A Turn of the Dial
By JACOB LAKSIN
Wall Street Journal - May 6, 2005; Page W11
One of the most ferocious battles in the culture wars -- one that, at times, makes the trench warfare of World War I seem short and sweet -- has to do with the true character of National Public Radio. It is argued on one side that NPR is not exactly a model of pristine objectivity -- that it skews leftward in its coverage and commentary. Naturally, NPR's officials and its supporters are inclined to see such charges as the ravings of an overheated "right wing" much too eager to find bias where none exists. How to test the theory?
Well, one way is to look at an NPR show that is itself devoted to the media. Surely this is one place where NPR's objectivity would be thunderously vindicated, assuming that it exists at all. And indeed, NPR's "On the Media," a weekly half-hour program set up a few years ago to take on media excess and error, is a perfect test case. Styling itself as a "critical watchdog," the show was intended, in part, to expunge the image, painted by critics, of a public broadcasting world in thrall to left-wing politics.
It has instead reproduced it.
In theory, "On The Media" disclaims any partisan agenda. It is concerned only with "finding fault and poking fun at all sorts of media institutions." More often than not, however, it focuses on that all-seasons bugbear of the political left: Fox News. It is taken as an established fact by the show's hosts, the irrepressibly snide duo of Brooke Gladstone and Bob Garfield, that Fox is a mere propaganda organ of the right and that its supposed sins of bias trump all others.
When Fox bested other networks in ratings during the Republican National Convention, Ms. Gladstone said: "So how do you explain the success of Fox News this week? Simply that the converted were being gathered in front of the electric fireplace." (It is impossible to imagine such a comment being directed at CNN or any other network for a seemingly Democrats-related ratings bump.) Ms. Gladstone nurses a particular distaste for Fox personages, most notably Bill O'Reilly. In February 2003, she sneered, on no compelling evidence, that the Fox pundit was "willing to attack families of the victims of 9/11 in his pursuit of the war." Fair and balanced media criticism this was not.
Still, at least it was media criticism. This is rarely a given with "On the Media." Even more than barking at Fox, the show relishes attacking the Bush administration. When mainstream media outlets scored the president's speech at the GOP convention, Ms. Gladstone, in a revealing burst of on-air candor, cheered their instincts: "I don't know where this new knife-wielding impulse comes from -- maybe testosterone or guilt -- maybe it was all the free massages the media got at the convention. I only know -- I like it."
Similarly, when Dan Rather came under fire for using fraudulent evidence to cast aspersions at President Bush's service in the National Guard, host Bob Garfield rallied to the anchor's defense. Mr. Garfield stressed that "evidence of military dereliction by a future war president is also news." Of the president's visit to Baghdad in December 2003, Ms. Gladstone insisted that "a number of observers see it as yet another taxpayer-subsidized PR stunt by President Bush." There was little doubting that the hosts of "On the Media" were among them.
When President Bush held a press conference on Social Security several weeks ago, he touched off a barrage of criticism. But the commentary of Mr. Garfield had a distinctive edge. What riled him was less the content of Mr. Bush's words than the composition of his audience. In Mr. Garfield's estimation, this was a "vain and bizarrely deferential press corps" whose members were "not so much being journalists as playing ones on TV." They had failed miserably, in his view, to contest "the president's 70-minute political commercial." A first-time listener to "On The Media" -- wrongly assuming a fair treatment of such matters -- might have been forgiven for thinking that the press had been giving Mr. Bush a free pass on Social Security reform.
Arguably the show's lowest point came in November 2001. For a report about truth in wartime, the hosts invited author Alan Winkler to compare the Nazi propaganda ministry to President Bush's press briefings. Wary of furnishing any grist for the "liberal bias" mill, Ms. Gladstone ended the segment by reflecting that, all things considered, the analogy was a bit of a stretch. "Goebbels had a stranglehold on information, and that is not possible here, today," she observed. Listeners acquainted with her tirades against the Patriot Act -- part of the show's continuing effort to convict the Bush administration of contempt for press freedoms -- would have been struck by her sudden equanimity.
"On the Media" has even managed to turn an admission of its liberal slant into an attack on Mr. Bush. In a November 2004 segment, Mr. Garfield conceded that the show had indeed been critical of the president's first term: "Over the past four years, we have received mail from many listeners impugning our objectivity -- mostly charging that we were biased against the president. After reviewing our four year record, we readily admit that we can detect an increasingly critical tone." But he went on to explain that, as a media "watchdog," "On the Media" was determined to safeguard the press from the Bush White House. The administration's disdain for freedom of the press was taken as a fact beyond dispute. Ms. Gladstone made the point still more starkly: Throughout the Bush presidency, she explained, there was a "sense that people in America aren't getting the truth." Her proposed remedy was to "use even higher wattage in the effort to peer in." Left unanswered was why this was the business of a program ostensibly devoted to media criticism.
Yes, NPR's attempt at media-critique is an egregious example of the kind of problem that, in a better world, such a show might point up or correct. Perhaps grasping the failure, NPR recently appointed an ombudsman to address public concerns about everything from reportorial accuracy to editorial bias. But its choice of Jeffrey Dvorkin, a former NPR executive, does not inspire confidence. In a March interview he assured NPR listeners that he was an "equal opportunity shin-kicker." Then he dismissed conservative criticism of public radio.
NPR "comes under attack quite frequently for its apparently left-wing bias," he explained, "but most of these criticisms come from media organizations that are openly conservative. So I take those kinds of criticisms with a certain amount of salt." Mr. Dvorkin also noted that liberal bias, far from being a problem, should be seen as an occupational quirk among journalists: "There is some kind of liberal empathy on the part of some journalists, because their curiosity about how other people live tends to involve a certain liberal stance," he said.
An incident this week inadvertently revealed the reflexive character of this "curiosity." Tom Magliozzi, co-host of the NPR staple "Car Talk," described President Bush as what the Washington Post termed an "unprintable vulgarity." NPR spokeswoman Jenny Lawhorn offered the classic defense: "I'd like to point out that 'Car Talk' is editorially independent." How comforting.
Mr. Laksin is a writer at the Center for the Study of Popular Culture. |
