I have to say I find NPR’s thesis rather asinine. Mara Liasson is presumably an objective journalists by their standards, considering that they hired her and have continued to employ her for years. And to make it even more ridiculous, she has been part of Fox News since 1997. But on their view, Fox News having Mara appear on their show to offer her objective opinion in a panel along with others somehow enables Fox News’ “bias.” All of a sudden, and out of the blue. And strangely timed to synchronize with the White House attack on Fox News (not to mention the 1st Amendment).
NPR reporter pressured over Fox role
By: Josh Gerstein
December 6, 2009 10:36 PM ESTExecutives at National Public Radio recently asked the network’s top political correspondent, Mara Liasson, to reconsider her regular appearances on Fox News because of what they perceived as the network’s political bias, two sources familiar with the effort said.
According to a source, Liasson was summoned in early October by NPR’s executive editor for news, Dick Meyer, and the network’s supervising senior Washington editor, Ron Elving. The NPR executives said they had concerns that Fox’s programming had grown more partisan, and they asked Liasson to spend 30 days watching the network.
At a follow-up meeting last month, Liasson reported that she’d seen no significant change in Fox’s programming and planned to continue appearing on the network, the source said.
NPR’s focus on Liasson’s work as a commentator on Fox’s “Special Report” and “Fox News Sunday” came at about the same time as a White House campaign launched in September to delegitimize the network by painting it as an extension of the Republican Party.
One source said the White House’s criticism of Fox was raised during the discussions with Liasson. However, an NPR spokeswoman told POLITICO that the Obama administration’s attempts to discourage other news outlets from treating Fox as a peer had no impact on any internal discussions at NPR.
Fox News has Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity on their station, it is true. But unlike Bill Moyers and his ilk, neither of them present themselves as “journalists.” They offer their opinion on opinion programming. The clear distinction between “news” and “opinion” becomes another yet another IQ test that liberals simply can’t pass.
To the best of my knowledge, Mara Liasson has never ONCE appeared on either Glenn Beck’s or Sean Hannity’s programs. She has appeared on Fox News Special Report with Brett Baier and with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. Unlike the Kool-aid-drinking mainstream media, Mara has been smart enough to understand the difference between news and op-ed, and she has remained on the news side.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media’s malicious and dishonest smearing of conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh was apparently NOT “biased.” CNN’s “fact checking” of an SNL sketch critical of Obama (while hypocritically ignoring months of unrelenting SNL sketch attacks against Sarah Palin) was NOT “biased.” The mainstream medias’ frequent “reporting” about conservatives “organizing” while simultaneously ignoring PAID liberal activists’ organizing was NOT “biased.”
Take a gander at MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann’s bias (see HERE and HERE) and then recognize that he is immediately followed by Rachel Maddow (see here and here), who is nearly as bad. There’s your Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity on steroids.
The mainstream media seem to love bias and propaganda, just as long as it is LIBERAL bias and propaganda. And anything LESS THAN liberal bias and propaganda sends them into a hissy fit of galactic proportions.
The NPR people have been trying to force Mara Liasson off of Fox at the same exact time that Obama demonstrates his naked contempt for a free press in his attacks against Fox News – even acknowledging that they used the White House attack to attack Liasson – and then display their chutzpah by asserting that the two events had absolutely nothing to do with each other.
I was holding the smoking gun when they found me standing over the body. But the two events have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
The Obama administration has literally been fascist in its attempt to attack any news outlet that refuses to unquestioningly advance its propaganda. And the mainstream media have been pathologically tilted to the political left (as Bernie Goldberg details in his book, A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media), but insanely continue to focus on the splinter in Fox News’ eye while ignoring the gigantic log in their own.
You can go back a few years ago and find NPR executives actually admitting they had a liberal bias.
The NPR ombudsman responded to a Pew study that challenged the liberal bias of the mainstream media by saying this:
There is much that can be pointed to as examples of inherent bias in the media — including NPR.
The media — as a class — tends to be remarkably homogeneous. As an NPR editor pointed out to me recently, “How many of our journalists have ever operated a business?” The poll indirectly points to the need for more diversity in our newsrooms — both intellectual and cultural. […]
This poll may have been done correctly, but in this one aspect — questioning the professionalism of journalists — the result will be a disservice to American journalists and journalism. In order to avoid the “liberal bias” accusation, some journalists might feel there is safety in pack journalism and that is likely to have a chilling effect on tough, independent journalism.
The media and its management have an obligation to maintain a skeptical and adversarial role to whatever party is in power. This poll could discourage that by implying that journalists will always let their personal politics trump their professional obligations.
Keep in mind that for much of the 2008 election campaign, and for most of Obama’s presidency, Fox News was basically the ONLY “adversarial” voice. Fox News has in fact stood alone in avoiding the “pack journalism” that the rest of the mainstream media has pursued. Which is to say, Fox News has actually done exactly those things that the NPR ombudsman argued that the media had to do.
Nevertheless, in spite of that admission, NPR has continued in its bias.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well I just want to say, I love NPR and I listen to NPR, but I’ve been listening to reformed, pot-smoking hippies for the past thirty years on NPR with a very substantial left-wing bias – and I don’t care that they eat tree bark like Euell Gibbons, and I don’t care if they are still smoking pot in their sixties. They put on great radio. But for NPR – for NPR, the leadership at NPR to question the bias of Fox News is a joke. They have been biased – again, I still listen to them, because like “The New York Times” they are the best at what they do. But, please, that is a laugh. NPR –
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: It’s very soothing listening, too.
SCARBOROUGH: It is soothing, it is very soothing. Just put a mirror to your face, NPR.
Instead of pressuring Mara Liasson to leave Fox – which only reveals your own liberal bias – why don’t you take Joe Scarborough’s advice and put a mirror to your own face instead, NPR?
A few other articles that very relate to the current White House attempt to attack and undermine Fox News and a free press:
More Self-Referentially Absurd Claims Of Fox News Bias
White House Ignores War In Afghanistan To Purse New War On Fox News
Anti-Free-Press Obama Demagogue Anita Dunn A Self-Admitted Marxist
Tags: bias, Brett Baier, Chris Wallace, fact checking, Fox News, Glenn Beck, ideological, Joe Scarborough, Keith Olbermann, liberal, Mara Liasson, MSNBC, NPR, Obama, ombudsman, pressured, Rachel Maddow, racist, Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, smearing, SNL, White House
Start Thinking Right 
December 8, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Fox News should be prosecuted for terrorism
December 9, 2009 at 8:06 am
Of course, if you got your own “should be,” you’d be prosecuted for pretending you were sane.