Maybe it's my bias, but I feel like I actually hear a lot of stories about rural white people. Especially since the election, every outlet keeps wanting to do think pieces on their plight.

I think a lot of sources generally treated as liberal have swerved in their coverage over the last ~year, since Trump began to look credible. I'd argue that stretch is non-representative compared to, say, 2014, but I'd also argue you can still see a distinctive outlook when they do cover those topics.

A source like Vox covers urban/coastal issues from the 'inside', treating first-hand sources as credible and writing like the reader is included in the topic. There's also a significant assumption that readers inherently care.

It writes rural white plight stories as 'explainers', approaching them the way you would approach some international crisis your readers are unlikely to know about. One big human-interest frame example to make your readers care, lots of background and statistics, first-hand interviews that add flavor, but are aggressively contextualized by talking to professors and experts who aren't part of the community. And, of course, a necessity to say "which maybe caused Trump" or otherwise justify why such stories are relevant to their readers.

Basically, I think NPR/Vox/etc have started covering rural plight stuff far more, but they're still explaining those people to their readers.

You hit the nail on the head - and nothing really turns off a viewership than being "taught" about yourself. 90% of conservative talk radio is "teaching" about how liberals think.

Yes, that's a much more succinct way of putting it! A source feels biased to me any time it's talking to one side, but 'teaching' about another side - no matter how the mechanisms of that bias vary.

Polsplaining has a nice ring to it!

I'd agree with taurath that if bias is there it's in the story framing or selection. And also sometimes interviewee: the various shows seem to like "Here's an archetype (e.g. soldier) who you would expect to be conservative, but actually has liberal views."

If you summarize every story, you end up with a lot more "affirming a liberal view of the world" ones than "affirming a conservative view."

That said, I still believe the content of the stories presented hews far closer to objective fact and truth than what I've seen from conservative media. So I wouldn't say it's nearly that biased.

Is it possible that you would consider any story that isn't about a white heterosexual man one of those? I'm really wondering, because I could see myself keeping a running tally like this once I thought I noticed a trend–kinda like noticing how they put pumpkin into everything in the fall.

But of course, 80% is actually pretty close to the number of Americans that are not white heterosexual men. We may just have gotten used to an overrepresentation in movies, politics, and our social life.

I don't think there's much of an overrepresentation - I haven't heard a human interest piece on a rural/conservative person on there that didn't deal with the opioid crisis in the last 6 months - and I listen every day. I look back to where I grew up which was a much more conservative rural area and frequently think about how I'd never feel like any of the stories on NPR would apply to me.

NPR before the 2016 election cycle, I'd absolutely agree with you - they've at least started to cover the depravities of the opioid crisis in rural areas now, its a nice change - but I'd agree with you, outside of ATC (All Things Considered) the programming has a huge urban liberal bias.

>In general it's about story selection. 80% of the "stories of the day" are related to minority rights, empathy stories and a bunch of others. Rural white people are rarely mentioned except in the context of an environmental disaster.

I think the problem is you're lumping all minorities into one, and treating rural whites as a separate category.

Pick any particular minority group, and you could make the same statement:

"80% of the stories of the day are related to non-X group. Group X is rarely mentioned"

It took me a long time listening to NPR to realize this, though I'm sure a rural conservative would pick it up in a day.

It's common to watch for bias on a per-story level, looking for either bad facts or heavy spin. That's the level where liberals insist conservative media is biased and other media isn't. NPR is generally great on that level - if they run a piece, it'll be factually accurate and told from some basically reasonable viewpoint.

But it's also worth talking about multi-story bias - what will you come away believing if you hear 100 (factually accurate) stories from this source? That's the usual level where conservatives complain about liberal media bias. (They're not wrong, though conservative sources do plenty of the same.) NPR looks way less good on that level; the scheduled programs (e.g. Fresh Air) lean very liberal/cosmopolitan, while the news reports are prone to a focus on political, coastal, and international issues without so much awareness of the 'interior'.

It's still a vastly better source than most news for learning about any single event, I generally prefer it to NYT coverage even, but it's not exactly comprehensive.