PUBLIC RADIO CONTROL

"I don't know what country you are posting from but here, in America, the President doesn't get to pick to whom he gives interviews."

As annoying as news outlets like CBS, the New York Times, and CNN can be at times, their bias and clearly slanted news efforts are echoed by National Public Radio's various news shows. What makes this more frustrating is that every taxpayer is helping fund this biased news reporting, an artifact back when radio started and the government decided they wanted to make sure quality programing was on the air.

National Public Radio (NPR) actually gets most of its funding from private and corporate donations and its various merchandising, but it still is given money from taxpayers to continue to broadcast. The fact that it is using that to broadcast material that annoys and even sometimes mocks a sizable portion of those forced supporters is a constant source of frustration.

Recently we got an example of the kind of goofy viewpoint NPR can exhibit. President Bush was going to have an interview on All Things Considered, NPR's nightly news magazine started in 1971, but its present format and style was shaped by producer Ken Meyers (who now does the Mars Hill Audio Journal which I highly recommend). Then they turned down the interview. Why?

[Juan] Williams said yesterday he was "stunned" by NPR's decision. "It makes no sense to me. President Bush has never given an interview in which he focused on race. . . . I was stunned by the decision to turn their backs on him and to turn their backs on me."

Ellen Weiss, NPR's vice president for news, said she "felt strongly" that "the White House shouldn't be selecting the person." She said NPR told Bush's press secretary, Dana Perino, that "we're grateful for the opportunity to talk to the president but we wanted to determine who did the interview." When the White House said the offer could not be transferred to one of NPR's program hosts, Weiss took a pass.

So the interview showed up on Fox. At the Captain's Quarters, Cap'n Ed previously had posted the transcript of the interview and speculated why this decision was made:

NPR wanted one of its show hosts to do the interview, as they had when they insisted that Melissa Block interview Hillary Clinton rather than their health reporter. That makes sense in that context, as their health reporter probably lacks Block's experience at politics. However, it makes a lot less sense in this context. Block, who hosts All Things Considered, has written exactly zero books on any topic. Williams has written at least two books on race relations that have hit the best-seller lists, and has more expertise on the subject than Block or any of their hosts.

I think NPR wanted the interview to focus on and move in a specific sort of direction, but lost the opportunity to do so when the President was interviewed by Juan Williams instead. Instead of a focus on Katrina and attacking the president, the interview was instead informative and thoughtful. Commenters discussed the decision:

This doesn't have to do with bias. It has to do with NPR not acted as a PR machine for the White House.

The white house called and said they wanted to do an interview about race and we want Jaun Williams to conduct it.

Well, NPR said, we'd be happy to conduct that interview, but we'll decide who does the questioning.

The White House then said, no, only Williams. NPR passed.

It is kind of measuring contest, but I think it has less to do with bias than with Journalism integrity (go ahead, have some fun with that guys). The last thing journalism entity wants to be is a mouthpiece for an administration. Having the president call and say he wants to do an interview on a certain topic, conducted by a certain reporter comes a little too close to that. I think NPR maintaining control of who asks the questions is a reasonable stipulation that the White House did not a agree to.
-by Tom Shipley


It is hard to imagine the circumstances under which NPR could make itself more irrelevant than it already is. Their news coverage is disjointed, fragmented and massively interlaced with begging for funds and soft news, diaries and journals. For them to pass up an interview as unique as this one is unthinkable. They were handed a priceless gem and carelessly tossed it out to be picked up by a competitor.

NPR is publically funded, which means that can suck and survive. It doesn't mean, however, that they are required to suck.

At least with Fox the interview will be exposed to countless more people. That is good for GW as I think he came off well in it.
-by Immolate


So both NPR and Tom Shipley think Juan Williams is going to get bamboozled by a president they think is an idiot?

From NPR's bio of Mr. Williams:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1930705

"Juan Williams, one of America's leading journalists, is a senior correspondent"

"He is also the author of the nonfiction bestseller Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965, the companion volume to the critically acclaimed television series. This Far by Faith: Stories from the African American Religious Experience appeared in February 2003."

"He has won an Emmy award for TV documentary writing and won widespread critical acclaim for a series of documentaries including "Politics - The New Black Power.""

Maybe this last part is why NPR didn't want him on the interview:
"Williams continues to be a contributing political analyst for the Fox News Channel and a regular panelist on Fox News Sunday."

Sacre' bleu! He actually also works for Fox.
-by rbj


Juan Williams also works for Fox News, therefore he cannot be trusted to interview President Bush "correctly".

This is what bigotry looks like.
-by Lindy


I cannot believe the depth of the ignorance of the comments above.

If the President wants to talk business, he talks to a business reporter. If he wants to talk poltics, he talks to a politcal reporter. If he wants to talk race relations, he talks to a reporter who has written books on race relations.

Maybe he wanted to talk to the smartest person NPR had to offer on this subject and he believes that is Juan Williams.
-by goldwater
I listen to neither NPR nor Fox, so in a sense I don’t have a dog in this hunt. I will instead address the tone of the above words. I voted for McGovern and Carter, and once was an avid NPR listener. I stopped listening to NPR years ago after getting tired of the sneering undertone of its commentaries. Remember the old bumper sticker: “VOTE REPUBLICAN. IT’S BETTER THAN THINKING.” That is NPR in a nutshell.

As a child I had a JFK poster on my bedroom door. Had the Democratic Party not strayed from the policies of HST or JFK I would have remained a Democrat Those of us who left the Democratic Party in the last 30 years did so after due reflection. We are not as stupid and uneducated as you believe.

It is also ironic that NPR turns down having a black journalist interview the President. It appears that diversity does not trump ideology and control. On the other hand, if the President turned down an interview by a black journalist, NPR would be one of the first to denounce such RACISM.
-by Un_Democrat


I imagine that those saying it is wrong for President Bush to pick his interviewer also take issue with Hillary calling all 5 networks offering to be on all of their Sunday programs on the same Sunday...this is unprecedented but she had a message she wanted to get out. Do you not believe that she also put limitations on what could be asked of her?...silly boyz!
-by RD


Tom,
so then you must really be outraged that nearly all the democratic candidates refuse to appear on FOX news or even appear on the debates that fox news puts out. After all, since CNN, MSBC,PBS,NPR lean left of center we can be sure that they will only write puff peaces, whereas FOX since it has a conservative bent and would not act as lapdogs to the democrats,and would be the only ones asking the tough questions. Correct?

So those dems are a truly cowardly lot, eh? At least Bush asked someone, Williams who if you watch fox is the guy they always bring in as the counterpoint to the say Fred Barnes, and who usually making the argument counter to the administration.
-by jr565

President Bush has one political skill he excels at in a way I've not seen any other politician. Whether it is deliberate or not, he's a genius at(as a commenter put it) giving his opponents enough rope. Sometimes it doesn't work, but most of the time it does. In this case, he asked NPR to do an interview, then selected a respected black journalist and expert on race relations to do the interview. NPR refused to carry it because they couldn't get one of their main bingo callers to do it, and they come off as being unreasonable and Bush being reasonable. Unless you are inclined to despise the man by default, like NPR and it's biggest fans.

What was most telling in the comments is that Tom Shipley, the leftist who most strongly defended the NPR and considered Williams a poor choice because he works at Fox News (he also works at NPR, he's their in-house race relations expert), he must have given a friendly puff piece interview. Yet he admits later on "And no, I have not read the interview." This is a problem with the dialog on politics all too often - I almost said today but I am certain it's always been true. Decisions and positions are reached based on the players involved rather than the facts at hand. This is the Team Player problem again, which is rotting the heart out of any reasonable attempt at discussing topics. Shipley is for NPR and against the president, so he defends their decision without even bothering to find out what the interview was like. He even started out with a set of presumptions that were false: that NPR asked him for an interview when it was the other way around.

It's the same reason that leftists can't stand and even attack Juan Williams: he dares to not toe the party line every single time on race issues, and even worse, he has a show on Fox News! Why, he's clearly the enemy, without even needing to know what he has to say or why. Best to not listen at all, while you gather rocks to stone him. He's uppity, he won't stay on the ideological plantation.

I started this with a quote at the top I thought was unintentionally hilarious: the idea that powerful or major figures can't pick who they are interviewed by, implying that it is somehow unAmerican to say otherwise, or a violation of the 1st amendment's protection of the press.

Every major news figure can choose their interviewer, or simply refuse to be interviewed. NPR managed to get their own person for a Senator Clinton interview, and that's likely common at the organization, but that's rare in the business. If the news wants you bad enough, you get to call the shots, and a historically first interview with the President of the United States is one of those situations.

Captain Ed later asked a clear and excellent question in the comments: who at NPR would have been more qualified to conduct the interview? None of the left leaning people defending NPR's decision answered or apparently even read what he asked.

I have read the interview, and it was on target, polite but unyielding, asking the tough questions without being confrontational and combattive. In other words, it wasn't Rush Limbaugh and it wasn't Helen Thomas. It was respectful yet tough, which is how an interview with the president ought to be. It asked a broad range of questions, covering President Bush's absence from the Little Rock 50th anniversary celebration of Brown v. Board of Education, the White House staffing profile, the Jena Six, the White House response to Hurricane Katrina, immigration reform, the ethic background of the Supreme Court justice nominees, the rates of black on black murders as well as black dropout and poverty rates, and more.

In short, he asked the questions many black voters certainly have on their minds right now, with a manner and effort that clearly was the essence of journalistic integrity. The president did a pretty good job of answering most of them, he wiggled on a few, and I think Williams sent him home thinking about these topics in a way he'd not before. And honestly I think that's the main reason that NPR didn't care for the choice. Ego demanded one of their anchors do the interview, and politics demanded that someone who would attack the president and deny him a fair and polite voice do the job.

As a result, NPR lost a great journalistic opportunity, and if anything more blacks heard the interview than if it had been on NPR. Because let's be honest, All Things Considered is a white liberal upper class show, and Fox is not as intellectual and high brow. That means more people, of all ethic groups, will tend to pay attention to it (as the ratings prove) rather than another show on some obscure artist in SoHo New York and an interview with an avant garde musician.

In the end, NPR clings to life not because of a huge demand by listeners, but because it is publicly funded, because it has a constant lifeline of taxpayer dollars and can ignore the market. While the New York Times' stocks plunge below $20 a share and bleeds circulation, NPR can suffer with fewer listeners and still go on as if nothing needs to change. I don't think news ought to be produced based on the biases of the nation it is in, but I also don't think it ought to be produced with a distinct bias of its own while being paid for by tax dollars taken from people who don't care for it.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has lived on past the point of its usefulness and purpose. It's time to cut it loose and see if it can fly on its own. There's still a market for it out there, free of tax dollars.

President Bush, Interview, Juan Williams, National Public Radio, Race Relations