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Home Front: Culture Wars
NPR Listeners Furious Conservatives Getting 21 Minutes On The Network-
2008-03-11
National Public Radio listeners who tuned in to "Morning Edition" during the last four days of February found some atypical programming around 6:30 a.m. during the broadcasts.
One can only imagine their complete despair and shock
"Conversations with Conservatives" was heard during morning-drive time with host Steve Inskeep and a conservative of the day with much on his mind. The roster consisted of the Rev. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission; Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform; talk-radio host Glenn Beck; and David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union.

Each man had his own focus — Mr. Land addressed the status of evangelical voters; Mr. Norquist the spectrum of fiscal policies that most appealed to Republican voters; Mr. Beck with ideas about conservative core values; and Mr. Keene on challenges faced by Sen. John McCain, saying the Arizona Republican must prove to the conservative base that he is, indeed, a conservative.
The discussion on Evangelicals would have put them right over the edge
NPR Morning Edition listeners — there are 13 million a week — were not especially pleased in the aftermath of the broadcast segments, which lasted about seven minutes each.
Predictable response in 3, 2, 1...
According to NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard, more than 60 angry e-mails and phone calls arrived at the network, calling the programming "shameful" and a "love-fest with radical, right-wing nuts." There were only a few, she said, that praised the series as "refreshing" and "articulate," among other things.
So shocking they took the time to put down the lattes
"Our basic motivation was to get a sense of where the GOP is heading, and where conservatives want to be. You can never get every viewpoint, but we wanted a sampling of opinion," Mr. Inskeep said. "In the course of it, I learned just how carefully people were watching John McCain," he recalled. "It was David Keene, for example, who pointed out the positioning of liberal and conservative officials onstage at the McCain victory speech in the Virginia primaries. That's something I wouldn't have noticed."
Posted by:Icerigger

#19  Point missed. If I understood Inskeep correctly the morning show hardly if ever gets complaints.
Posted by: Icerigger   2008-03-11 14:50  

#18  NPR has had commercials for a number of years, although they pretend it's a matter of thanking corporate sponsors, thus pulling the sheerest possible veil over the indignity of crass consumerism.

I agree the choice of representative conservatives is curious. But as for the 6:30 a.m. time slot... an awful lot of vice presidents and directors of this'n'that lean toward Liberal for the citizenry at large. It's one of those reverse discrimination thingies: Sure, I worked like a dog to put myself through college and then to get where I am today, skimping to save pennies along the way; but it just isn't reasonable to expect others to do so, nor fair to punish them, as it were, when they don't. So the NPR vice presidential types are just pulling in to the office parking lot at 6:30 a.m., having already done a full work-out, balanced the checkbook, and got in three phone conferences during the drive in. We won't even mention the fifty-seven emails answered while riding the exercise bike. (Yes, I do know the type intimately -- it's exhausting sometimes just watching him!)
Posted by: trailing wife    2008-03-11 11:45  

#17  How many of the 60 were employees writing from their desk?
Posted by: AlanC   2008-03-11 11:36  

#16  Lady Kroc [she of the House of McDonalds] willed 200 million to NPR. Invested they should be generating 10 mill a year, enough to go it alone without government subsidy. Should've happened already.

And PBS subsidies should've ended when successful programming kept the royalties and didn't kick back into the system. It's a one way street. They take and don't give back.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2008-03-11 10:49  

#15  And CPB while you're at it.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2008-03-11 10:29  

#14  Defund PBS while you are at it.

No government funding for programs. Let it rise or fall on its own merit.
Posted by: DarthVader   2008-03-11 10:26  

#13  Yep. Defund NPR NOW.
Posted by: OldSpook   2008-03-11 10:13  

#12  Cheap bastards. Pay for NPR out of your damn pockets or listen to commercials like the rest of us hoi polloi.
Posted by: ed   2008-03-11 09:45  

#11  Typical liberal reaction: they don't argue the points, they instead try to silence the opposition.
Posted by: OldSpook   2008-03-11 09:43  

#10  Really easy to fix. Cut off the taxpayer subsidies, and then npr will "belong" to those who donate. Easy...
Posted by: M. Murcek   2008-03-11 09:36  

#9  Apparently, some liberals don't like the small practice of "fairness doctrine". NPR would have to have this for half of its programing. Hehe.

Eat hypocrisy liberal fuck-heads.
Posted by: DarthVader   2008-03-11 09:34  

#8  And those are probably the same 60 people that showed up in D.C. for the last anti-war demonstration.
Posted by: bigjim-ky   2008-03-11 08:55  

#7  Out of 13 million listeners only 60 complained?!?
And some of those emails and calls were positive?
I don't think this is the start of an NPR Intifada or anything. When you get so many angry emails that your server catches fire and melts into a puddle of lead, then you have a furious reaction.
Posted by: bigjim-ky   2008-03-11 08:52  

#6  "atypical programming around 6:30 a.m."

I'm surprised there were many liberals up to hear it at that time of morning. Must have been on their way home from a party the night before. It's mostly conservatives who have to go to work before sunrise. Or maybe people who go to work before sunrise tend to become conservative.
Posted by: Menhadden Snogum6713   2008-03-11 08:27  

#5  60 emails out of a 13,000,000 listener base. I think that's about 0.000005%. What a torrent of rightous outrage! NPR better watch it. They could lose dozens, maybe even hundreds of their base. Considering the average age of their listeners, at least that many probably die of old age each week.
Posted by: Titus Cloling7944   2008-03-11 05:17  

#4  Oh please! Am I the only one to find it amusing that their "conservative line up" has the president of the Souther Baptist Convention the same day that drudge has an AP report that says, "NEW YORK (AP) -- In a major shift, a group of Southern Baptist leaders said their denomination has been "too timid" on environmental issues and has a biblical duty to stop global warming.
The declaration, signed by the president of the Southern Baptist Convention among others and released Monday, shows a growing urgency about climate change even within groups that once dismissed claims of an overheating planet as a liberal ruse. The conservative denomination has 16.3 million members and is the largest Protestant group in the U.S."

Didn't Grover Norquist have a spat with McCain where John McCain used his report to clobber Grover Norquist, and Norquist rebutted by calling McCain a "liar" and "delusional."??

I don't know if Beck supports McCain and I know nothing about David Keene, however call me suspicious for thinking that their motives weren't for equal opportunity for conservatives.
Posted by: Woodrow Slusorong7967   2008-03-11 02:00  

#3  I'm sure more than one bong was tipped that morning.

What drives me nuts is how fantastic most of their shows are. Why the see the need to slant crap is, well frustrating to say the least. Especially since we, are all paying for it.
Posted by: Icerigger   2008-03-11 01:26  

#2  It's actually really funny. Again, a number of the "open-minded", "diversity-loving", individuals on the Left cannot handle dialogue. As Bugs would say, "What a bunch of maroons."
Posted by: anymouse   2008-03-11 00:58  

#1  Anyone with an opposing viewpoint is a radical right-wing nutcase. It's sad how far liberalism has fallen, when you compare it with pre-60s liberals. Those men, I might disagree with, but I respected.
Posted by: gromky   2008-03-11 00:50  

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