NPR: does carrying a pistol make you safer?

[lee n. field]

Has NPR changed.  The last I listened them, they were extraordinarily biased, all the while claiming they were not.

[tokugawa]

I actually listen to NPR most mornings. Yes, they are biased as hell. A lot of it is more subconscious than they realize. They legitimately do try to be unbiased and bring in differing POVs, they had the guy who runs Citizens United on the other day. They just have a huge amount of subconscious bias they don't/can't correct because they tend to live in a very insulated environment. I've known plenty of conservatives with the same issue. Not everyone has ultra lefty and ultra righty friends.

Heck, APS can be an echo chamber quite often. Certainly moreso than NPR. 

 This- it is the water they swim in, they don't have a clue. Like when 95% of reporters (yes, there was a poll) on the Seattle times self identified as D voters- yet were immensely proud of their "unbiased" reporting.

 An crude example- there will be some discussion about what sort of food the Federal government should mandate for schools- say cheeseburgers , or fat free fuffledumps.  It will never occur to them, in their "unbiased" interview with the cheeseburger supporters, that perhaps the federal government should not have ANYTHING to do with what sort of food is served in schools. They can't see the entire underpinning of their assumptions are biased.  

[Perd Hapley]

In the current episode of On The Media, some New Yorkers discussed how representative NPR is (or isn't) of the rest of the country. I didn't hear the whole thing. As I've mentioned before, in their Saturday comedy programs, NPR does acknowledge that they appeal to a certain type of person.

http://www.npr.org/podcasts/452538775/on-the-media

After I was done with my errand (buying rhubarb and pie crust), I caught their review of the Anita Hill movie. Again with the caveat that I heard only a portion of it, I found some really obvious bias. In the part I heard, there was much talk of Anita Hill being subject to some kind of terrible ordeal of having to testify about the charges she had made, and little sympathy for Thomas being accused of sexual harassment. And, not that it's NPR's fault, but the film's tagline is "Speaking Truth to Power."    She testified on behalf of of the Senate majority, against some guy whose career she came close to shelving. Not exactly a David vs Goliath conflict there.

[MechAg94]

And then Anita Hill went around doing paid speeches afterward.