There's quite a controversy brewing over freelance radio host Lisa Simeone for her participation with an activist group occupying a park in Washington, D.C. It's a worth a look at how this unfolded-- especially since it appears to have cost her one of her jobs.

A report at the Roll Call website (10/18/11) noted that Simeone was acting as a spokesperson for the group, which goes by the name October 11. Roll Call wondered if this violated NPR ethics guidelines, since Simeone acts as a host on two programs that air on some NPR affiliates: the long-running documentary series Soundprint and the NPR World of Opera. (Neither show is produced by NPR; World of Opera is distributed by the network.)

Shortly after the Roll Call story appeared (and was picked up by other outlets like the conservative Daily Caller), NPR sent this internal memo, which was posted by activist David Swanson (Warisacrime.org, 10/20/11):

From: NPR Communications

Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2011 6:12 PM
Subject: From Dana Rehm: Communications Alert
To:       All Staff
Fr:        Dana Davis Rehm
Re:      Communications Alert

We recently learned of World of Opera host Lisa Simeone’s participation in an Occupy DC group. World of Opera is produced by WDAV, a music and arts station based in Davidson, North Carolina. The program is distributed by NPR. Lisa is not an employee of WDAV or NPR; she is a freelancer with the station.

We're in conversations with WDAV about how they intend to handle this. We of course take this issue very seriously.

As a reminder, all public comment (including social media) on this matter is being managed by NPR Communications.

All media requests should be routed through NPR Communications at 202.513.2300 or mediarelations@npr.org. We will keep you updated as needed. Thanks.

NPR posted the first two paragraphs of the memo as a blog item shortly thereafter. Within a few hours, Soundprint fired Simeone (AP, 10/20/11), citing NPR ethics guidelines. It is not clear why the show, which has no apparent formal connection to NPR, would make this move. AP reported that Simeone was fired "after NPR questioned her involvement in a Washington protest," though NPR claims it had "no contact with the management of the program prior to their decision" (Poynter.org, 10/20/11).

Simeone is not an NPR host or employee, but the network did seem to be taking some sort of active role in the decisions about her employment status.

NPR's Ethics Code forbids journalists from participating "in marches and rallies involving causes or issues that NPR covers," and it also states that "NPR journalists may not engage in public relations work." The code "also applies to material provided to NPR by independent producers." But NPR there are exceptions, such as a "freelancer who primarily does arts coverage." The NPR code also states, "There may be instances in which the type of programming may not demand the application of a particular principle in this code."

WDAV, the station that produces World of Opera, decided today that Simeone could continue to host the show:

As host of World of Opera, Lisa Simeone is an independent contractor of WDAV Classical Public Radio. Ms. Simeone’s activities outside of this job are not in violation of any of WDAV's employee codes and have had no effect on her job performance at WDAV. Ms. Simeone remains the host of World of Opera.

That would seem like good news.

But NPR's handling of this is a reminder that it has never been entirely clear what kind of political positions NPR deems objectionable.  News reporter Mara Liasson once denounced antiwar Democratic politicians on Fox News Channel (10/3/02): "These guys are a disgrace. Look, everybody knows it's Politics 101 that you don't go to an adversary country, an enemy country, and badmouth the United States, its policies and the president of the United States. I mean, these guys ought to, I don't know, resign."

The comments caused some controversy (NPR's ombud wrote a column on 7/20/03), but obviously Liasson was not removed from her job as a reporter. Cokie Roberts is apparently free to take political stances, given her role as an analyst.

NPR's new president Gary Knell has stated his desire to "calm the waters" and "depoliticize" the debate over public radio (FAIR Blog, 10/7/11) in response to Republican politicians' desire to cut funding for public broadcasting. Incidents like the revelation of Simeone's activism are likely to provide fodder for right-wing complaints about the "liberal bias" of NPR. One understandable response is derision. Time's James Poniewozik writes:

Public radio listeners! Have you long worried that your station was undermining capitalism through its broadcasts of the Ring Cycle? Tired of having your children brainwashed by the socialistic messages of La Traviata?

Poniewozik argues that firing Simeone "would be a stupid, stupid decision"--but that due to the politicization of the funding debate NPR is "practically obligated to overreact when a staff member or even freelancer comes within 200 feet of a political opinion."

It's beyond absurd that there's really even a controversy over whether the freelance host of an opera show should be fired for political activism. But let it be a reminder to NPR's new president: It's going to be nearly impossible to  "depoliticize" this debate, given the vehemence of your right-wing critics.

NPR ombud Alicia Shepard has posted an article (4/2/10) headlined "Where Are the Women?,"  a summary of a study of the gender diversity of high-profile NPR programs.

The most important findings:

With the aid of NPR librarian Hannah Sommers, we compiled a list of regular commentators, who are not NPR employees but are paid to appear on air. There are 12 outside commentators who appeared at least 20 times in the last 15 months. The only woman is former NPR staffer, Cokie Roberts (51 times), who is on ME [Morning Edition] most Mondays talking politics.

And:

We also looked at the number of people from outside NPR who were interviewed by NPR news shows, or whose voices appeared in reporters' stories. For this analysis, we examined 104 shows, using a "constructed week" sampling technique from April 13, 2009 to January 9, 2010.

Those figures are equally discouraging.

NPR listeners heard 2,502 male sources and 877 female sources on the shows we sampled. In other words, only 26 percent of the 3,379 voices were female, while 74 percent were male.

Shepard pointed out that women are much more prominent as reporters and hosts on NPR--close to 50-50.

The findings about NPR sources reflect only a slight improvement over the gender imbalance documented in previous FAIR studies of NPR programming: A study looking at shows from 1991 (Extra!, 4-5/93; press release, 3/29/93) found only 19 percent female sources, while a study of 2003 sources (Extra!, 5-6/04) turned up 21 percent. In terms of commentators, NPR might have been doing slightly better in 1991, when four of 27 commentators featured more than once were women.

Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep expresses his problems with the survey; he calls it "unsatisfying," though the same could be said for his criticism. He suggests, without offering evidence, that NPR's lengthier in-studio interviews are more often with female guests; when public broadcasters have offered similar rationalizations in response to FAIR criticism in the past, such objections haven't held up (Activism Update, 10/18/06).

The upshot is that NPR says it's trying hard to make improvements in this area, and they'll try even harder. But given the fact that 11 of the top 12 commentators on NPR are men, and that the only woman is Cokie Roberts, it looks like they're not trying hard enough. Kudos to Shepard for doing this work.

Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of the end of the historic British miners strike of 1984-85. The BBC has a special broadcast in commemoration, The Ballad of the Miners Strike, featuring the voices of miners.

But where can Americans turn for commemorations of our progressive history? There is always Howard Zinn's excellent book, A People's History of the United States.  But turn on NPR, the closest thing the U.S. has to the BBC, and the closest you'll get to the people's history is the denunciation of Zinn.

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).

National Public Radio monitor mytwords (NPR Check, 8/9/09) has observed what he dubs a "Blackwater Blackout" on the publicly funded "alternative" to corporate radio:

On Tuesday, August 4 Jeremy Scahill broke the story about two sworn statements implicating Blackwater (now Xe) founder Erik Prince in the murder of employees or former employees who were cooperating in the federal investigation of Blackwater. He also revealed that sworn statements indicated that Blackwater was organized and run as an anti-Muslim, Christian identity paramilitary force. By any measure this is a major news story. It was picked up by ABC, Boston Herald, CNN, the [London] Times, etc. Of course, Democracy Now! featured Scahill the next day for a substantial interview, and Scahill also was promptly featured on Olbermann's Countdown on MSNBC.

But "how about our nation's public radio news" stories?--well, mytwords will give "you a hint: it's less than one...."

NPR Check blogger mytwords has taken the time (8/4/09) to closely "consider [Scott] Horsely's verbal sleight of hand" on National Public Radio's August 4 Morning Edition:

He equates a completely false distortion--characterizing the tepid Democratic health reform proposals as "government-run healthcare" in opposition to "the free market"--with a completely fact-based statement--"we have a system today that works well for the insurance industry but it doesn't work well for you [the public]." Yes, the system works well (insurance profits more than quadrupled from 2000 to 2007) but not for the public, which pays more for less and suffers about 22,000 deaths a year from the insurance industry's commitment to not covering people. How could anyone cast them as the villain?

Having set up this falsehood, Horsely turns to health insurance industry vampire representative, Karen Ignani (no stranger at at NPR--see March 7, 2009 and June 13, 2009), so she can claim how wrong Obama's statement is because the mob her industry supports "reforms."

But that's not all--"Horsely ends this report with a bit of moralizing against the Democrats, noting that 'Brookings scholar [Stephen] Hess thinks it's unfortunate the Democrats have chosen to demonize health insurance companies.'" Leading mytwords to ponder: "Demonizing the health insurance companies, now why would anyone do that?"

Jennifer L. Pozner has a version of her new NPR commentary on the Women In Media & News website she founded (7/8/09), in which she asks you to "think carefully: Can you remember any passionate TV news debates about whether journalists or voters might want to get naked with former vice president Dick Cheney?" If you're answer is no, that's not only unsurprising, but also, says Pozner, "good. Because such an insulting, irrelevant topic would--and should--never be considered newsworthy." She then calls attention to the fact that, "unfortunately, this sort of drivel frequently passes for journalism when the politician at the center of the story is female":

Take Alaska's soon-to-be-former governor, Sarah Palin. When she dropped her resignation bombshell--dubbed "breathless" "girlish burbling" by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd--CNN's Rick Sanchez wondered, "Hey, could she be pregnant again?," while others chalked it up to post-partum depression. Meanwhile, MSNBC analyst Donny Deutsch told Morning Joe viewers that the Quittah from Wasilla is divisive specifically because: "This is the first woman in power with sexual appeal.... We're used to seeing a woman in power as non-threatening."...

The ugly, nonpartisan truth is that corporate media have always seen women in power as threatening. That's why they trivialize women who dare seek office by obsessing over their bodies, hair, shoes, makeup and motherhood--as if these have anything to do with their abilities and track records. Whether it's cable news branding Hillary Clinton a "bitch," the New York Times reporting that Condoleezza Rice wears a size six, or the Washington Post detailing Loretta and Linda Sanchez' hairstyles, housekeeping preferences and "hootchy shoes," journalistic double standards condition us to consider women as ladies first, leaders a distant second--and inherently less qualified.

Pozner describes the consequences: "We'll never know how many talented people were dissuaded from politics because they knew it would be significantly harder for them to run, win and govern." See the FAIR magazine Extra!: "Beyond Clinton & Palin: Coverage of Women in Election Misses Real Women's Issues" (1/09) by Julie Hollar.

Salon's Glenn Greenwald has an update (7/2/09, ad-viewing required) on "several noteworthy developments since I wrote on Tuesday about the refusal of NPR's ombudsman, Alicia Shepard, to be interviewed by me about NPR's ban on using the word 'torture' to describe the Bush administration's interrogation tactics":

Given the utter vapidity of her rationale ("there are two sides to the issue. And I'm not sure, why is it so important to call something torture?"), I was momentarily amazed to learn that she actually teaches "Media Ethics" to graduate students at Georgetown University....

NPR's "torture" ban and its ombudsman's incoherent defense of it has now turned into a significant controversy for NPR--and rightfully so. Yesterday, the Huffington Post trumpeted the controversy in a prominent headline all day long, focusing on Shepard's refusal to be interviewed here. The media reporter Simon Owens wrote a long column on Shepard's refusal to discuss her rationale with me despite my having been a primary critic of NPR's policy. (Indeed, this controversy began several weeks ago when I noted the ample documentation from NPR Check of NPR's steadfast refusal to use the word "torture" and the embarrassing contortions it employs to accomplish that.)

Despite Shepard's avoidance of him, Greenwald notes that she "went on another NPR-affiliated show" for a segment "that included several good questions" and "a very well-compiled, illustrative and cringe-inducing montage of NPR's repeatedly going out of its way to avoid calling Bush interrogation tactics 'torture,' juxtaposed with an excerpt where NPR explicitly accused Iraqis in Sadr City of 'using torture' against detainees."

Read more on NPR's longstanding problematic reporting on U.S. torture--and Alicia Shepard's inconsistent defense of it--in the FAIR publication Extra! Update: "Tortured Justifications for Bad Journalism" (12/07) by Jim Naureckas & Candice O'Grady.

Critiquing some more of National Public Radio's healthcare reportage, blogger Mytwords (NPR Check, 6/29/09) highlights Julie Rovner of Morning Edition "reporting this morning for the private health insurance lobby": "The healthcare cost debate pretty much comes down to this: 'You can't cut costs without hurting someone.'"

Rovner then backs up her "analysis" with "a little Meet the Press sound-bite from Fred Thompson"--"The only way to really save cost is to have rationing or it can be done by a cram-down by the government and take it out of the hides of doctors, hospitals":

Rovner's report mainly serves to highlight and promote the research of Elliott Fisher of the Dartmouth Institute. The big deal is that Fisher has found that some areas in the U.S. with lower cost prices for healthcare have better outcomes. Funny thing is that on June 11, 2009, NPR featured this exact research. An interesting thing not mentioned on NPR is the chief "partners" of the Dartmouth Institute. On the list are

• Wellpoint Foundation
• Aetna Foundation
• United Health Foundation

I do smell a conflict of interest, eh?

Rovner fills out the report by going to a solid centrist--Len Nichols (no single-payer, he)--of the New America Foundation (as far left as NPR dare venture).

Don't worry, though--"the wrap-up is provided by Joe Antos of the far-right American Enterprise Institute, who concludes that real change to healthcare is a cultural/behavioral issue more than a cost issue." Read the new issue of FAIR's magazine Extra!: "Media Quarantine of Single-Payer Continues: Fifteen Years Later, Public Health Insurance Still Taboo" (6/09) by Julie Hollar and Isabel Macdonald.

Linking to a Felice Pace piece of June 14 that connects the near-absence of single-payer-focused NPR reportage to millions of dollars in underwriting the broadcaster has received from insurance industry heavies, NPR Check's Mytwords (6/17/09) includes his own comment left under Weekend Edition Saturday's "Health Care Reform From The Insurer's Perspective" segment:

Congratulations NPR--as a "public" news station you have done a great service by providing a voice to the voiceless: the health insurance industry, which lacks the funds and connections to get its message out. After yesterday's Republican slant on the public plan from [Mara] Liasson, [Julie] Rovner and [Steve] Inskeep--you showed a brave commitment to your mission statement ["'Fair' means that we present all important views on a subject"] by giving yet more airtime to the insurance lobby this morning.

Mytwords then offers his view that "it's time to tell your member stations to stop begging for support from the public (whose opinions don't seem to amount to much on NPR)," advising them instead "to just plug into the money stream from the insurance industry that you are so loyal to." Read the current edition of FAIR's magazine Extra!: "Media Quarantine of Single-Payer Continues: Fifteen Years Later, Public Health Insurance Still Taboo" (6/09) by Julie Hollar & Isabel Macdonald.

NPR Check blogger Mytwords has some advice (6/14/09) "in these times of austerity and job 'shedding' at NPR": "Instead of spending all the money it must take to embed a reporter like Tom Bowman with the U.S. military in Afghanistan, why not cut him out of the picture and just hand a microphone to one of the officers or commanders there?":

Heck, if that's too expensive, why not just get on the Internets and pull some hard-hitting journalism from the military website of whatever unit Tom would have been embedded with? It sure would be a lot cheaper, even though it would mean we wouldn't get the kind of critical insight that Bowman coughed up for us this morning:

What they're going to be doing is something similar to what they did in Anbar province in Iraq. They're going to move out into the countryside and really live among the people--and that's the whole point here, is the counterinsurgency technique is to live among the people, provide security and eventually help rebuild this part of Afghanistan.

Momentarily dropping his sarcasm for some straightforward outrage, Mytwords asks, "Could you have a more sanitized, propaganda-laden description of the often repressive, brutal and violent strategy of counterinsurgency?"

Looking at last week's "whole series of bad reports on the state of the economy," Dean Baker of Beat the Press and the Center for Economic and Policy Research tells readers of London's Guardian (6/1/09) if they think "these reports might have led to gloomy news stories," such assessments are to be found "not in the U.S. media": "The folks who could not see an $8 trillion housing bubble are still determined to find the silver lining in even the worst economic news":

For example, National Public Radio told listeners that the new home sales figure reported for April was up from the March level. While this was true, the April figure was only 1,000 higher than a March level that had just been revised down by 5,000. April new home sales were 4,000 below the sales level that had originally been reported for March. USA Today touted a "surge" in durable goods orders, which was also based on a sharp downward revision to the prior month's data.

The media have obviously abandoned economic reporting and instead have adopted the role of cheerleader, touting whatever good news it can find and inventing good news when none can be found. This leaves the responsibility of reporting on the economy to others.

Predicting that "at some point it will be impossible to conceal the bad news, and Congress' attention will return to stimulus," for now Baker notes that "media's reality defying happy talk on the economy is delaying this moment." Read the recent issue of FAIR's magazine Extra!: "Stimulus Snake Oil: Media Promote Nonsensical GOP Talking Points (3/09) by Peter Hart.

Discussing (5/31/09) the "story on the two U.S. journalists detained in North Korea," NPR Check's Mytwords states clearly that it "deserves coverage, as did some coverage of [Roxana] Saberi's arrest in Iran (though not the wall to wall attention given by NPR)." But a reader's link to the L.A. Times' May 24 "article on another irregular (illegal?) detention of a journalist" sheds light on a glaring double standard:

In this case the journalist was seized by U.S. forces and its allies. The reader noted the lack of NPR coverage on the abduction/detention of Ibrahim Jassam, complaining that NPR has voiced "not a word"--which this search of NPR proves.

A glance at the Committee to Protect Journalists report for "Attacks on the Press in 2008: United States" reveals that Jassam's case is not an anomaly (e.g., Jawed Ahmad). What is not an anomaly is NPR's utter disregard for, and refusal to investigate, attacks against journalists that are initiated by the United States government/military.

On this point, Mytwords notes that independent reporter "Jeremy Schahill has written incisively about the U.S. strategy of violence and intimidation against critical media and the complicity of mainstream U.S. media outlets (such as NPR) in covering it up." See also FAIR's Media Advisory: "U.S. Media Applaud Bombing of Iraqi TV" (3/27/03).

Progressive critic Dr. Roberto Rodriguez has a new commentary (New America Media, 6/2/09) demonstrating how the miserable press reaction to Judge Sonia Sotomayor's U.S. Supreme Court "nomination clearly shows us is that what this nation needs is more incisive journalism, not less." But, Rodriguez laments, "to be sure, the rise of right-wing media, which include Fox News and virtually all the known right-wing radio talkshow hosts, is the antithesis of journalism":

Their coverage of the Sotomayor nomination points to the need for honest debate, not simply on the issues of race, but on the right wing's aversion to truth. It also points to the right wing's pompous beliefs, on every topic, including affirmative action, that their positions are "American."

Extremist politicos Newt Gingrich and Tom Tancredo, both of whom have zero credibility but are stars of right-wing media, have led the charge that Sotomayor is a racist. They have been joined by the usual wingnuts: Rush Limbaugh, Gordon Liddy, Glenn Beck, Pat Buchanan, Lou Dobbs, to name a few. Even Juan Williams of NPR, has parroted the claim that Sotomayor's (out-of-context) statements are racist. The fact that the nation’s discussion centers on whether she is a racist or not--or that she is an "affirmative action" pick (Buchanan)--points to both the power of the wingnuts and also to the virtual impotence, or complicity, of mainstream media.

While "these pundits who daily rant against 'illegal aliens,' and who daily clamor on the need to fortify the U.S.-Mexico border, are quoted as credible sources by the mainstream press," Rodriguez remains hopeful that "the majority of Americans can see through the false arguments...by these so-called patriots." Yet "this does not hold true for the mainstream media. As we are seeing with Sotomayor, all it takes is a handful of 'extremists' to control and shape the media debate."

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."