NPR's drift to the right

As a long time fan of NPR, it's been rather sad to see it's gradual shift further and further to the right over the past 5 years or so. While I won't say that NPR was ever a great media outlet, throughout its history it has certainly given us far better news coverage than the rest of the mainstream (corporate) media in the U.S. Perhaps the most egregious NPR coverage relates to the conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians, but it doesn't stop there.

The blog NPR Check is a great watchdog of the imperialistic cheerleading common to NPR's coverage as of late. This highlight of recent coverage of former president Reagan's legacy is telling:

Here's a little challenge to any die-hard believers in NPR's liberal (or even balanced) credentials: Find just one progressive, critical piece on the presidency of Ronald Reagan aired on NPR News in the last 5 years.

Tonight on ATC I had to fight the gag-reflex as NPR aired an adoring commentary on Reagan by Rich Lowry, editor of The National Review. The commentary focuses on Reagan's staged "tear down this wall" speech in Berlin. Michele Norris introduces it by noting that "Lowry says if those words don't give you goosebumps..."

Then Lowry tells us that "beneath Reagan's sunny exterior was a stern determination and a hatred of Marxism…conflicts with communist-infiltrated unions in his days in Hollywood." He might have also mentioned that beneath that "sunny exterior" was one of the the most dishonest, corrupt, death-squad loving presidents we've had until - well until now! Lowry is also out to conflate revolutionaries like Che Guevara with mass murderers like Stalin by lumping them all under the label of "communism." He tells us about the "tens of millions of dead bodies in the twentieth century" that Communism left in its wake, but nothing about the millions of corpses left by just the US alone.

There was of course no mention of mass graves left by Reagan throughout Central America...why that might be unpatriotic! After all, he was such a "sunny" guy!

Do check out the whole piece over at NPR Check, as well as a lot of great writing on NPR's coverage of the news.

(Photo of convicted felon Ollie North from The Head Shop)