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According to Berliner, it's gotten worse recently. Trump is no doubt part of that, but the roots of the problem go back further and haven't changed. NPR has always been dominated by progressives, from the very start. Part of their mission has always been interpreted as a progressive one.

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Journalism itself will always be dominated by folks left of center. It's the nature of the beast, especially nowadays. Conservative kids have never been drawn to journalism school in large numbers. Why would they be?

Personally, I think Berliner just wants to whine. But I don't expect anyone else to see it that way.

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Why should the nature of journalism lead to its being dominated by people left of center? Obviously there are conservative journalists in the US, just not at NPR in any substantial number.

Everyone who wants to ignore the problem at NPR will be happy to see Berliner a mere whiner.

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There are plenty of conservative journalists in the US, but percentage-wise they are far outnumbered. Conservatives are not heavily attracted to journalism; for the most part it is not a lucrative profession.

I took journalism classes in college. There probably weren't any conservative kids in the class. They were all idealists who wanted to change the world. And this was NC State, not anyone's idea of a liberal bastion...

I watch news on a variety of networks. I don't think NPR is one iota more liberal than ABC, NBC, CBS, or CNN. And it's hard for me to believe that anyone else does. The problem is that NPR is publicly funded.

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Yes, they're outnumbered, but NPR pays enough to attract them if it wants to. It hasn't prioritized diversity of that kind, even though it's probably the most important kind in bias.

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And you honestly think that ABC, CBS, and NBC have prioritized it? I just don't see it. But to be 100% truthful, I'm not really looking for it. So maybe they do.

I just think NPR gets singled out because of its funding.

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I don't know about other outlets. But they don't receive public funds. Yes, NPR has a special obligation against bias like this.

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And NPR is the least biased new source anyone can find. Except perhaps AP.

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That's highly doubtful, for reasons Berliner outlines.

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That's the nice part about Steve showing how much shit Uri is full of.

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Not even close, he misrepresented what Berliner said and then attacked the straw men.

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Because it's about truth.

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That remark shows something important about you, not anyone else. You can't see beyond your politics, mainly because you don't want to.

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*pat*

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Evidently not one to look inward!

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*pat*

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According to Berliner, Inskeep is a democrat. According to Inskeep, and actual records, he's not.

The moment i go bast the first bald lie, it becomes very very difficult to believe anything else said in an essay.

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You obviously didn’t read the article. Berliner never said there were no independents, or that 100% of the employees were democrats. He said there were 87 Democrats and 0 Republicans. That there were also independents does not make his statement false.

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Berliner also didn't say there were no republicans.

If you actually look at what he said. :)

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But it does make it extremely misleading and possibly disingenous. How many total employees were there? If there were 50 who were unaffiliated, many of them might have been pretty conservative. We don't know.

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More that shows something only about you. You're very willing to be misled by people you think you agree with, Inskeep in this case. Berliner nowhere implied Inskeep is a Dem.

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No, but he disregarded - intentionally or not - that unaffiliated voters are often pretty conservative.

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Doesn't affect the obvious point he made, that there's an overwhelming imbalance between party affiliation. That matters.

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It only matters to people who want to politicize it. Which fortunately doesn't include the millions of people who will be howling mad if anybody tries to defund NPR over this silly bullshit.

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No, it matters in reality, in causing bias, obviously. Ideological diversity matters in a newsroom for the same reasons gender and racial diversity matter.

NPR and its core audience believe in magic, that they can avoid bias due to lack of diversity.

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So what you're saying is that on a staff of 100 journalists, 80 of which are registered Democrats, it matters whether the other 20 are registered Republicans and _not_very conservative unaffiliated voters, all of whom voted straight Republican tickets in the last election. That makes no sense in a country in which the number of unaffiliated voters grows every day.

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More magical thinking. There's not the slightest reason to think your scenario is likely, and very strong reason to think it isn't.

Again, Ideological diversity matters. NPR and its defenders remain in denial of the obvious.

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