I hadn't planned to start the week with another rant about NPR...I really hadn't.  But now I'm sitting trying to think of another reason aside from inertia to renew my membership.  Divorcing myself from Public Radio will be painful to me, because I believe in the principle, and I've seen it work very well in a number of European countries.   Long live the Beeb.  Here, I'm not sure NPR is redeemable.

I have my clock radio's alarm set to my local public radio station.  This morning I woke to Morning Edition.  I shouldn't have expected much...the village elders think nothing much happens when Washington takes the day off, but I must say I expected more than I got.  There were three stories on the stimulus package, each of which raised my hackles a bit higher.

First up, Stimulus Stirs Debate Over Rural Broadband Access reported by Howard Berkes.  I knew I was in trouble when the first source was Michael Katz, speaking to the American Enterprise Institute.  Katz was identified only as a former FCC Economist.  From what he was quoted as saying I would never have expected him to be one of Clinton's appointees. The basic shot was that rural America wasn't worth the effort or expense:  

    Katz listed ways that the $7.2 billion could be put to better use, including an effort to combat infant deaths. But he also spoke of rural places as environmentally hostile, energy inefficient and even weak in innovation, simply because rural people are spread out across the landscape.

"Fair and balanced" was provided by an alternate view towards the of the story.  If it had been print media it would have been "below the fold," if not "continued on page b9".  So we begin by an assault on the idea (two assaults, actually, the New York Times got a word in, as well), followed by back and forth, back and forth, always identifying the negative by credentials which would seem to make them "neutral".

That story didn't raise my hackles too far...maybe 1/8 inch.  But immediately after that story was one entitled,  Navajo Hope Stimulus Will Fund Jobs, Infrastructure.  Now my conspiracy theory genes began to act up.  First a story calling rural places as environmentally hostile followed by a story which emphasized people "spread out across the landscape,"- people that the Nativist element in white America denigrate with stereotypes of mythic proportion.  What was going on?   I found it hard to believe this was a matter of innocent coincidence.  The stimulus package won't be signed into law until tomorrow, and these stories must have been on the story boards for a week or more.  Why choose to first emphasize stories of benefits to groups other than "middle America," if not to raise suspicion and distrust of the stimulus package in Middle America?  I dismissed some of the more radical conspiracies such as Republicans are in trouble in Arizona and a little Nativism might mend that, or Republicans know that connecting rural America to the wider world will threaten their hold on that particular part of their base...the more internet savvy,  the more internet connected, the more modern people are in their views (TPM-get ready to have a rural area).  I don't think the Republican Party is quite intelligent enough to plot and scheme in quite this sophisticated a manner.   I more or less concluded that NPR was simply carrying water for its corporate sponsors, whom it loves much more than the liberal element in its listener base. 
My hackles rose a half inch, but the conspiracy genes settled down some.

Then there was Cokie Roberts.  Awful as usual, but not up on the net as yet, so I can't torment you all with a link.  She was touting one of the Republicans whose name I suppress to preserve my sanity (Lindsay Graham?) as an epitome of bipartisanship, quoting him on how terrible the Democrats were, and the HE knew what real bipartisanship was because he was a true Bipartisan.

My hackles extended themselves even further... full inch.  Their attempt to reach the ceiling was so painful I had to sit up in bed.  But the torment was not yet over.  The Fallacy Of Using Tax Cuts To Fix Recession.  My hopes rose, I am an optimist, after all.  But then I listened carefully.  Whose tax cuts won't work?  Here's the promo...everyone here is smart enough to figure out what's wrong with it:

    One major question echoed from the halls of Congress to the talking heads on TV is:  Can tax cuts actually stimulate the economy? Financial writer David Cay Johnston talks with Steve Inskeep about the value of the tax cuts in President Obama's stimulus package.

Whose tax cuts?  Any word about three certain Senators in Congress?  My ears didn't hear any mention of them, or of the Republicans in Congress who refused to vote for the stimulus because there were too few tax cuts.

I'm almost done, but you may want to know why my hackles have started to grow as well as raise.  NPR's coup de grace:  Boyish Charm: Disney XD Woos Young Princes.  And this listed under "Arts and Entertainment"!  Puff piece?  I'll give you puff piece, and for Disney, owner of ABC, the most right wing of the major media.  C'mon, NPR, do you really think your listener base is listening to you only because they can't get  Fox and Limbaugh in their neighborhoods?   NPR online does allow listener comments.  I saw one from "Former Contributor" so that name has already been used.  If I can come up with a cool alternative I may join him/her.  In the meantime, I'm going to look on Craig's List for a specialist in Hackle control.  

Happy President's Day.