This is a bit of an old topic, but still worth discussing. I listen to my local NPR station, and I was even a donor at one time. Not because I agreed with their politics, but because it was generally pleasant to listen to and did not have commercials.
NPR today is a disgrace to the profession of journalism. It is completely unrecognizable from its beginning as an independent, and mostly unbiased news service. It has become little more than a Democratic party propaganda service. And that includes climate change, which is extremely easy to fact-check.
NPR designated the week of June 10 as climate week. Here are a few of its claims:
- Climate change is driving more flood risk.
- Climate change is causing more hurricanes.
- Climate change is causing higher insurance costs.
- Climate change is causing more wildfires.
- Climate pollution is increasing.
Not a single claim in that list is true. Without even asking what ‘climate pollution’ is.
Where exactly does NPR get their information?
A little research, and we discover that NPR has a ‘climate desk’. The climate desk is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg foundation. Further research, and we discover that both foundations are actually strong supporters of Net Zero, which says that humans should stop using fossil fuels entirely. No rational scientist even remotely suggests that this is a good idea. In fact, most economists will tell you that the only way to achieve net zero is to reduce the human population of the Earth to under one billion people. In other words, net zero supporters are calling for genocide on a massive scale. And NPR is echoing their demands. Evidently it’s not a crime against humanity if you are a millionaire advocating for genocide.
I do not claim to be an expert in the ethics of journalism. But one of the things I do know is that when a news service produces a report that the sponsors of the network may have a financial or ideological interest in, the rules of ethics require that the journalist state who the sponsor is and that they have an interest in the story.
When I sit on a committee at my church, or at my office, I have certain ethical requirements. If I have a financial interest in a particular action, I absolutely must announce that I have a financial interest and recuse myself from voting. A reporter, whose information can have substantial influence on public opinion, has a much higher ethical requirement than simple recusal. Regardless of financial interest, they are required to report the truth and announce their conflict of interest. NPR has yet to mention on the air even once the sponsors of their ‘climate desk’.
NPR was founded several decades ago to serve as a source of unbiased news, and was long considered an accurate and professional network, albeit with a noticeable left wing slant. It was a good place for new journalism professionals to get their start, with a leavening of more senior respected reporters to train up the cubs. When they started, they were a reliable source of accurate reporting. They always managed to present all the facts, even when the reporter didn’t like the facts. Morning Edition and All Things Considered were widely respected sources of news. Sadly, this is no longer true, either at the national or local level.
My local radio station, KCUR in Kansas City, has a local show called Up To Date, run by a journalism professor and the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Steve Kraske. Quite often he does a good show, interviewing people of local interest, talking about local events, and interviewing interesting people. https://shss.umkc.edu/profiles/communication-and-journalism/kraske-steve.html .
However, on at least two occasions that I know of, Up To date has had guests on to discuss why people don’t trust the press. Both times, the show concluded that FOX news, and right wing extremism was the cause. It was never a lack of truthful reporting. Now I admit that they have not had another show on this subject since the resignation of Uri Berlinner, but considering that NPR simply ignored him, I have not reason to expect that the local station would come to a different conclusion.
Thus, the reason for the mistrust of NPR is obvious. Their reporters simply don’t tell the truth. NPR and local public radio was founded to ‘speak truth to power’. But instead, they have become mouthpieces of the Democratic party. When I attempted to call in to point this out (both times), the call screener did not let me through. Let’s just say that I was not shocked.
Occasionally, the show has discussions about climate change. Invariably rather than looking at publicly available data, they repeat as gospel the opinion of the Democratic party.
Interestingly, I spent some time one day determining the temperature trend in the state of Missouri based on the available records. The raw data on Missouri shows no trend in temperatures (according to the US Climate Reference Network, from NOAA). This was a minor surprise to me, as I had expected to see a minor downward trend in temperature based on the extremely warm (temperature > 95F) days had seemed to be going down.
The only time I managed to get on the show to comment, I pointed out that the claim made about hurricanes increasing was simply false. They disagreed with me, even though I pointed out that NOAA and every weather organization in the country, along with the IPCC agree that hurricanes are not increasing in either number or strength.
Yet still today, both NPR and my local station persist in the claim that freedom of speech is under attack. NPR has even filed a lawsuit to combat their loss of funding based on first amendment grounds. Evidently their knowledge of freedom of speech is rather limited, as losing government funding will not prevent them from saying anything. It will, however, mean that they are no longer using my tax money to pay for propaganda.
For many years, NPR had the office of the ombudsman, whose job it was to take comments from the public on any incorrect or badly biased information that came from NPR. This office did a fairly good job, and on more than one occasion forced NPR to publish corrections. A few years ago the ombudsman was abolished. Unsurprisingly, this coincides with NPR going all in with Democratic party propaganda. The replacement of the ombudsman was the ‘NPR public editor’. It appears that the job of the public editor is cheerleader, because it has nothing to do with correcting incorrect information.
Any respectable organization would use this as a chance for deep soul-searching, to determine if just perhaps the attacks on them might have some slight justification no matter how weak. Instead, the NPR president came on the attack, as if what NPR reported was revealed truth, and their opponents were all lying. This attitude is exactly the reason they are going to lose funding. Today, they have lost the right to the title of public radio, and are more accurately called National Propaganda Radio.
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