NPR (Nice Polite Republicans?) Planet Money Reporter Attacks Elizabeth Warren During Interview And Gets It All Wrong
By Susie Madrak Friday May 15, 2009 4:00pmI listened to this Planet Money interview yesterday and it wasn't even close. Elizabeth Warren, a class act in every sense, totally destroyed the host's argument that concerning herself with the economic health of the American family was somehow her liberal "pet cause" and outside her bailiwick as TARP oversight chair. Not that it made any difference in his evident scorn!
NPR may have some nice little essays, but the only time their hosts show anything resembling teeth is when they attack... people who attack corporate interests! From the Columbia Journalism Review's "So That's Why The Press Won't Cover Elizabeth Warren!" by Ryan Chittum:
A couple of times in the last few months I’ve taken the press to task for ignoring the Congressional Oversight Panel and its report on the TARP. I’ve talked to reporters in the biz since and got the impression that many of them don’t really take it seriously because its chairwoman Elizabeth Warren is a liberal who, they say, pushes her agenda.
So it’s worth listening to this entire Planet Money podcast from NPR, where Adam Davidson badgers Warren for more than an hour to justify her existence, so to speak.
If you want a peek inside business-press mentality, and why certain stories get reported and others don’t, you can do worse than start here. It sees Warren as an outlier whose views, based on decades of research, are suspicious. It would never, ever have badgered a former bank exec, say, like this if one had been chairman of the panel. Davidson, like the reporters I referenced above, has been talking to too many bankers and insiders who sneer at someone not inside their bubble. Perhaps he’s trying to prove his objective journalist bona fides at “liberal” NPR by taking it to a liberal.
Warren isn’t legitimate in the eyes of the press, so it just pretty much ignores her—even though she and her co-panelists were selected by Congress to oversee whether the Treasury is spending the $700 billion we gave it in a way that’s best for the economy.
This interview is really cringeworthy stuff from Davidson, who comes out looking pretty bad (which makes it all the more admirable that NPR runs the entire tape). Warren takes this fight going away.
Really, go read the whole thing - and if you have the time, listen to the podcast. The comments are also smart, and this one summed it up nicely:
Adam Davidson essentially admits his own insider-oriented, in-the-bubble reporting style. His comments reflect not so much on Elizabeth Warren but on the breadth and depth of his own Rolodex.
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Reslugs are happy just to pass the 6th grade, so what can America expect from these uneducated lowlives??
Davidson was rude and constantly talking about himself. Dismissing or cutting off Ms. Warren to speak about himself and his opinions. In effect derailing her constantly. My wife and I took heart in her words. I would like Elizabeth Warren to have more power. She seems to know, empathize even (yeah I said it)with me, the common man with uncommon debt because I just want to live.
Not only is she thoughtful and smart, she's about the most adorably cute public figure I've seen in a long time.
Good thing we have a liberal media in this country to protect us against the corporate interests.
What would we do without democrats like Ben Nelson to look out for the public good, and not let the corporate elite run rufshod over the people.
If you've listened to Davidson in the past year, you'll know he just goes along with the Jim Cramers of the world. He's been wrong about just about everything. So sad for NPR...
Cramer's an idjit, and so's Davidson . . . they abuse econ reporting to the max.
Liars, for the short nekked's they buy and sell . . . both of them.
Ruined many of a good business with their 'hot tips' . . .
And destroyed this country in the process, as much as BushCo did.
Harumph.
Everybody in media has a bias on some given issue. To post about this while consistently giving people like Maddow and Olbermann a pass as they do the same exact thing from the liberal side of the fence is rich hypocrisy.
Frankly, sometimes the best interviews take place when a question with real teeth is asked. But then the reporter must allow time for an adequate response. Sounds like the good response was given, so it was a good interview.
Being a liberal doesn't mean you have to put your hands over your ears and yell, "lalalalalala" all the time. Unless it's C&L I guess.
:(
What you are missing, is the fact that Olbermann and Maddow are actually right just about all of the time. While the neocons are always proven to be wrong!
Facts and opinions are two different things.
Thats why the corporate media interests keep pushing these buffoons on the public. Even though their track record indicates they are less reliable than the weatherman. Why? Because they know most people are ignorant of whats going on in the world. Thus, they can get away with their panel of Orwellean idiots debating people who actually make sense and know what they are talking about - and present it as though it were a logical, intelligent debate.
"Saw it on Fox news, so it must be true."
How's that feel, Carl, to be losing election after erection?
Just sayin . . . seems yer thought train is goin limp.
Dick, Limp. Ya know?
Blue pills are NOT gonna solve what's wrong with you and yer kine. *G*
It was during Gulf Oil War I that I realized that the villager wannabe's at NPR were all wrong. I stopped contributing then, and if they go under, I won't miss them. Seems like many of them are working for Faux now anyway.
Be careful of NPR--especially Mara Liasson, who is a blatant GOP shill. Sometimes they come up with interesting stuff---and then they are little more than lame ass corporatist shills promoting the GOP line. I have called them out more than several times on their propaganda.
is another one, but I like the ones above better.
I'll never forget, right after Bush was installed in office, and emotions were still very raw on the left, a caller in to some NPR show saying "George Bush is not my President" and the NPR host jumped on it by asking her panel "now how do we get beyond such divisiveness?"
Classic NPR. I listen to some shows while driving, but until they stop being corporate shills I refuse to give in to their funding bs, they can hit up Exxon/Mobil, ADM, etc. for more cash since they so eagerly support their agendas.
Let us hope that Elizabeth Warren stays at her post.
The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class, 58 minutes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A
The comming collapse? When was this made - 2004?
NPR stopped doing investigative journalism years ago when they decided to whore themselves out to the multi-national corporations. Does anyone remember them busting Archer-Daniels-Midland for price-fixing all those many years ago? Anyone notice that ADM is now a corporate sponsor? Corporate sponsorship keeps them docile and corporate-friendly.
I find myself relying on their "reporting" less and less as they become yet another corporate media operation and practice less journalism.
Now they have Republican activist Cokie Roberts spouting right wing talking points, and Fox News personality Juan Williams calling Michelle Obama names. More and more often I hear NPR "journalists" using false equivalencies. Their "journalism" when it comes to politics keeps getting sloppier and sloppier by the year. I find it harder and harder to differentiate NPR's and CNN's political reporting.
Before, it was night and day.
BTW, why am I still a member of public radio again?
Programs like Car Talk, Thistle and Shamrock, This American Life, Performance Today, and Prairie Home Companion are actually worth listening to. We can't define NPR solely by Morning Edition or All Things Considered.
but the news is straight-up propaganda. If you consider what their alleged journalism is today versus pre-Raygun days, there's no comparison. At this point, I wouldn't trust NPR if it reported that the sky is usually blue.
Big E, I worked for an NPR affiliate as a student asst., on the air, for 6 years . . . '78-84'
I had access to all the inside info via teletype, UPI, AP, and more, and thought I was the bee's knee's.
And this was in the Bay Area, liberal city to the max.
When Reagan dereged media ownership, dereged Fair Time Doctrine, it was the beginning of the end.
From NPR, came CPB . . . and the consolidation of NPR, and the diminishing of funds to all affiliates and the channeling of fed money into a few NPR powerhouses who played the Reagan Game.
By the time Clinton came along, and really fucked ownership regs for media, it was already over for NPR.
They went bad long, long ago. It was the mid 80's. They sold out, as you said. And have been putrid since.
Thanks for a memory lane hit . . . I keep forgetting I was there, then . . . *G* Albeit at a small affiliate.
I've listened to Planet Money many times. I haven't heard this particular show yet, and I will, but it's completely inaccurate to say they only have corporate interests in mind. From the shows I've heard, they try and paint a 360 perspective -- sometimes it is a little more right, sometimes a little more left. Perhaps they did overcompensate in this interview with Warren. I like her a lot and I'll definitely listen to this show. But it's also possible that they pushed her more on other perspectives than interviewers typically do. Are they just supposed to agree with her opinions and move on?
I'm not saying this show was a good one (since I haven't seen it), but their programs, in general, are excellent and absolutely more progressive than average. If we are so determined for journalists to adhere to our strict perspective of "right" and "wrong" on these very gray issues, we're going to be left out of the discussion more times than not.
What hour-long badgering is the writer referring to?
I would not wast a dime or minute of my time on those Prostitutes.
NPR had a radical neocon or neocon sympathizer on the other day and I didn't hear the host challenge him or even question him on his war BS on "needing to bomb Iran". I've lost trust in this once, long ago, liberal media source. The best liberal media are The Nation, Guardian, C&L, Daily Kos, Democracy Now and the other liberal blogs. If I want to go even further left I'll read Common Dreams. Some suggestions for us frustrated by corporate media and its relentless spin for the elite rich and their one party, two faced capitalist system of greed, war, and exploitation.
Jebus, the podcast is pure Rovian spin from the NPR crew . . . .
Adam Davidson proves himself to be a scribe for the dark side.
And he's just wrong . . . and he's NOTHING as he tries to represent himself.
What a fraud . . . Liz Warren cleaned his clock . . . and he's STILL ticking off time.
Putz.
from the podcast-- unedited fullness:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2009/05/the_fu...
W
I've been calling them that since they named Wan(sic) Williams host of TOTN. Now that hack is the first person the liberal Scott Simon interviews every Saturday morning.
Two weeks ago I was treated to an hour of Grover Norquist unchallenged and unfiltered on "On Point" followed by 40 minutes of the Doughy Pantload spouting repuke talking points to Neil Cohnen. When was the last time you heard the head of the UAW or SEIU or ACORN given that kind of access to public radio?
You're too gracious. Try Neocon Propaganda Radio.
They invariably pimp for the neocon/ultraconservative point of view and use neocon or conservative/libertarian think tank talking heads to lend a veneer of supossed legitimacy to the line of BS they are pushing. Whenever they make a feeble attempt to cover the whole story, it invariably covers all the GOPer talking points and selectively omits crucial facts. In such cases I find myself asking, "what about this?", and, "what about that?", and, "why did you omit these facts?", type of questions.
NPR is as bad as FOX, probably worse, because they are more adept at their manipulations and lies: they make their lying more credible by throwing in bits of truth here and there. Their propaganda is usually more carefully crafted that that of the rest of the MSM, and they can still exploit the residual vestages of trust they still command from the days when they used to do legitimate journalism.
I've stopped donating to public radio, because can't see paying to be lied at.
I think it's prolly naive to think that BushCo/neocon plants haven't made their way into NPR like they've done into every other branch of the government.
Still, it does make you long for the good old days when NPR was a solid bastion of "liberal" reporting and those damn kids stayed off my lawn.
Let us not forget,
Who made the taxpayers believe, that our current banking system was going to bust, and going down?
Do you remember Treasury secretary Henry Paulson?
He was former Chairman
and
Chief-Executive
Officer
of Goldman Sachs...
just keep that in mind, whenever someone mentions the bailout, and our current situation also..
they (Paulson and Bush) came out with the banking bailout just 2 days after Lehman Brothers went "belly up".
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