Liberal Talk Radio Disappears From NY, LA, SF

[_richardMdBorn]

I'm sure you loved it when the retards at Obama's campaign tried twice to shut down "Extension 720" on WGN in 2008. Shut down your opposition and not allow them to speak; that's the liberal way.

All they did was encourage Obama supporters to protest the airing of epic Right Wing liar David Freddoso who was at the time publishing a hit piece including all the juicy FOX News narratives that have since been refuted. This is something we see all the time when hate-mongering fools are given a pedestal to spout their BS. Of course, if you're a supporter of hate-mongering fools, then I can understand why you'd be upset with this.

Shutting down the opposition? He wasn't the "opposition." He was just some hired hack pretending to be a journalist, much like all the idiots operating in the Right Wing propaganda machine. The people spoke and the station responded accordingly.

According to Freddoso, this was Obama's "Timeline of a Political Life:"

"Aug. 4, 1961 -- Obama born in Hawaii.
Feb. 16, 1970 -- Weatherman terrorist bombing in San Francisco kills one.
Mar. 6, 1970 -- Unsuccessful Weatherman bombing in Detroit.
Jun. 12, 1972 -- Saul Alinsky dies.
Oct. 18, 1974 -- Larry Grothwahl testifies before a Senate subcommittee on William Ayres's involvement in bomb plots. . . . " (p. 237)

Obama was nine years old at the time, but Freddoso felt this was an important bullet point for Obama's "political" timeline! The Obama campaign knew what his book was going to lie about because citations had been released early, and refuted several times.

If it were the "liberal way" to shut down opposition then how do you explain the fact that Right Wing media hardly ever allows the opposition to get a word in (NEVER on radio), on the rare occasion that they're invited on their shows? While most have a balance between Right and Left, FOX generally has only Republicans, and typically Republican politicians (current and former) running their shows.

No, they tried to shut down Extension 720. You are aware that there are other media outlets. How unbiased in MSNBC? The Obama campaign was offered the opportunity to have a representative on the show with Stanley Kurtz. Instead, they tried to shut down the program (I've heard the recording). The host, a long-time prof at U of C, said that he had never experienced anything like that in more than 30 years of doing the show. Kurtz did the unforgivable for Obama fans; he was investigating Obama's background and later proved that Obama was lying about membership in the New Party.

[_richardMdBorn]

One of my wife's less pleasant tasks at WBEZ was fundraising for "This American Life". One day the host said that she was not listening to his program. She told Ira that she could do a much better job of fundraising for the program when she didn't listen to it. That caused Ira to hit the roof.

I used to listen to NPR on my commute to work. In 1987, they dropped al Thomas, their sole conservative who appeared regularly on "All Things Considered". Over the next couple of years they became even more slanted to the left and I gradually stopped listening to it.

[_EAllusion]

The idea of Ira Glass "hitting the roof" tickles me.

[_Kevin Graham]

We've pretty much shown that NPR isn't the Left wing hub as you and your wife have tried to portray. Your problem is obviously the fact that your ideology is embedded in such fringe rhetoric that comes so far from the right that anything around the center (such as NPR) comes across to you as "leftist." So basic coverage of well established scientific facts such as climate change is evidence to you that something is leftist with a hidden agenda. A failure to cover the Right Wing blogosphere's latest hit piece conspiracy theory is just more evidence for you that it is in Obama's back pocket. There is nothing rational about your approach to these matters.

Kurtz was bitching because no one would report on his amazing "discovery," which tells you just how fringe his claims are if even FOX news thinks it is too far to the right to report on. That you've succumbed to the anti-intellectual Right that thrives in innuendo, fear mongering and conspiracy theory and pisses on the actual facts, pretty much makes your opinion about as relevant as Brietbart's. I mean you're still living in 2008 trying to make these tenuous accusations stick, and you're spinning the facts to suit your anti-Obama fear-mongering campaign. The guy's second term is half way over and you're still howling at the moon about how "Socialist" he is, ignoring all the facts to the contrary. The founder of the short-lived and now defunct "New Party" said Obama wasn't a member and that the organization was so small and inconsequential that technically they didn't even have "members" back then. And for icing on the cake, the leader of the Socialist party in America said Obama would be a horrible socialist given his proposed legislation and policies. But none of these facts matter to those who care only about feeding a certain narrative. So what really matters to you is whatever non-story your Right Wing hatchet man of the week can formulate just to scare more voters. But guess what? The elections are over. You lost. Your campaign of disinformation lost. Get over it.

[_richardMdBorn]

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704050204576218543378702266
Liberal Bias at NPR?
Surveys show that millions of conservatives choose NPR, even with powerful conservative alternatives on the radio…
With those values in mind, let's consider the fundamental question: the accusation of "liberal bias" at NPR, which drives many critics calling to eliminate its federal funding. It's not my job as a reporter to address the funding question. But I can point out that the recent tempests over "perceived bias" have nothing to do with what NPR puts on the air.
The facts show that NPR attracts a politically diverse audience of 33.7 million weekly listeners to its member stations on-air. In surveys by GfK MRI, most listeners consistently identify themselves as "middle of the road" or "conservative." Millions of conservatives choose NPR, even with powerful conservative alternatives on the radio.

This is blather. Polls generally show that 20%-25% of Americans self- identify as liberal. The statistic that he cites merely means that less than 50% of NPR’s listeners are liberal. Thus, NPR’s listenership is not more than twice as liberal as the general population. Wow, that powerful evidence that NPR is not biased. Let’s see what a long time CBS reporter who has written at length about bias writes about NPR.

Bernard Goldberg
No Liberal Bias at NPR — Just Ask NPR

Posted: March 14, 2011

Ask most conservatives and they’ll tell you that NPR is a hopelessly left-wing news organization filled with liberal biases. Ask most liberals and they’ll tell you it’s a down the middle, mainstsream news outlet. Instead of getting into that debate, let’s get into another, more nuanced one. So, consider this statement made by the co-host of NPR’sOn the Media:
“If you were to somehow poll the political orientation of everybody in the NPR news organization and all of the member stations, you would find an overwhelmingly progressive, liberal crowd.”

Those are the words of Bob Garfield in the aftermath of the conservative “citizen journalist” sting against NPR, which caught on camera a now former fund raising executive smearing the entire Tea Party movement as racist and stupid.
Mr. Garfield was not saying NPR has a liberal bias, just that it’s journalists are “overwhelmingly” liberal. That is a great big problem all by itself. But more on that in a moment. Garfield’s guest, a liberal named Ira Glass, who is host of the NPR show “This American Life” predictably said, NPR is a mainstream news operation and has no liberal bias. End of discussion!
But let’s look it this way: Let’s say, if you were to somehow poll the political orientation of everybody in the NPR news organization and all of the member stations, let’s say you’d find an overwhelmingly conservative, right-wing crowd — does anyone at NPR think that would be just fine; that such one-sidedness wouldn’t present journalistic problems; that such a news organization would present the news without filtering it through a conservative lens?

I don’t.

But somehow liberals at NPR think that it doesn’t matter if just about everybody in the newsroom is liberal. After all, the argument goes, they’re professionals. They can keep their biases to themselves. To which I have just two words: Juan. Williams.
In the “overwhelmingly” liberal bubble that is NPR, executives were appalled at Juan Williams comment to Bill O’Reilly that ““When I get on a plane . . . if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they’re identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried, I get nervous.”

This was so bigoted, in their view, that they had to fire Mr. Williams. In a statement explaining why they did it, NPR said: Williams’ words “were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.”
But these same sensitive liberal souls let Nina Totenberg, NPR’s Legal Affairs correspondent, go on a Sunday talk show each week and spout all sorts of liberal nonsense. Who could forget her shot at then Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, a comment for which she later apologized. If there was “retributive justice,” in the world, Ms. Totenberg said, Jesse Helms would “get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will get it.”

Inside the liberal bubble Juan Williams is a bigot. Nina Totenberg isn’t.

That’s one of the many reasons it matters if a newsroom is “overwhelmingly” liberal – or conservative.

Another has to do with what a news organization chooses not to put on the air. It’s about what it doesn’t deem important or interesting enough to share with its audience. Not all bias can be detected by what actually survives the gauntlet and sees the light of day. I speak from first hand knowledge.

In December 2001, my first book came out. It was called Bias and it was about liberal bias in the so-called mainstream media. Terry Gross, who hosts a daily interview program on NPR called Fresh Air, showed no interest in having me on – despite the fact that Bias was number one on the holy grail of liberal booklists, the New York Times best seller list. And that’s perfectly fine. I have no right to be on any program. Terry Gross can pick and choose her guests as she sees fit.

But not long after the book came out she had a liberal professor on her show criticizing it. She never gave me a chance to defend my work. And then a full year after Bias came out, I got a call from NPR telling me that Terry Gross wanted me on Fresh Air. Why now, so long after my book came out? Because a liberal had just published a book condemning Bias, that’s why.
So I was of no interest to Terry Gross until I was in the liberal cross hairs.

I may have no right to be on her show, but she has no right to pretend she’s not part of NPR’s “overwhelmingly” liberal crowd, and one who has a very deep-seated liberal bias.

As for the current debate, about whether federal government money should go to NPR: I’m against it. And not because of liberal bias. If public broadcasting is as good as we’re constantly being told by its adoring and loyal supporters in places like Manhattan and Malibu, then it ought to be good enough to survive on its own, without taxpayer money, no matter how small.
In a 21st century media universe with thousands of radio and television outlets, NPR (and PBS) should find its niche in the marketplace. If it does, that’s fine with me. If it doesn’t, well, somehow I suspect we’ll all survive.

http://www.bernardgoldberg.com/no-liber ... t-ask-npr/

[_Brackite]

I listen to a lot of "talk radio", and my all-time favorite host is liberal (Marc Germain a.k.a. "Mr. KABC" in Los Angeles). Sadly, he's online-only now. I used to record his show at night and listen to it on my commute, and so I have hundreds of hours on my computer, and there are some days when listening to a 10 year old Mr. KABC show is better than what's on the radio.

I do like Dennis Prager and Michael Medved. Even in the areas where I don't agree with them, I find them to be extremely thoughtful, knowledgeable and eloquent.

I've never regularly listened to any of the hosts further to the right (Beck, Limbaugh, Levine, Hannity etc.) because I find the crap:gold ratio to be too high. I had the same problems with the liberal hosts that were tried out in LA. We used to have a liberal host named "Michael Jackson" about 10 years ago, and he was very good too.

What about KFI AM 640??? Don't you ever listen to KFI cinepro??? Speaking of KFI, Rush Limbaugh is no longer on KFI.

[_moksha]

According to Freddoso, this was Obama's "Timeline of a Political Life:"

"Aug. 4, 1961 -- Obama born in Hawaii.
Feb. 16, 1970 -- Weatherman terrorist bombing in San Francisco kills one.
Mar. 6, 1970 -- Unsuccessful Weatherman bombing in Detroit.
Jun. 12, 1972 -- Saul Alinsky dies.
Oct. 18, 1974 -- Larry Grothwahl testifies before a Senate subcommittee on William Ayres's involvement in bomb plots. . . . " (p. 237)

Obama was nine years old at the time, but Freddoso felt this was an important bullet point for Obama's "political" timeline!

This timeline is so incomplete. There is no mention of Alger Hiss, Whitaker Chambers or the release of 1959 Ford Edsel.

[_cinepro]

What about KFI AM 640??? Don't you ever listen to KFI cinepro??? Speaking of KFI, Rush Limbaugh is no longer on KFI.

If I listen to talk radio in the morning or afternoon, it's Bill Handel and John and Ken. But now that Bill Handel overlaps with Dennis Prager, my schedule is all screwed up.

[_Brackite]

What about KFI AM 640??? Don't you ever listen to KFI cinepro??? Speaking of KFI, Rush Limbaugh is no longer on KFI.

If I listen to talk radio in the morning or afternoon, it's Bill Handel and John and Ken. But now that Bill Handel overlaps with Dennis Prager, my schedule is all screwed up.

Awe, I am sorry to hear this cinepro.

[_richardMdBorn]

We've pretty much shown that NPR isn't the Left wing hub as you and your wife have tried to portray.

You proved no such thing. Your quote was an NPR puff piece which talked a lot about quality and very little about bias. If that's the best you can do your argument is pretty weak.