Has NPR lost America’s trust?

[Anonymous]

We go through this every.single.time. this dumb thread gets recycled. I’ll take the time to list out the wide list of stores/perspectives shared over any random day. Then the complainers slink away for several months, only to reappear later with the same fake complaints.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Consider this viewpoint from a man who worked at NPR for 25 years:

https://www.allsides.com/news/2024-04-09-0723/media-bias-i-ve-been-npr-25-years-here-s-how-we-lost-america-s-trust

Do you agree with Uri Berliner’s view? Or is he wrong?

Link says doesn’t work. What did it say?

[Anonymous]

https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry 50% of this country reads Trump's words on Truth Social and takes them as gospel.

Here are his recent ramblings:

Well Trump on Truth Social just said

"The great OJ Simpson used to play football with me. Not many people know that because I don't like to boast. He could never outrun me though. Have you ever seen blisters on my feet? No blisters. He used to say "Sir you are a great runner probably the best there has ever been. Also thank you sir for playing with a black man."

So spare me NPR outrage.

We have way bigger problems.

No way!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry 50% of this country reads Trump's words on Truth Social and takes them as gospel.

Here are his recent ramblings:

Well Trump on Truth Social just said

"The great OJ Simpson used to play football with me. Not many people know that because I don't like to boast. He could never outrun me though. Have you ever seen blisters on my feet? No blisters. He used to say "Sir you are a great runner probably the best there has ever been. Also thank you sir for playing with a black man."

So spare me NPR outrage.

We have way bigger problems.

Sigh. Agreed, but NPR and the lefties (I'm historically one of them, but losing my patience) need to stop benchmarking themselves against Donald Trump. Yes, he sucks, but if your platform is that you suck less, you're better off in a world with Donald Trump where you can at least get graded on a curve. It is a problem that NPR is losing trust, and it is a problem that they are becoming a left-leaning monolith. The same goes for the Democratic party. Yeah, we don't suck as much as the Republicans, but that's not saying much.

[Anonymous]

Totally agree PP!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry 50% of this country reads Trump's words on Truth Social and takes them as gospel.

Here are his recent ramblings:

Well Trump on Truth Social just said

"The great OJ Simpson used to play football with me. Not many people know that because I don't like to boast. He could never outrun me though. Have you ever seen blisters on my feet? No blisters. He used to say "Sir you are a great runner probably the best there has ever been. Also thank you sir for playing with a black man."

So spare me NPR outrage.

We have way bigger problems.

Sigh. Agreed, but NPR and the lefties (I'm historically one of them, but losing my patience) need to stop benchmarking themselves against Donald Trump. Yes, he sucks, but if your platform is that you suck less, you're better off in a world with Donald Trump where you can at least get graded on a curve. It is a problem that NPR is losing trust, and it is a problem that they are becoming a left-leaning monolith. The same goes for the Democratic party. Yeah, we don't suck as much as the Republicans, but that's not saying much.

+1 well said

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They haven’t lost my trust, it’s just unlistenable. It sucks because I used to love it and i think it provided the rare center-left, balanced, America-wide set of viewpoints. That’s gone now, and to the point of all PPs, people have moved to podcasts which largely support their priors. It was a huge disservice to Americans for NPR to abandon its mission for the sake of its staffers’ fragile political egos. I hope they can go through some creative destruction to get back to value but I doubt it’s possible at this point.

Completely agree with all of this, especially the bolded.

To produce something “unlistenable” to your own demographic! Now that’s a failure. When your own people, your own long time listeners can’t bear to listen to another second, there’s a problem.

NPR used to be so folksy and unbiased and economy oriented- every day people oriented and now EVERY story is through the prism of “identity.”

Even Democrats don’t want to hear that!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry 50% of this country reads Trump's words on Truth Social and takes them as gospel.

Here are his recent ramblings:

Well Trump on Truth Social just said

"The great OJ Simpson used to play football with me. Not many people know that because I don't like to boast. He could never outrun me though. Have you ever seen blisters on my feet? No blisters. He used to say "Sir you are a great runner probably the best there has ever been. Also thank you sir for playing with a black man."

So spare me NPR outrage.

We have way bigger problems.

Sigh. Agreed, but NPR and the lefties (I'm historically one of them, but losing my patience) need to stop benchmarking themselves against Donald Trump. Yes, he sucks, but if your platform is that you suck less, you're better off in a world with Donald Trump where you can at least get graded on a curve. It is a problem that NPR is losing trust, and it is a problem that they are becoming a left-leaning monolith. The same goes for the Democratic party. Yeah, we don't suck as much as the Republicans, but that's not saying much.

Oh please no "lefty" uses the term "lefties".

No "lefty" would right what you did.

There is no both sides to this.

Trump and the Republicans party daily lies are huge compared to NPR. Full stop.

Today the Speaker of the House and Trump spewed utter garbage and idiot Repukes ate it up.

We had no election interference except for Republcians voting for dead people. And as for illegals voting in Federal that shit has been a law for years.

Again spare all of us your utter crap there is not two sides.

Either you are an American or you stand with Putin and the lying GOP UnAmerican to the core.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They haven’t lost my trust, it’s just unlistenable. It sucks because I used to love it and i think it provided the rare center-left, balanced, America-wide set of viewpoints. That’s gone now, and to the point of all PPs, people have moved to podcasts which largely support their priors. It was a huge disservice to Americans for NPR to abandon its mission for the sake of its staffers’ fragile political egos. I hope they can go through some creative destruction to get back to value but I doubt it’s possible at this point.

Completely agree with all of this, especially the bolded.

To produce something “unlistenable” to your own demographic! Now that’s a failure. When your own people, your own long time listeners can’t bear to listen to another second, there’s a problem.

NPR used to be so folksy and unbiased and economy oriented- every day people oriented and now EVERY story is through the prism of “identity.”

Even Democrats don’t want to hear that!

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Older Gen X here. I was a loyal listener in my 20s and 30s until I had kids and couldn't hear the radio over them, lol!

I stopped listening for many years, then began to dip back in when I was driving alone here in my 50s...

...and I couldn't stand it.

The coverage struck me as obviously biased to the ultra-progressive slant that left out a few inconvenient facts. Many of the shows came off as either cloying or where told from weird angles that came off as just trying to look super cool instead of newsworthy -- e.g., we're going to be talking to the vegan sculptor who does body art and lives in a van and grows kale in a self-constructed greenhouse and drives a rickshaw bike through town to save the environment when they're not an activist on another political issue type of fare.

I stopped listening altogether.

+1

[Anonymous]

Besides everything mentioned already, it feels like there is more airtime dedicated to sponsorships than in years past. Having ads (really what they are) interspersed between content is really annoying. I’d rather they cluster all the ads like other stations so I can just zone out or change the station.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think we all need to support the concept and implementation of a NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO.

It's true that I don't listen to them as much since they've traveled into DEI territory much of the time, with (ironically!), very little diversity of arguments.

But it's important we keep a free and nationally available radio news source! For the good of the public.

why is it important in 2024? Just a few years ago I would have agreed with you but now meh I can let it go. Plenty of other free media and also NPR doesn’t really represent the public but just a liberal viewpoint. And I am a liberal.

I am also now ok with ending support for public tv. I think it was valuable for a long time but now there is enough free media and ability to access it.

Large swaths of the country would have no decent local journalism if it weren’t for public media.

That sounds like a fundraising point vs actual experience of the “large swaths” of the country. And what defines “decent local journalism” ? I have read small town papers and while it might not be NYT level doesn’t mean it’s not decent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry 50% of this country reads Trump's words on Truth Social and takes them as gospel.

Here are his recent ramblings:

Well Trump on Truth Social just said

"The great OJ Simpson used to play football with me. Not many people know that because I don't like to boast. He could never outrun me though. Have you ever seen blisters on my feet? No blisters. He used to say "Sir you are a great runner probably the best there has ever been. Also thank you sir for playing with a black man."

So spare me NPR outrage.

We have way bigger problems.

Sigh. Agreed, but NPR and the lefties (I'm historically one of them, but losing my patience) need to stop benchmarking themselves against Donald Trump. Yes, he sucks, but if your platform is that you suck less, you're better off in a world with Donald Trump where you can at least get graded on a curve. It is a problem that NPR is losing trust, and it is a problem that they are becoming a left-leaning monolith. The same goes for the Democratic party. Yeah, we don't suck as much as the Republicans, but that's not saying much.

Oh please no "lefty" uses the term "lefties".

No "lefty" would right what you did.

There is no both sides to this.

Trump and the Republicans party daily lies are huge compared to NPR. Full stop.

Today the Speaker of the House and Trump spewed utter garbage and idiot Repukes ate it up.

We had no election interference except for Republcians voting for dead people. And as for illegals voting in Federal that shit has been a law for years.

Again spare all of us your utter crap there is not two sides.

Either you are an American or you stand with Putin and the lying GOP UnAmerican to the core.

Well, I definitely don't stand with you from what I can tell. If you want to run me out of the Democratic party because I'm not the purist you are, trust me, all it would take is someone slightly reasonable on the other side. I would take center-left or center-right. I've never cast a vote for a Republican, and I would love not to have to. But it pains me to vote for some of what the progressive wing of the party stands for. If the thing you're most proud of is not being Donald Trump, it's time to do a little soul searching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Besides everything mentioned already, it feels like there is more airtime dedicated to sponsorships than in years past. Having ads (really what they are) interspersed between content is really annoying. I’d rather they cluster all the ads like other stations so I can just zone out or change the station.

Yes, I've wondered about this. Why does NPR have way more ads than Wall Street Journal? I thought the whole point of public radio was to be structurally independent by relying on public donations. Is it that limiting advertisers individually means they have to have a larger advertising clientele in the aggregate? (Not rhetorical, I've really been wondering this.)