).
The only possible complaint is the discrepancy in the intro, and that’s pretty minor when compared to the overall balance of the story.
Now all I need to do is fine one report in which the lead-in uses the terms in reverse, and the nitpicky complaint of bias is nullfied. 🙂
March 18th, 2004 at 1:10 pm
Thibodeaux:
Well, technically, as has been pointed out to me on my blog, Marketplace isn’t NPR. It’s PRI. And a show called Marketplace not balanced out by a Laborplace show inherently favors capital over labor, i.e. right over left. 🙂
March 18th, 2004 at 1:17 pm
Actually, (and this is from memory, for some reason the ‘puter is acting weird on audio) i recall the intro and the pre-commerical (what on NPR passes for commercials anyway) being the most serious offender. And since you mentioned it, i do recall use of the word slammed as well.
March 18th, 2004 at 1:23 pm
And for the record, by my count, the word “criticized” was used to describe what Kerry said exactly once (not “frequently,” as you stated), which is the same number of times it was used to describe what Cheney said.
Between Gagne and Welna, they used negatively connoted terms almost exclusively to describe what both candidates had to say, with Gagne deviating once to describe a Cheney statement in more neutral terms.
You and I will probably just have to disagree on this, but I think the overall tone and balance is far more important than one sentence here or one sentence there (unless the violation in the one sentence is particularly egregious).
If we’re going to drill down to the sentence level, we could likely go back and forth all day with instances of mild bias this way or that. But I don’t see anything here that calls into question the overall integrity or balance of the report as a whole.
March 18th, 2004 at 2:46 pm
tgirsch:
I had forgotten that Marketplace was a PRI show. I was temporarily blinded by the fact that it was carried on my local NPR station.
As for your remark about it favoring capital over labor, I can only assume this is an example of that subtle humor you were talking about.
March 18th, 2004 at 5:36 pm
Thibodeaux:
How much time does Marketplace devote to what stock prices are doing, and what the Dow and broader indices are doing? Now couple that against how much time they spend on what mean and median wages and benefits are doing, and what the cost of living is doing. The skew is clearly toward capital.
March 18th, 2004 at 5:38 pm
Oh, and oddly enough, your local “NPR” station isn’t really affiliated with NPR (the organization) — i.e., they aren’t an NPR station. They’re just a public radio station, and they merely buy a lot of their programming from NPR. Which programs they buy and when they run them varies quite a bit from station to station.
March 18th, 2004 at 6:42 pm
Well, whatever, on both counts. I bow to your superior knowledge of Generic Public Radio.
I still think you’re trying to be funny when you say Marketplace favors capital. So they read off the stock indices from time to time. Big whoop.
March 18th, 2004 at 6:49 pm
oddly enough, your local “NPR” station isn’t really affiliated with NPR (the organization) — i.e., they aren’t an NPR station.
Oddly enough, I just visited my local “NPR” station’s website, and their tagline (which appears in the document title, and at the top of the page) is:
Your NPR Station
I think you should give them a call and set them straight. Number’s at the bottom of the page.
March 18th, 2004 at 11:30 pm
Touche’ on the “Your NPR Station” thing. I could have worded it better. It’s an NPR affiliate station, but NPR no more owns or controls that station than your local UPN affiliate is controlled or owned by Paramount. That was my point.
Regarding Marketplace, it’s not that they read stock numbers “from time to time,” they do it at least twice a broadcast, whereas the types of employment numbers that are important to labor get much less coverage. Not exactly “bias” per se, but it’s certainly coming from an investors’/capital perspective.
March 18th, 2004 at 11:44 pm
Oh my…twice a broadcast.
I still think you’re getting a laugh at my expense here.
March 19th, 2004 at 12:29 pm
Yeah, who am I kidding? Wages and benefits are unimportant, and unworthy of coverage.
March 19th, 2004 at 12:58 pm
How exactly would you cover wages and benefits? Is there a wage/benefit index? How are people going to take advantage of this information?
With the stock market, there’s just a few actual numbers to report. I’ll admit the information’s not that useful, and honestly I don’t know why they report it.
Furthermore, this distinction between “labor” and “capital” is kind of ridiculous these days. I have a job, but I also have a retirement plan that includes mutual funds. Am I labor or capital?