When you’re a lib, NPR seems like the gospel truth and you feel very smug about listening to it. Before I had fully understood and rejected liberalism (voted for Stein in 2012 out of disgust with Obama, but still had a ways to go), I spent a good few years listening to Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me (their weekly news quiz) religiously. The concept of a news quiz is incredibly enticing to libs–my lib mom loves doing the NYT news quiz every week to test “how much she knows” (i.e. how much propaganda + useless trivia she’s been fed), and I felt the same way about being able to answer questions in WWDTM. And as for the morning and afternoon news programs, they cover a wide variety of (uncontroversial) topics and are Fair and Balanced™ (i.e. they have center-right and far-right guests) which makes you feel worldly and broad-minded.
But as the 2016 presidential campaign dragged on I started to see just how ridiculous their coverage of Bernie was–outright mocking him and his supporters, pretty much, which seemed at odds with their supposedly neutral editorial position. I think the final straw for me was in the early days of the Trump Administration, when they brought on a cavalcade of cartoonishly evil goons from the Trump Administration to lie through their teeth, which the reporters would barely push back on (because that would be partisan!); I remember their “interview” (more of a press release) of Sebastian Gorka right after the Muslim travel ban being particularly shameful. But again, I was already on the path to the left. If you’re a comfortable lib, the actual policies don’t matter–the calm, authoritative voices of the NPR hosts and their unwavering civility in the face of pure evil soothes your mind, and instead of worrying your head about “issues” you just collect “facts” about the events of the week so you can stay “informed”, although since you have no actual political goals there is seemingly no purpose to this other than appearing smart to other libs when you go to brunch.
When you’re a lib, NPR seems like the gospel truth and you feel very smug about listening to it. Before I had fully understood and rejected liberalism (voted for Stein in 2012 out of disgust with Obama, but still had a ways to go), I spent a good few years listening to Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me (their weekly news quiz) religiously. The concept of a news quiz is incredibly enticing to libs–my lib mom loves doing the NYT news quiz every week to test “how much she knows” (i.e. how much propaganda + useless trivia she’s been fed), and I felt the same way about being able to answer questions in WWDTM. And as for the morning and afternoon news programs, they cover a wide variety of (uncontroversial) topics and are Fair and Balanced™ (i.e. they have center-right and far-right guests) which makes you feel worldly and broad-minded.
But as the 2016 presidential campaign dragged on I started to see just how ridiculous their coverage of Bernie was–outright mocking him and his supporters, pretty much, which seemed at odds with their supposedly neutral editorial position. I think the final straw for me was in the early days of the Trump Administration, when they brought on a cavalcade of cartoonishly evil goons from the Trump Administration to lie through their teeth, which the reporters would barely push back on (because that would be partisan!); I remember their “interview” (more of a press release) of Sebastian Gorka right after the Muslim travel ban being particularly shameful. But again, I was already on the path to the left. If you’re a comfortable lib, the actual policies don’t matter–the calm, authoritative voices of the NPR hosts and their unwavering civility in the face of pure evil soothes your mind, and instead of worrying your head about “issues” you just collect “facts” about the events of the week so you can stay “informed”, although since you have no actual political goals there is seemingly no purpose to this other than appearing smart to other libs when you go to brunch.
Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me is my guilty pleasure.