Analyzing "The Art of Framing at NPR" on his NPR Check blog, Mytwords (8/29/09) thinks that "there are many ways you could frame the role of Sen. Kent Conrad, one of the gang of six senators who are working very hard to preserve the profitable dominance of private health insurance in the U.S.--such as "marvel[ing] at why six senators representing less than 3 percent of the U.S. population are controlling the fate of health insurance reform," or possibly by taking a serious "look at the obscene amounts of campaign cash flowing into these senators' coffers from the for-profit health insurance industry and its allies."

"Ah, but not on NPR," writes Mytwords, when citing how All Things Considered's Andrea Seabrook "explains Kent Conrad's opposition to the pubic option and offer of health insurance co-ops as the result of his expertise on fighting government deficits and his commitment to centrism and bipartisanship."

Mytwords' response:

There's just one little, tiny problem with all this emphasis on expertise, budget deficits and BIG, NEW PROBLEMS, great co-ops, and winning Republican votes: It doesn't wash. First, there is no consensus that deficit spending is a bad thing. As far as the danger of a BIG, NEW GOVERNMENT PROGRAM costing sooooo much more money than what we've got--that's a factually challenged assertion, too. But Health Insurance Co-ops are a good thing, like Credit Unions, right? Wrong, they are a sham.

Tempted to throw the public broadcaster a bone by considering that, "Well, at least the bit about getting Republicans on board makes sense"? Mytwords points out how that is just "Wrong again." Listen to the FAIR radio program CounterSpin: "Trudy Lieberman on Healthcare Reform" (8/14/09).

Dubbing National Public Radio "The Counterinsurgency Channel," blogger Mytwords (NPR Check, 5/28/09) takes issue with a May 27 All Things Considered report "meant to promote an aspect of U.S. counterinsurgency in Afghanistan--the training of Afghan police as part of Task Force Phoenix (what dumb ass names these operations anyway?)":

The report opens with some great editorializing from Michele Norris:

If American policy is ever to be successful in Afghanistan, it will be because of people like Army Major Jim Contreras; he's the top American police trainer in Helmand province in Southern Afghanistan. Afghan police are key to fighting insurgents: They know the neighborhoods, the people, who is an insurgent and who is not.

In spite of the likely failure of the U.S. "mission" in Afghanistan--and the dismal (and lucrative) history of the U.S. training program for Afghan police forces, Norris assures us that this will be the "key to fighting insurgents." It's striking, too, how apropos of nothing, Norris confidently asserts that they know "who is an insurgent and who is not"?

Aside from the dubious concept that more militancy will somehow bring peace to Afghanistan, NPR is in regrettably large company when faithfully believing U.S. force's claims to the insurgent identities of their victims--nor is it alone among big media when providing "nothing in the report to indicate how disastrous the new Bushama/Obamush War in Af-Pak will be."

Blogging on how May 4 and 5 broadcasts "feature NPR continuing its function of justifying and sanitizing the U.S. torture regime," dedicated public radio critic Mytwords (NPR Check, 5/5/09) plumbs the depths of NPR's aversion to "human rights or international law advocates or experts"--instead preferring "members or former members of various U.S. government agencies," even "the very ones implicated in formulating and carrying out torture":

For a long time NPR news has minimized (June 2006), dismissed (February 2007), ignored (April 2007), covered over (October 2007) and collaborated with (December 2007) the use of torture by agencies and agents of the U.S. government. You can search NPR news in vain for any original investigative work on exposing torture or on any serious elucidation of the laws and conventions that prohibit the U.S. from committing torture and require prosecution for violators.

See the FAIR publication Extra! Update: "Tortured Justifications for Bad Journalism" (12/07) by Jim Naureckas & Candice O'Grady.

"A rather major problem with nearly all of NPR's reporting" has been identified by NPR Check blogger Mytwords (2/18/09) and named the "history scrub." The definition: "If the essential background history to a story reflects poorly on the actions of the U.S. government--that history will be deleted, scrubbed, sanitized--sent down the memory hole." The key example given is a February 17 All Things Considered in which host Michelle Norris "blandly explains that thousands more U.S. troops are headed off to Afghanistan and doesn't even chuckle in noting that the United States Institute of Peace [tee-hee] released some new policy recommendations for Afghanistan":

To discuss the report, Norris interviews Seth Jones, co-author with Christine Fair of the report. (Both authors are connected with the RAND Corp.) In fairness, a lot of what Jones says comes off as fairly informed and reasonable.... He even offered corrective to Michelle Norris' knee-jerk assumption that the answer to all problems in Afghanistan is more U.S. troops and military might....

What I found so stunning is that neither Norris nor Jones ever mentioned that the baseline of stable functioning "legitimate" local leaders was essentially destroyed and replaced by the most ruthless, fanatic and illegitimate leaders that the U.S. could recruit and train in its 1980s campaign to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan. Even U.S. News & World Report acknowledges this basic history.  On NPR, though, it's as if this nasty little chapter of U.S. involvement in the sorrows of Afghanistan never even happened--or that it had no continuity with the current configuration of the U.S.-Afghanistan project.

Suggesting that NPR consider "airing the views and opinions of people who got it right for a change," Mytwords takes a "hop into the way-back machine" and links to "cartoonist Ted Rall's piece on Afghanistan written at the time when most were crowing about the stunning U.S. victory over the Taliban." The title of Rall's "disturbingly prescient" 2001 Village Voice article?: "How We Lost Afghanistan." For more on major media's unquestioning acceptance of the need for U.S. troop escalation in Afghanistan, listen to the FAIR radio show CounterSpin: "Ann Jones on Afghanistan" (1/23/09)