NPR Reporters & Contributors Hit TV Circuit to Champion Their Gravy Train

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Tuesday March 15, 2011 @ 09:36 AM EDT

1. NPR Reporters and Contributors Hit TV Circuit to Champion Their Network

Many of NPR's correspondents and contributors were out in force this weekend singing the praises of their taxpayer-subsidized network in the wake of an undercover video scandal that led to the ouster last week of NPR President and CEO Vivian Schiller. MRC's NewsBusters blog chronicled the various appearances over the weekend, plus the admission from someone involved in public broadcasting that NPR serves a "predominantly white, liberal" audience, raising questions over whether serving just "11%" of the U.S. public would "warrent public funding, and, if so, what the rationale would be."

2. Chris Matthews Sees Japan Earthquake an 'Opportunity' for Obama to Remind People He Was Born in Hawaii

Hundreds if not thousands of people are dead due to a devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan. But at least it gave Barack Obama an avenue to remind everyone he was born in Hawaii. That's the silver lining MSNBC's Chris Matthews espoused Friday night: "Was this sort of a good opportunity for the president to remind everybody that he grew up in the United States and Hawaii?"

3. Matthews Thanks Guest for Recognizing Political Opportunity of Japan Disaster for Obama

The Birther conspiracy obsessed Chris Matthews, who on Friday's Hardball, suggested the disaster in Japan was a good opportunity for Barack Obama to remind people he was born in Hawaii. Well when a guest on Monday's show pointed out Obama did just that, the MSNBCer couldn't help but congratulate him as he told the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson: "Thank you for reminding us the President was raised in Hawaii...and not of the Maus Maus, which some of his more insane critics have brought up."

4. ABC Touts Anti-Nuke Activist, Ex-Aide to a Lefty Organization as Experts on Crisis in Japan

Good Morning America on Monday featured two liberal experts to explain the escalating crisis in Japan, but didn't identify the leftist background of either. Co-host George Stephanopoulos identified Joe Cirincione as someone "who has also spent many years inside the U.S. government dealing with nuclear issues." The ABC anchor failed to mention that Cirincione previously worked for the liberal Center for American Progress and was the director of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. (Stephanopoulos only explained Cirincione's current job, President of the Ploughshares Fund, a group dedicated to achieving a "achieve a safe, secure, nuclear weapon-free world.") The segment's other guest, Michio Kaku, currently has a radio show on Pacifica Radio. He's also been active in the global nuclear weapons movement and opposing Ronald Reagan. Stephanopoulos simply identified him as a physicist.

5. Violent Imagery? Time Magazine Wonders If WI Governor is a 'Dead Man Walker'

For the last two years, members of the media have scolded conservatives and members of the Tea Party of using incendiary language. Yet, a Time.com headline on Saturday blasted, "Wisconsin's Governor Wins, but Is He Now Dead Man Walker?" Writer Dawn Reiss highlighted the angry tone of pro-union demonstrators, enraged over Scott Walker's collective bargaining restrictions: "The midnight honking of cars circling the white building had ceased. The chalk outlines around fake dead bodies etched with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's name remained in dismembered parts, not yet completely washed away by hoses."

6. CNN Touts Slam of '80s 'Mythology' Promoting 'Militarism,' 'Greed'

Jay Kernis, senior producer of CNN's In the Arena program, promoted liberal writer David Sirota's thesis that "the mythology of the 1980s still defines our thinking on everything from militarism, to greed, to race relations." Sirota bashed 80s cultural touchstones such as The A Team and Ghostbusters for being "hideously militaristic" and the "ugliness of [their] anti-government message." Kernis interviewed the Huffington Post contributor about his new book, "Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now—Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything" in an item on his program's blog on CNN.com on Monday. The producer first asked about the writer's hypothesis that "the political and cultural references from the 1980s have not only become cool again, but may be a way to explain our present-day issues and conflicts, and even influencing our thinking today."