> It's Fox, but for the Left

There was a distinct shift to the right at NPR when Obama took office, and by the time he took his second term, NPR News' social media was posting clickbait trash instead of real headlines. "The liberal media" is an irrational boogeyman used to whip ownership in line. Everyone who complains about "bias in the media" is arguing in bad faith while they continue to turn a blind eye to the overwhelmingly dominant conservative slant of the 21st century American media.

smithkl42 says that NPR is leftward, and you say that it's rightward. Maybe we're all operating from different baselines.

No. If that's what you took from my post, I've miscommunicated.

NPR has turned rightward. The entertainment shows are, without a doubt, liberal, on the American political spectrum. There are countless discussions and papers about the role empathy plays in successful entertainment.

The editorial content has turned rightward - and the leadership has turned rightward. This has been ongoing for at least two decades, probably longer, but I wasn't paying attention at that level when I was under 20.

NPR was not rightward this past election, for sure. I don’t think NPR missed to report a single Kamala endorsement last fall.

OP is arguing nuances, and you seem to be intent to distill everything to a binary construct. Nuances are what runs the world, not binary groups.

I thought they meant NPR was generally neoliberal left of center, and their coverage has perhaps moved toward the center post-Obama while still being left of it.

Where exactly is the American 'center' as of 2025? Where is the midway point between the modern establishment left and the establishment MAGA right?

Because to me, that midpoint looks to be way to the right of, say, Mitt Romney or George Bush Jr or Reagan.

I think the center in modern American politics has historically been neoliberalism, which explains why the center keeps holding. Neoliberalism is only now having to respond to populism on the left and right, which has caused the balance of power to shift on each side. The neoconservative bloc has attained power on the right with the rise of Trump and the Tea Party before him, and some folks on the left have acquired influence, like Bernie Sanders and AOC. The center is holding less and less as the bureaucracy is being fired and defunded.

I don’t mean to be dismissive, as I think your reading is also accurate. The center of mass is shifting, but I’m not sure the locus of control is as much.

Sanders and AOC are fringe socialists who hold no power in either the press, or the political establishment.

MAGAnuts are now the mainstream face, body, and soul of the political establishment.

Where exactly is the 'center' between the latter and Chuck Schumer? Where is that 'center' going to be in three years, as every month, MAGA picks up the goalposts and moves them a few miles right-wards?

I think AOC is closer to the establishment than even I realized. AOC walked Khalil out from within the security perimeter to meet with family members and waiting press including Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWpRCoQ2wWE

AOC is doing the important work that Congresspeople do. I don’t know if it’s fair to say that she’s fringe. She’s showing up and doing the work that other people don’t show up and do. If it’s fringe work, that is fair to say I guess if you feel that way. I was surprised to see her in this video but at the same time it seems totally in character for her to be there. I think she’s probably going to run for president or vice president at some point in the next few cycles if I had to guess, and these are baby steps to build trust with the Muslim community and get in front of reporters on a national issue.

NPR and especially its editorial content has turned steadily more leftward over the past 9 years (especially since Trump’s election in 2016) and moderately accelerated during COVID/around the talk of the death of one of the hosts. I say this as someone who is left-wing.

I didn’t think there was much debate on this point, it’s rather well documented/easily searchable online. If you genuinely think NPR’s editorial content has turned more right from the left, you are probably operating on a different scale than the general American public. There has also been a lot more scandals with their editorial content and the information accuracy in recent years with the bias being more and more left.

All of NPR's 87 editorial board members are registered Democrats. That should give some indication of where they are on left versus right.

Yeah I've been bummed by how far NPR has swerved leftward, especially since 2016. Even ten years ago I liked tuning in because it was quality journalism that still made an honest effort to cover multiple sides of an issue, even if the topics they chose were primarily "liberal" topics. But yeah, now they seem just as tribal as Fox.

Not every side deserves to be covered for each story. This is the problem with major media today, they give equal opportunity to people that have no idea what they are talking about. It's like one side says 2+2=4, the other 2+2=5, and media gives them equal air time.

Can you point me to a good source that actually gives equal opportunity to multiple sides of a story? Because I rarely see that (regardless of which side), the whole reason why I subscribe to things like ground.news.

Axios does a pretty solid job of covering point and counterpoint on their stories not bias towards "equality" for different perspectives, but actually covering fully the different angles of a story.

See yourself in their article from a couple of weeks ago about the federal funding cut of CPB.

https://www.axios.com/2025/07/18/npr-pbs-funding-senate

> Ahead of Trump's second term, Project 2025 wrote in a detailed memo foreshadowing the president's agenda ways the administration could pull funding for public broadcasters. The Trump administration started taking actions to scrutinize public broadcasters shortly thereafter.

There's no mention of why they want to defund CPB beyond "Trump administration efforts to strip funding." Muh Project 2025 is referenced briefly, but the rationale isn't explored.

They provide quotes from those opposed "unwarranted dismantling of beloved local civic institutions,... gutting" without the For Side saying anything e.g. that this is no longer necessary due to media landscape.

It doesn't consider whether it's necessary and while saying it will be a loss to rural news never looks at the fact it's used less and less there, whether gap will be filled and in part has.

It centers the negative consequences, it has very limited perspective by supporters and centrally frames Project 2025 despite questionable connection. There's clearly a tilt, but it performs neutrality that less critical might accept.

"The choice of what to include and what to leave out, what to emphasize and what to downplay, inevitably reflects a point of view."

lol, I stopped caring about them because they weren’t willing to say anything about Gaza and bent over backwards to excuse what Trump was doing. If center-right NPR is too liberal I shudder to think of your politics

Many major establishment news orgs are similarly guilty of a heavy pro-Israel bias (WSJ and NYT as other examples), but I would argue this is more on the establishment vs independent spectrum, rather than the left vs right spectrum.

Equating a for-profit news corporation's politics with how they handle a singular topic like Gaza would be a bit reductive.

The one that gave up the game for me most re: mainstream liberal media was how often NYT ran the Claudine Gay story (front page ten consecutive days). The entire controversy was completely manufactured as a right wing cancel culture operation and the New York Times laundered it under their ‘liberal’ reputation.

NPR is better than most as their are not owned privately by a billionaire or collectively by billionaire shareholders. But they play the “both sides are reasonable” game annoyingly often with every issue, as if there is some sort of sensible middle ground to be reached somewhere between Obama and Hitler.

Seeing Gaza in particular covered this way - one the most appalling human rights catastrophes of my lifetime aided and funded by my own government - was too much for me to stomach.

I am always confused by this narrative. People extolling the virtues of old media organization as if those people weren't toeing the government line and were cold robots with no bias.

It is the rise of media org like Fox news where these kinds of comments have started surfacing. Because for Fox news is more commentary than facts. And then the narrative trick from Fox and other conservative media outlets have constantly pushed an agenda - "others do it too".

It has led to comments like these and this is fine.

> It's Fox, but for the Left

But then when you start adding stuff like this:

> and with a bit more of an intellectual spin. What makes it most annoying is their utter blindness to their own bias. The Fox hosts know that they're taking one side of a story. I've never gotten the impression that any of the NPR hosts are even that self-aware.

It becomes clear you are regurgitating RW talking points and both side-ism. And because Fox is worse, the only saving argument is that Fox at least knows their bias. God help this country if this is level of intellectual spin people can give to reinforce their points.

And you are clearly regurgitating left-wing talking points etc.....

> If that was true, losing the CPB would be a travesty.

America and many Americans have lost their way, and have always struggled to get perspective on a topic.

As out outsider looking in, let me be clear.

This IS a travesty, and will be a notable mark in the history books when people look back in 50 or 100 years and ask “how did it happen?”

Can you cite specific examples of this "bias?"

Here’s Fox reporting on NPR’s bias: https://www.foxnews.com/media/npr-head-asks-critics-show-me-...

As you can see, it’s mostly gotcha quotes and unfair glosses. For example:

> NPR also called America’s interstate highways racist. I did not know our highways were racist. I thought they were concrete, but not according to NPR.

Of course, it’s a historical fact that many minority neighborhoods were bulldozed to make room for interstate highway development, among them Cincinnati, OH and St. Louis, MO.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-freeways-flattened-black...

But of course this history that actually happened is interpreted as Reuters’ liberal bias. There’s no winning this.

Have you read Robert Caro's The Power Broker? It's a biography of Robert Moses.

Robert Moses did not build the USA highway system.

Robert Moses was racist.

What was done to some communities was messed up.

The highway system isn't racist.

What point are you trying to make? I don't see how you're connecting these things. The highway where I live is certainly designed with racist intent.

Are you confusing freeways and highways?

Robert Caro details Moses' role wrt highways & suburbia in NYC, nationally, and even internationally.

IMHO, having never Moses, I'd wager he was classist. (Moses allegedly also hated poor and immigrant Jews.) As you know in the USA economy & society, classist ~= racist.

"Babies are not babies until they are born. They’re fetuses." from https://wamu.org/story/19/05/15/guidance-reminder-on-abortio...

I'm not against abortion. In fact, I actually see the legal necessity of it in an overpopulating world. But NPR's bias on the front does not align with my own bias or, I think, with most people.

Everyone has bias and that's perfectly human. The problem is when we don't own up to it. NPR tries to cover theirs with circuitous language and lies-by-omission, https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2019/05/29/7280694.... That double-talk served well in insulating them from criticism, but it ended up costing them the public trust.

> Babies are not babies until they are born. They’re fetuses.

This is a factual statement with accurate medical terminology.

We don’t call them meteorites until they hit the earth, either.

It's verbal sleight of hand in the cultural tug-of-war to emphasize or de-emphasize the future human. The point is that massaged language blunts or sharpens its impact, and an org's political choices therein reflect the bias.

Meteorites don't have that baggage.

It's a style guide; not "verbal sleight-of-hand." It codifies what terms should be used by their reporters, and refers to the AP style guide.

so you're saying if they said babies in their style guide it wouldn't have any impact on perception?

The baggage isn't calling fetuses what they are. The baggage and bias comes in when you lie about what a fetus is, depicting it as a human baby, which it is not. The right does that specifically to emotionally manipulate people and feed a narrative of baby killing.

Who here is doing the verbal slight of hand? The people using factual terms, or the people lying? This should be an easy one to answer.

I hate to have to inform you of this, but "babies" is not a medical term.

He didn't say it was.

Yes he did bro

In medical jargon, sure. In common usage, including among medical professionals, it's extremely common to just say "baby" in many contexts, especially when the baby is wanted and expected to be viable and brought to term. Nobody but a few weirdos or people trying to make some kind of a joke are gonna say to their partner "oh, did they give you any pictures of our fetus from the ultrasound? Oh look at our fetus' tiny little hands!"

(I'm pro-choice but think the "acksually they're fetuses" angle is fucking gross, both on an intellectually-honest debate level because it's semantic bullshit, and because it absolutely reads as a move toward dehumanization, and I hate to provide reasons for those kinds of accusations from pro-lifers to ring true)

You're responding to someone who thinks pointing to a dictionary automatically wins an argument.

> "acksually they're fetuses"

I highly doubt anyone in your actual life has said this to you, or distilled the entire argument down to this point.

> because it's semantic bullshit

Obviously, semantics isn't "bullshit" because there's been a massive decades long debate over semantics, including millions and millions spent by the right to define the semantics.

I can concede that some people hear this debate and think they're under attack in a "culture war", which I'm really not sure what the solution to that is because semantics is important.

As linked elsewhere in this thread, see Uri Berliner on the subject https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-tru...

> Can you cite specific examples of this "bias?"

Read https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-tru... by NPR veteran that shows how NPR developed a left wing bias over time. Also at https://archive.is/H7QNM

https://washingtonstand.com/news/npr-has-zero-republicans-87...

NPR Has Zero Republicans, 87 Democrats on Editorial Staff

If you are going to reference Uri's interview, you should also reference the response from his former colleagues:

https://steveinskeep.substack.com/p/how-my-npr-colleague-fai...

"NPR Has Zero Republicans, 87 Democrats on Editorial Staff"

How many "Republicans" applied?

I guess they expect NPR to have diversity hires to meet republican quotas now?

Of-course, I am sure a government funded 100%-republican news and broadcasting agency with news pieces spouting right-wing talking points trotted out with regularity would be fully accepted as an excellent use of taxpayer money in the public interest by democratic politicians.

Undoubtedly that's the reason for the under-representation of women as Fortune 500 CEO's. They're just not applying.

Would applying be a personal and professional liability for women, the way doing so at NPR could very well be for a "Republican?"

How many "Republicans" apply for jobs in gay bars?

Nice false-equivalency attempt.

You're not making an actual argument.

You understand there are many gay republicans right?

The difference is that being a republican is an ideology you choose. Republicans can stop being republicans at any time - but they don't, they continue, because they enjoy being republican.

What I mean is, republicans choose to be ideologically opposed to journalism and ideologically opposed to education. Why would they become journalists? They hate journalism, by choice.

Why would anyone care about A's criticism of competitor B?

--

FWIW:

"The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC."

eyeroll. Might want to look at the original article by the NPR veteran himself which was the first one posted, but has a paywall. The Washington Stand only elaborated it. Argue based on the facts and merits of the article.

I read Uri's piece ages ago. n=1

I also read the rebuttal from his former colleaques. n=15 (?)

It's just another entertainment industry food foght.

How about using terms like "pregnant people"? Or the fact that on my local NPR station I can count down from 60 and something like 80% of the time, before I reach 0, they've talked about race or ethnicity at least once.

That's my complaint. Decades ago I enjoyed NPR when I drove to work. It was always left leaning, but at least the programs discussed topics I found interesting or cared about for one reason or another.

These days the only thing they talk about are racial and sexual minorities. I can't express how little this kind of factionalism interests me. I'm not arguing that kind of content shouldn't be produced, but I don't want to pay for it.

> How about using terms like "pregnant people"?

You mean like countless medical journals do?

Look, I hate to say it, but if this is the type of stuff you're complaining about, then you have a weird persecution fetish. This is simply not a real problem. It is made up. It is culture war bullshit. You sound like a cry baby.

> before I reach 0, they've talked about race or ethnicity at least once.

Yeah because race and ethnicity have A LOT to do with crime. Again, you can cover your ears and go "lalala not listening!", but after a certain point we have to call the delusional, delusional, and move on with our lives.

It's not like race wasn't a thing in the past. It's just that nobody talked about it because they were racist. That's how that works. Now, we're not so racist, so when race is a factor in things we don't just fucking ignore it.

That’s not why they talk about race and you know it. And the pregnant people thing is just a dogwhistle. It’s not my fault most of American science has been captured by the far left.

Adam Carolla was interviewed by NPR and tried to Gotcha him by saying he said racist comments against Asians, but the comments were from an Asian comedian. NPR canned the interview and never aired it, despite telling him they would air it.

You know Asians can be racist against Asians right?

If Fox keeps moving further and further right, even centric stuff starts sounding far left.

i dont think they are blind to their own bias, i think they are championing their own values, but that's the problem.

I don't agree -- NPR is about as center-right as it's possible to be. Just look at the efforts they've made to normalize Trump, it's way over the top.

And nonetheless it's an important voice to have since it will leave a void in the media landscape to be filled by opportunists.

Oh, I agree, don't get me wrong. I'm just kinda shocked people think it is leftist. It's like they have no idea what the term means (it's not "left of my personal beliefs").

What I said about NPR might apply to some of their listeners as well: "What makes it most annoying is their utter blindness to their own bias."

The right in the US is so far right that centrism looks like communism to some people. NPR and PBS are far more influenced by their corporate donors than they are the political leanings of their audience.

So true, it is so telling that everyone complaining about it is a conservative...

I've seen leftist complaints about NPR - they take corporate sponsorships after all

There is a surprising amount of influence in terms of what stations you listen to, not just due to the local programming but due to their choice of which national programming they air.

Well, congratulations, now there won’t even be that, but Fox will persist.

Is Fox news government funded ?

Considering that reporting factual information gets blamed as left wing bullshit... I don't think your post has merit.

See: COVID, vaccines, climate change. You have one side explicitly denying what we can do with the scientific method and decades of peer reviewed research, and then blaming anyone who contradicts them as biased sources.

Comparing to Fox News is even more ridiculous. You say that them knowing they're spouting bullshit is better than the people not spouting bullshit at all?

Cmon now. Take the group that is actually trying to engage in good faith rather than the one that is knowingly producing crap. Maybe this is why people voted for Trump: he told them what he is, and they liked the honesty.

This is one point that has irked me.

The real narrative problem is that relying on "science" as truth.

Science has been weaponized by all sides it is incredivly easy to manipulate research into a narrative. But the left's media empire is by far the most effective at doing this and with heavy left bias in academia it's a corrupt system.

Data has a priority say in everything we do but dropping context and information then calling everyone dumb for not "trusting the science" is propoganda. The response of the left is to simply call everyone who denies today's science as ignorant.

This is how you get climate deniers. Weaponize science and unsuprisingly you get countless people who stop believing ANY politically angled research.

Not sure how much you've spent in academia but modern science is nasty buissness. Incentive structures are completely warped.