Your point about the “conservative court” is perfect. It’s so insidious that people don’t even see it for what it is. When the court was mostly liberal, it was just “the court” , not “the liberal court” to NPR and other MSM, because liberals see liberal news as “normal”. Roe v Wade was never the a political “liberal decision” - it was ju…
Your point about the “conservative court” is perfect. It’s so insidious that people don’t even see it for what it is. When the court was mostly liberal, it was just “the court” , not “the liberal court” to NPR and other MSM, because liberals see liberal news as “normal”. Roe v Wade was never the a political “liberal decision” - it was just a decision. But Dobbs is a “conservative decision”.
There are many other examples… word choices (“anti-abortion rights activists”, presuming that extreme gender ideology is the accepted norm, referring to race in stories only when the victim is a POC or the perpetrator is white, the promotion of lived experience (AKA bias, for God’s sake) in journalism), the elevation of identity over pure facts and objectivity). These choices are not objective… yet they aren’t picked up by typical NPR listeners because, to them, it’s normal. The author of this critique probably doesn’t see the logical errors of bias and subjectivity that others see, because he thinks his subjective choices are objective facts because he lives in the very bubble Mr Berliner criticizes.
Spot on observation, Butch -- no one in MSM refers to Roe v. Wade as a liberal decision. It's just "the correct decision."
And your observations about how NPR covers race tie into substantive critiques of what "woke" means -- to sacralize those considered to be "marginalized." And this is used over and over by NPR as a means of elevating certain viewpoints: type in "NPR" and "lived experience" in Google and see how often the term makes its way into its news coverage.
Not true. It has often been described as a decision by a liberal court, but it stood the test of time over many courts and so was accepted as unlikely to change.
To whatever extent it's acknowledged as a liberal decision, it's done so as a way of affirming its correctness. That it is normative, and thus deserving of credit.
When NPR describes the court as "conservative" it's not doing so in a neutral viewpoint way. It's signaling that the court's decisions are, on that basis, wrong. I've never heard NPR use "liberal court" in the same way it applies "conservative court." The former is used as shorthand for "This was the correct decision," the latter as "This was wrong and based on specious reasoning."
While it isn't a news report, Terri Gross's interview with Adam Cohen on his book "Supreme Inequality" is instructive. Cohen makes reference to the "great liberal court" and "great liberal justice," while his thesis is that the Court is "right wing" and that is, in and of itself, a problem.
He's entitled to feel that way, but NPR platforms him in a way it would never do for someone who thought a left-wing court was a problem. In her "interview," Gross challenges him on nothing. He's on precisely because NPR as an institution agrees with him. That's a problem with an organization that aspires to be a prestige news outlet. It would be fine if we occasionally got a different POV. But that never happens.
It's telling that NPR used to use the terms "pro-life" and "pro-choice," because those were the labels preferred by each side. That was in keeping with the general policy of using preferred labels. There were endless complaints from NPR listeners about "pro-life" as a label, though not about the equally problematic "pro-choice. (This was back when NPR allowed comments on its content.)
Then the NPR Ombudsman led a move to change that to the current clearly biased language, partly because she (incredibly) couldn't find anyone at NPR who could explain why the former policy was in place. Evidently no one at NPR could see a problem with treating the right to abortion as the issue, not the right to life.
Your point about the “conservative court” is perfect. It’s so insidious that people don’t even see it for what it is. When the court was mostly liberal, it was just “the court” , not “the liberal court” to NPR and other MSM, because liberals see liberal news as “normal”. Roe v Wade was never the a political “liberal decision” - it was just a decision. But Dobbs is a “conservative decision”.
There are many other examples… word choices (“anti-abortion rights activists”, presuming that extreme gender ideology is the accepted norm, referring to race in stories only when the victim is a POC or the perpetrator is white, the promotion of lived experience (AKA bias, for God’s sake) in journalism), the elevation of identity over pure facts and objectivity). These choices are not objective… yet they aren’t picked up by typical NPR listeners because, to them, it’s normal. The author of this critique probably doesn’t see the logical errors of bias and subjectivity that others see, because he thinks his subjective choices are objective facts because he lives in the very bubble Mr Berliner criticizes.
It was a long time ago that the court could be described as liberal, and it was indeed described that way at the time.
Spot on observation, Butch -- no one in MSM refers to Roe v. Wade as a liberal decision. It's just "the correct decision."
And your observations about how NPR covers race tie into substantive critiques of what "woke" means -- to sacralize those considered to be "marginalized." And this is used over and over by NPR as a means of elevating certain viewpoints: type in "NPR" and "lived experience" in Google and see how often the term makes its way into its news coverage.
Not true. It has often been described as a decision by a liberal court, but it stood the test of time over many courts and so was accepted as unlikely to change.
To whatever extent it's acknowledged as a liberal decision, it's done so as a way of affirming its correctness. That it is normative, and thus deserving of credit.
When NPR describes the court as "conservative" it's not doing so in a neutral viewpoint way. It's signaling that the court's decisions are, on that basis, wrong. I've never heard NPR use "liberal court" in the same way it applies "conservative court." The former is used as shorthand for "This was the correct decision," the latter as "This was wrong and based on specious reasoning."
While it isn't a news report, Terri Gross's interview with Adam Cohen on his book "Supreme Inequality" is instructive. Cohen makes reference to the "great liberal court" and "great liberal justice," while his thesis is that the Court is "right wing" and that is, in and of itself, a problem.
He's entitled to feel that way, but NPR platforms him in a way it would never do for someone who thought a left-wing court was a problem. In her "interview," Gross challenges him on nothing. He's on precisely because NPR as an institution agrees with him. That's a problem with an organization that aspires to be a prestige news outlet. It would be fine if we occasionally got a different POV. But that never happens.
It's telling that NPR used to use the terms "pro-life" and "pro-choice," because those were the labels preferred by each side. That was in keeping with the general policy of using preferred labels. There were endless complaints from NPR listeners about "pro-life" as a label, though not about the equally problematic "pro-choice. (This was back when NPR allowed comments on its content.)
Then the NPR Ombudsman led a move to change that to the current clearly biased language, partly because she (incredibly) couldn't find anyone at NPR who could explain why the former policy was in place. Evidently no one at NPR could see a problem with treating the right to abortion as the issue, not the right to life.