I disagree with this as a general characterization. I do think it's true that NPR presents a neutral facade while most of the hosts and commentators harbor leftist views under the surface (or in their public life), but I think in general they make a pretty good effort to present both sides of an issue without demonizing one side, and I think this is especially noticeable during the discussion of controversial ideas. A big difference between NPR (i.e. radio on the left) and the rest (i.e. conservative talk radio) is that the standard for debate on NPR is "a veneer of respect"; this doesn't mean that debates don't get heated or at times end up lopsided, but you won't find NPR hosts openly lambasting conservatism as a mental disease, or referring to right-leaning callers as morons or unpatriotic or terrorist supporters or really anything along those lines. NPR is very far from perfect, but IMO they at least shoot for an ideal that keeps the dialog open for discussion.

> but they try to hide it, which, to me, is more perverse than the blatant left and blatant right, who at least aren't pretending to be objective.

I don't think they're trying to hide it, it's more that their journalistic ethos ostensibly respects the idea of neutral reporting, thus keeping partisanship at least within the range of plausible deniability, similar to how agents of the government give constant lip-service to the ideals of the constitution but regularly run around it in practice or in spirit when it suits their needs. It's true that many of the politically elite don't respect the constitution, but some really do and the rest have to at least pretend like they do whenever possible because that's the ideal that the people want to be true. Journalism is similar; pretending to be unbiased does produce reporting with less bias.

But as I said in other comments, they're the best available option (to me), but that does not mean they are a good option. so long as you keep your ears open for their biases, they're okay to listen to.

Of course they do. That's what the public actually wants when they say they want "intelligent reporting"—an opinion they agree with that they can pretend is unbiased fact-based reporting. (It's the same idea as sarcasm: it's a display of intelligence to be able to signal one thing to your friends and another to the general public.)

True fact-based reporting, on the other hand, gets blasted by both sides of a debate for "supporting the other guy"—because any statement that's not explicitly in favor of them, even a statement making an orthogonal point, is against their agenda.

> the strife in dome inner cities was cast as police vs population when in reality government is at greatest fault

Most problems come down to systems of incentives spiralling out of control when nobody is watching, that create principal-agent problems when agents do what the incentives tell them to do. My favorite piece of NPR is Planet Money, because economists tend to at least be attuned to the "incentives" framing for most subjects, even if all they get to talk about is monetary incentives. I'd love to see regular reporting done by economics-trained (and maybe game-theory-trained) journalists, though.

It's not generally possible to gain an understanding of a field by "[looking] at some of those studies". This is why graduate students spend hours every week doing literature review. It's why news stations get an expert in the field to comment on a topic. Such experts can never be completely free of bias, but the idea that every expert should be coupled with someone with an opposing viewpoint (and if there's consensus in the field on the topic, who?) is ludicrous at best.

I actually think reaching some goal of being "bias free" is neither possible nor desirable. I would have had a less of an issue with that NPR segment if they had only presented one side - but it was the side that I thought had the most accurate view.

My problem with citing "studies" was not just that I had read that one lousy study. My problem is that virtually all these studies are inconclusive at best, since you cannot do controlled experiments, you cannot generalize a study of one immigrant group in one situation to other groups, etc. So citing "studies say" as some kind of world of God is ridiculous.

In my experience, many of the discussions on NPR involve more than one voice in the conversation and the host allows those guests to say their piece, intervening when necessary (in the case of dodging a question, for example) but not getting in the way of what the individual has to say. Still picking apart the details of an argument but not harping on a single quote or factoid. It's part expediency but also part of what makes NPR enjoyable to listen, more time given to make a case, less time spent arguing or trying to suss out some marginal point of a larger conversation.

This seems almost universal. Do you know of a media outlet that doesn't do this?

I would genuinely like to know because this infuriates me. When organization/government/company X is caught up in controversy, if I wanted to hear what they have the say, I would read their press release. What I want to know when I consume news is: who is lying to me?

All too often there are two people who are claiming contradictory facts. Any news outlet that reliably and consistently tells me which one is the liar gets my eyes and ears.

That is, in fact, who the strife was between.

> when in reality government is at greatest fault.

The police are the government. And, in the case of Baltimore, where the triggering event was murder by police as part of an extended pattern of physical abuse by police, its pretty clear that they were the proximately responsible part of government.

To the extent that there are a myriad of other factors, including other government policies, which could be argued on to have contributed less proximately, they were widely discussed by the media

The government takes an easy shortcut and instead of trying to solve the source of social, economic and cultural problems sends in the police as the only expression of government and thus the police are in the unenviable position take the full brunt of the backlash against an inattentive and perhaps negligent government.

That's a lazy cheap and untenable form of governance. It's like understaffing an IT department and the when the breaches happen blaming the IT security staff, a la Sony.

It's not bad policing so much as bad governance. the police are the main symbol of this "government" in the community, so they take the fall.

You mean like when they adopt taglines like "Fair and Balanced"?

It's the entities who try to pass as unbiased that you have to be careful about. Fox and cnbc one knows where they're coming from. Just like Pravda.

Take a good liar. Do they lie at every occasion? No, for the most part all they say is plausible and they use that believability to their advantage. Note I am not comparing NPR to liars, I'm comparing the phenomenon.

Ok sure, I grant you it's an "awareness" device, but a mechanism for conserving water it's not.

Also, they trot out the trope about almonds using vast amounts of water... Yes, they do, but do does everything else. Did they get into the vast amounts of water or takes to produce a liter of wine? No, of course not.