Sting and a Miss

Republicans have been getting a lot of bad press lately and the conservative base is in need of a quick pick-me up. Cue James O'Keefe, who swooped in to rescue their sagging spirits with yet another series of secretly taped and heavily edited videos! This time, O'Keefe targeted popular Republican scapegoat National Public Radio (NPR).

James O'Keefe

The problem with these videos is that they don't actually prove much of anything at all. It's my understanding that the videos haven't shown anything illegal. Instead, we were privy to some controversial statements from NPR fundraisers. But I'm sure that won't stop anyone from continuing to despise or endorse NPR.


With the understanding that legality doesn't imply transparency or integrity, I'm in no position to gauge the acceptability or popularity of the practices we did see in those videos. I have a hard time blaming somebody who doesn't have direct interaction with what goes on in NPR's news room for being a little cozy with potential donors. In fact, I have a feeling that if we got video of any politician or national organization sucking up to contributors, we'd all find things we despise. I'm willing to let this slide until I hear NPR used illegal fundraising practices, especially since their journalists seem to be unaffected by things that go on to raise money.


This brings me to the underlying problem of this whole fiasco: conservatives and many independents still believe NPR has a liberal bias. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), did a piece back in 2004 that really should've ended this discussion. The article shows huge disparities in the number of guests from each political party who were interviewed by NPR programs.


Money quote:

"Despite the commonness of such claims, little evidence has ever been presented for a left bias at NPR, and FAIR’s latest study gives it no support. Looking at partisan sources—including government officials, party officials, campaign workers and consultants—Republicans outnumbered Democrats by more than 3 to 2 (61 percent to 38 percent). A majority of Republican sources when the GOP controls the White House and Congress may not be surprising, but Republicans held a similar though slightly smaller edge (57 percent to 42 percent) in 1993, when Clinton was president and Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. And a lively race for the Democratic presidential nomination was beginning to heat up at the time of the 2003 study.

Partisans from outside the two major parties were almost nowhere to be seen, with the exception of four Libertarian Party representatives who appeared in a single story (Morning Edition, 6/26/03).

Republicans not only had a substantial partisan edge, individual Republicans were NPR’s most popular sources overall, taking the top seven spots in frequency of appearance. George Bush led all sources for the month with 36 appearances, followed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (8) and Sen. Pat Roberts (6). Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Secretary of State Colin Powell, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer and Iraq proconsul Paul Bremer all tied with five appearances each."

Emphasis mine. I know this is a dated study and I'd love to see newer studies on this topic, but it seems that NPR does a phenomenal job of interviewing the people who matter--often the people in power--and giving the public a direct line of communication with them. This all runs completely counter to the narrative of liberal bias.

As a final note, I will add that believing NPR to suffer from liberal bias is a somewhat understandable impulse. The "Uncommon Politics" section of FAIR's report states that "With political commentary taking a backseat to human interest and sports segments, there were relatively few political commentators on the list."

For those who are interested, the unedited videos can be found here, thanks to the efforts of writers at--I can't believe I'm saying this--Glenn  Beck's website, The Blaze.