Yesterday, we shared an NPR article on our Facebook page, and one of the reader comments was essentially that NPR needs to go away because of their extremely liberal, anti-law and order bias. It is a bias that is plainly obvious to supporters of law enforcement and to most conservatives. Heck, for that matter, it is even obvious to Ken Stern, the former CEO of NPR (who did a great interview about that bias with Tucker Carlson – watch the video).
Reading the previously mentioned comment on our FB page reminded me of a couple of interactions I have had, one of which was specifically related to NPR.
About a year and a half ago, I wrote a blog post here in which I was discussing the extremely anti-cop bias of Facebook, which was evidenced by their refusal to remove a certain graphic image of a cop being murdered by a black lives matter “activist.” Apparently, that blog post somehow caught the attention of a reporter for NPR who contacted me and wanted to interview me about the incident.
I mulled it over for several days. The national exposure on a large media outlet could do wonders for the pro-law enforcement side of the discussion, but eventually I decided against it. When I declined, I told the reporter specifically that I was not going to do the interview because of NPR’s very liberal, anti-cop bias that had been plainly demonstrated for a long time, but even more so since Ferguson. The reporter swore up and down that she would do my side justice, but based on their history, I just could not trust them.
A couple days after I made the decision to decline the interview, I was at a family function at my parent’s house, with a number of my relatives from my parent’s generation, several of which are very liberal. Somehow, the topic of the potential NPR interview came up and when I told them I had declined, they asked why. When I told them it was because of NPR’s blatant bias, they acted as if I had personally insulted them. I was scorned for saying such a horrible thing. Apparently, not only did both of these relatives listen to NPR daily, but apparently they were completely unaware that NPR has a liberal bias.
To be perfectly frank, the reaction by my liberal relatives to my “NPR is biased” comment really caught me off guard. They got very defensive, and actually began accusing me of being ignorant and of making things up. As I sit here thinking back on the situation, it still feels completely bizarre. It was as if I had just insulted their favorite child or something, and then blamed them for the actions of the child I was insulting. I really have no better way of describing it.
Fast forward up to a couple of months ago. My wife shared a pro-cop news article on her personal FB page. A friend of a friend commented on it calling it BS and began spewing back all sorts of disproven BLM talking points. Normally I try and stay out of conversations on her FB page because she has a great many liberal FB friends and I don’t want to turn her page into a giant political argument, but this particular person was way out of line and did not have the slightest clue what he was talking about, so I stepped in to shut him up.
During the ensuing conversation, which surprisingly was fairly civil, I shared an article written by Kyle Reyes and published at the New Boston Post, one in which he listed a number statistics that disproved many of the BLM lies this guy was regurgitating. I wish I could recall which piece it was, but it escapes me at the moment.
His response to me was along the lines of “you give me something from ‘the hub of conservative thought’ and I am supposed to believe it?” He continued saying that anything from a site that is biased has to be discounted and should hold less weight than “facts” reported by “unbiased sources” like the ones he was using, like the New York Times, and the Washington Post.
I was dumbfounded. I replied something akin to “You’re kidding right? You realize that all media outlets are biased, right? Some lean left, some lean right, some try to maintain a better balance than others, but they all have a bias. At least the New Boston Post was telling you their bias right up front.”
His response was curt, and he basically called me an idiot for suggesting “real media outlets” were biased, and then he dismissed my opinion as worthless.
So, what is the point I am trying to get across by relating these personal anecdotes? Let me pose a question to you as part of my answer to that: Do you know any conservatives who would argue that Fox News does not have a conservative bias? How about The Daily Caller? Or Breitbart? I sure don’t. Everyone I know who leans right freely admits the bias of all the various news outlets, left or right. The same cannot be said for those I know who lean left. While they will tell you all day long that Fox News is very right wing, they will not dare suggest the liberal sources lean left.
While media bias is indeed a big problem in this country right now, in my mind the much bigger problem is people who dogmatically swear the media is unbiased. If you accept the bias, and know which way the bias leans, you can take the story in proper context. Essentially, you have the key with which to decipher the truth. However, if you refuse to accept that the media has a bias, then everything the media says is taken as gospel, because if they have no bias, by extension there is no bias in their reporting. That blind acceptance of biased “news” as unbiased is causing the divide between left and right in this country to grow, and it is tearing this country apart. Something needs to be done to correct that, and soon. I only wish I knew what that something was.