4-10-24 - 6am - How NPR Lost America

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Michael Dragon, what the heck iswrong with y'all? Catch up on a
hot dog? Mustard on a hotdog. No mayonnaise or garlic. I
only that's the only way to go. And when I say mayonnaise, I
don't mean that Omeerica whip craft huhuh No, no, any anytime Dragon,

(00:21):
I mentioned the word mayonnaise, We'retalking about real mayonnaise. Correct.
A miracle whip is just yeah,I'm named miracle with just white chemicals all
mixed together. It's it's it's terrible, kind of like Dyke Coach, just
black chemicals all mixed together, andit's funny. I gotta have real mayonnaise,
but I'll drink a Dike coke.So I'm sitting here and I'm ready
to talk about this NPR study studystory. Uh but then, Dragon,

(00:49):
so what what did you see onthe tv? Biden claims he can't do
anything on border crisis because courts willblock him. Wait a minute. Biden
claims he can't do anything on theborder crisis because the courts will block him.
So he is preemptively saying I can'tdo anything about the border because the
Supreme Court might tell me I can'tdo that. Is that how you would

(01:12):
interpret that? How exactly how Iwould interpret that? Chiron from Fox News
right now? Yes, okay,so then let me ask you, mister
producer. If that is true,then why is it that the Supreme Court
tells him he cannot forgive or whateverword you want to use on student loans
redistribute, redistribute, redistribute. Yeah, that's what you know. He's taking

(01:36):
away loans from everybody else and givinghim back to us. Oh okay,
okay, all right, So soit doesn't make any difference what the US
Supreme Court said about student loans,just what the court might say in the
future about yeah, something else,right, you get it, you know,
Okay, I think we're done forthe day. I think that pretty

(01:57):
much doesn't all right, We're goingon. Yeah, you know, I
got two diet cokes, so youknow what I mean, maybe I'll just
sit out in the car and watchthe sun rise. I'll go out on
the balcony, on the gorgeous balconywe have with you know, smoke a
few sick you know, there's probablyenough cigarettes leftovers, leftovers. What do
you call cigarette butts out there?Why do they call them cigarette butts,

(02:19):
have you ever thought about that thisis the bottom of the cigarette. I
don't know. I don't know.So anyway, maybe I'll go out there
and just you know, get enoughof them. There's probably enough left,
I guess in there, and youknow, smoke enough to watch the sunrise.
So did you ever smoke? No, me either. I tried smoking
one time. It's like, youknow, in the sixth grade or something.
I don't know. I was like, Missus Redbeard's a former smoker,

(02:39):
though she's been quit for about thirteenyears. Wow, good for her,
for her, good for her.You know, she's done a lot of
good things in her life. Yeah, I think so. But why you
I just don't get that. Ijust don't get that. And I could
clearly clear Carrot tell at lunch theother day that she just regrets it.

(03:00):
She just she just ripped into you. Every opportunity she had there was just
glorious to watch. You know.I did something I normally refused to do.
We had a like a three personbooth and I actually sat in the
middle. I was trapped between thetwo of them. Well I didn't want
to sit next to Missus Redbeard.So that's fine. Well, really,

(03:22):
didn't want to sit next to me, so well, I you know,
it was just it was just,you know, it was just awkward.
I felt like I was holding court. Like you know, I got both
of you on both sides of me, and I can't escape. I mean,
one if both of you turned onme, one of one if both
of you immediately turned rabbit. Wejust wanted to give you whiplash going back
and forth. Well, no,there's not gonna be that because I didn't
care what you said. I don'tlisten to you at all. All right,

(03:45):
So let's go to NPR. SoSusan, who is an avid listener
on the on the weekend. Andby the way, Susan's just a she's
a she's a sweetheart of a person. Hey, what did she think of
this last this past weekend. Ihaven't heard from her. I don't know.
I haven't heard from her about that. Yeah, I don't know.
So she sent me I've heard thisstory, but she sent me a link

(04:10):
to and interestingly, it's a websitethat I used for show prep, but
I haven't I haven't looked at ita couple of days because I've been so
busy with with other stuff. Butin PR. Here's the headline. I've
been in PR for twenty five years. Here's how we lost America's trust.
And I'm thinking, when did youhave America's trust? It's written by a

(04:34):
guy by the name Yesterday, bya guy by the name of Uri Berliner.
Uri Berliner happened to be on AllNews Nation with Chris Cuomo. Uh,
I guess it was. Was thislast night? Let me look at
the date on this down by Yes, this was last night. So here's

(04:56):
what he had to say last night. I want to brand brother Berliner because
that was a brave thing. ChrisComo. I don't want to bring in
brother Berliner because he's a follow journalist, Brother Berliner, because that was a
brave thing he did. Man,your competition is your critic base in this
business. And you knew when youwrote this you weren't going to get a

(05:17):
chorus of amen's. You were goingto get people probably digging through your garbage
and saying it's not true. Andsure enough, colleagues came forward to do
what you had to expect they weregoing to do, which is say,
we disagree. You're he's entitled tohis opinion, but we disagree about the
nature and quality of our reporting.What do you make of their response?

(05:38):
What do you make of the attention. I'm not surprised by the response that
you know, came from management,and the same managers that I've been making
a lot of these points about,and they're certainly entitled to that perspective.
I will say I've had a lotof support from colleagues, and many of
them unexpected who said I agree withme. Some of them say this confidential,

(06:00):
but I think there's been a lotof response saying these are things that
need to be addressed. We haven't. We've been too lucked and too frightened,
too timid to deal with these things. And I think that this is
this is the right opportunity to bringit all out in the open. So
for those who were sitting there sayingI knew it NPR, those laconic lefties,

(06:21):
you know, with that slow deliveryand just feeding us all of this,
are you saying that's the truth orare you saying it's something that has
evolved. What do you want peopleto feel about NPR and what you feel
about the media in general. Ithink it's evolved. You know, I've
been at NPR a long time,twenty five years. You could say,

(06:42):
I'm a lifer and it's the placeI've always loved working. But when I
started, there was a liberal orientation. But I think we were more guided
by curiosity, open mindedness. Youknow, you said talked about policy,
You were kind of nerdy and reallylike to dig into things and understand the
complexity of things. That I thinkthat's evolved over the years into a much

(07:03):
narrower kind of niche thinking, agroup think that's really clustered around a very
selective progressive views. That don't theydon't allow enough air, enough enough spaciousness
to consider all kinds of perspectives.Well, of course they don't. Here's
what he has to say. Iwant to deconstruct what he had to say,

(07:25):
because again the headline is, I'vebeen at MPR for twenty five years.
Here's how we lost America's trust.Now, I can say, as
a person who would occasionally drive byNPR, simply because I'm always curious about
what those people are saying, I'mnot sure that you always had America's trust

(07:53):
because saying, I mean a broadstatement like that, that you had America's
trust means that there was unanimity thatthat you know, people uh trusted you,
even even if you disagreed with them. We trusted what you said,
or we trusted your sources, Wetrusted your thinking, your rationale, your

(08:13):
logic, whatever it No, itnever existed. And in fact, let's
just let's just look at listen tothe first sentence, you know, the
stereotype of the MPR listener. Andbefore I even tell you what the what
it says of the of the peoplethat I know that are in PR listeners.

(08:39):
And I'm trying to think, uh, I mean, I'm sure that
there are more than this, butI probably know offhand closely about a dozen
NPR listeners. And as I readthis paragraph, I thought specifically about several
of them, because not only doesthis fit there thinking, but they're also

(09:01):
the type that, because they knowthat we are polar opposites in terms of
politics, culture, many things,they oftentimes send me links to articles and
I read through them and I justthink this is such horsecraft, This is
such horse maneuver that I just anyway, this first paragraph describes these friends of

(09:22):
mine almost to a tee, withmaybe the exception of driving an ev you
know, stereotype. He writes theNPR listener and ev driving, wordle playing,
tope bag carrying, coastal elite.It doesn't precisely describe me, he
writes, but it's not far off. I'm Sarah Lawrence, educated, was
raised by a lesbian peace activist mother. I drive a super route and Spotify

(09:46):
says, my listening habits are mostsimilar to people in Berkeley. I fit
the NPR mold. I'll cop tothat. And he talks about how he
started twenty five years ago. Andthat is true that NPR always had a
liberal meant, he says, butas he said in that sound bite,
he thinks that they always had anopen minded, curious culture that prevailed that

(10:11):
we were nerding, but not kneejerk, not activists, and not scolding.
Well, that's precisely what they are, and in fact, he admits
that that's how they have evolved today. He says, those who listen to
NPR or read its coverage online onlinefinds something different the distilled worldview of a

(10:33):
very small segment of the US population. You know who that segment is elitists.
Now, let me describe a friendof mine that I think fits this
mold. He would probably say todaythat he's not elitist, and he probably

(10:54):
thinks he's not elitist because his financialsituation is not what I would say based
on his background. I'm surprised thathe's currently in the financial situation that he
is. But he is a graduateof Wellesley. He was raised by what
I would call a aristocratic family thatlived in Connecticut, and his father was

(11:20):
a banker in New York. Hehimself became a banker, worked for I
don't want to name any banks,but he worked for some big banks in
New York. He spent a considerableamount of time in Paris working for this
bank. He came back to theStates after finishing or not finishing, but

(11:43):
came back to the States still workingfor the same bank. That bank then
decided that they were going to dosome rearranging of the deck chairs, so
they offered, you know, theywanted to reassign him to something else.
So he decided not to do thatand instead moved to Denver. And he's

(12:05):
been in Denver for I don't know, maybe well maybe twenty five years.
I'm not quite sure how long he'sbeen in Denver. He's he's much older
than I am, and and henow lives in a condo downtown, and
I think is just now again thisis a I consider him a friend.
I think he's Asperger's. I thinkhe's on a spectrum, and he's and

(12:31):
he hasn't been very successful since heleft Paris and came back to the United
States. However, he is adie hard, I mean religiously listener of
NPR. In fact, I wouldsay that is primarily his number one source
of news, and the number twosources of news is what Why would you

(12:54):
think the number two sources of newswould be That's right, the New York
Times. So he is despite hiscurrent financial situation. I would consider him
to be. I think he wouldthink that he is aristocratic. He's you
know, well, I'm a NewYork elite, you know, East Coast
liberal establishment kind of person. Hefits that description of an NPR listener.

(13:22):
Ber Lennard says in his article thatif you're a conservative, you'll read this
and say it's always been this way. But he claims that it has not
been this way. And here's wherethis NPR editor reporter has been there for
a quarter of a century. Thisis where he and I divert in our

(13:43):
opinions. He says, for decadessince it's founding in nineteen seventy, a
wide swath of America tuned into NPRfor reliable journalism and gorgeous audio pieces with
birds singing in the Amazon. Millionscame to us for conversation that exposed us
to voices around the country and theworld radically different from our own, engaging

(14:05):
precisely from our own, engaging preciselybecause they were unguarded and unpredictable. No
image generated more pride with NPR thanthe farmer listening to Morning Edition from his
or her tractor at sunrise. Allyou farmers on the Eastern Plains that listened

(14:26):
to NPR as you were plowing thefields or you know, harvesting the corn
or whatever, raise your hands.Really, don't see anybody out there,
don't see at all, he says, Back in twenty eleven. Now that
date has significance, but you'll figureit out. Back in twenty eleven,

(14:48):
although NPR's audience tilted a bit tothe left, I would say MPR's audience
was the left, he says,it still bore a resemblance to America at
large. I just don't buy that. I've been a news junkie of political

(15:11):
junkie. As I've explained before myentire life, and I don't mean like,
you know, since turning twenty one. I'm talking about. I was
infused with politics through my parents andmy parents' acquaintances and their friends, and
including a guy who became the youknow, was the chair of the Oklahoma

(15:31):
Republican Party back way back in thesixties and became the first Republican governor of
Oklahoma. So even though MPR didn'tcome along until nineteen seventy, I don't
think that when it came along innineteen seventy that it can claim it was
anything but geared to the elites.Twenty six percent of listeners, he says,

(15:56):
described themselves as conservative, twenty threepercent as middle of the road,
and thirty seven percent as liberal.He doesn't tell us what I mean.
I don't know what the source ofthat is, and I don't know how
accurate that would be. I wouldguess that, yes, there was a
certain percentage of NPR listeners that wereconservative, what maybe ten or fifteen percent,

(16:21):
but a quarter I kind of doubtthat. I'd like to see the
data, but he doesn't provide thedata. By twenty twenty three. Now
this is where I think we startswerving into the truth. He says,
the picture was completely different. Onlyeleven percent described themselves as very or somewhat
conservative, Twenty one percent is middleof the road. In sixty seven percent

(16:44):
said they were very or somewhat liberal. We weren't just losing conservatives. We
were also losing moderates and traditional liberals. Yeah, you were, because people
were beginning to wake up and realizethis is a load of crap. And
he says that there's a reason forthat now regardless of the statistics, listen

(17:11):
to one. He says that suddenlythey were losing even moderates. He says,
an open minded spirit no longer existswith NPR, and now, predictably,
we don't have an audience that reflectsAmerica. That wouldn't be a problem
for any open polemical news outlet servinga niche audience, But for NPR,
which purports to consider all things that'spretty clever. It's devastating both for its

(17:37):
journalism and its business model. Goodmorning, Dragon and Michael. Note to
all the other gugers out there,always put the talent first. To the
greeting. I was wondering how governmentbody died. News media it is actually
constitutional. Their argument, which I'vealways found fascinating because it's like, well,

(18:08):
I'm not addicted to heroin because Ionly shoot up heroin once a week.
The the real you know homies outthere that are really you know,
shooting up the heroine all the time, they're doing it every single day.
I just do it once a week. So I'm not really a heroin addict.
That's in pr because they'll tell youthat, you know, and don't

(18:33):
hold me to any of these figuresor percentages. But you know ninety five
percent of our budget comes elsewhere andonly five percent of our budget comes from
the federal government. Well, still, if you get one dollar from the
federal government, you're taking taxpayer money. So I've never bought that argument.
All of you on the text linethere are You've got so many questions.

(19:00):
You got the black school bus aidebeating up the white boy, the use
of the term migrants, and thoseexperiencing homelessness on the newscast, the Michigan
school parents. I'll tell you rightnow that I'm not going to talk about
the Michigan school shooter parents yet becauseI'm not ready as a lawyer, because

(19:21):
I don't know that. I don'tknow what kind of facts were entered into
evidence. So I don't want tocomment on that case yet because I just
my position in that case could goone of two ways depending on what the
facts are and what the evidence isin the case. So, yeah,
I know you're trying to get meto go down a rabbit hole. I

(19:42):
refuse to go down a rabbit holeright now. Or maybe not, Maybe
I will back to this NPR confession. So what happened? What caused this
guy Ed Berliner that's a friend ofmine, Eli Lenner? What caused Eliber

(20:03):
Lennar to suddenly say to all toUri Eli r Uri Berliner? What caused
him to suddenly say, oh everythingchanged? Well, do you have any
idea what's the catalyst? If theywere middle of the road, which I
don't think. I don't believe theywere ever middle of the road, But

(20:27):
whatever they were, what caused themto go so far left and actually stop
journalism and inner advocacy? Well,he tells you, He writes, like
many unfortunate things, the rise ofadvocacy took off with Donald Trump. Pause

(20:53):
for a moment. I've often usedthe term disruptor with regard to Donald Trump.
Here's what I find fascinating about DonaldTrump as a disruptor. Many people,
and I'll and there's a broad categoryof people that I want to talk
about here. There are people thatall had one thing in common, and

(21:19):
that was they did not believe thatthe current Republican party was ever going to
change or do the things that theyneeded to do to stop the progressivism and
the Marxism that was overtaking the country. And so they would bitch and moan

(21:40):
and scream and holler that we needwe need you know, we got to
have something radical has to happen.We've got to change everything. We've got
to do something different. And Iwould say that I think that is almost,
not quite, but almost a universalclaim among Republicans. Even some establishment

(22:07):
Republicans that I know, would say, yeah, you know what, we
we got to quit doing business theway we always been doing business. We've
got to get in here, andreally, you know, we need a
bull in China Clauset. We've we'vegot to break some things in order to
save the Republic. And then Trumpcame along and he did that. Now

(22:30):
a bull in a China closet isby definition a disruptor, and you don't
like the noise that the bull makes. In fact, the bull might stop
in the middle of the china closetin the in the china uh store and
take a dump. Yeah, thatit might be that disruptive. He might

(22:52):
sit there and you know, you'veever seen a bull pee in a pasture.
He might just he might be inthat bull in China shop and he
might just stop and peach too.I mean, there may be things the
bull does that's breaking the china thatyou go, well, I wanted the
china broken, but I didn't wantthat. Well, wait a minute.
You can't really have it both ways, because if you do you really want

(23:17):
to disrupt things, or do youjust want them to be like okay,
well, you know, disrupt things, but do it in a very polite
way. You can't do that.You just can't do that. I don't
know of any situation, for example, you want to change the culture of
a company, do you want tochange if you understand organizational psychology at all,

(23:38):
If you want to change the cultureof an organization, for example,
if I want to change the cultureof iHeartMedia, that's going to take a
disruptor, which means that I haveto go to the C suite and I
probably have to just eviscerate the SEAsuite. I would then have to go
to the regional level, and I'dhave to just to viscerate everything at the

(24:00):
regional level, because as long asyou leave vestiges of the old culture in
place, they will continue to kindof permeate the entire culture. So just
for example, again using iHeart asan example, if I wanted to change
the culture of iHeart, I'd probablyhave to start with the CEO and start
working my way all the way down. That's how you in terms of organizations,

(24:26):
that's what you have to do.That's why with the creation of DHS,
I was determined that we were goingto if we wanted to change the
culture of the way that we weredoing business pre nine to eleven to post
nine to eleven, we really hadto break some things. The problem is
that many people, including me,who wanted to break things and build things

(24:48):
anew found little pieces over here thatI had no control over that got rebuilt
in ways that I would have neverrebuilt it that way. That's just the
nature of an old organism that wecall corporations. In the case of government's
a government agency, there's pretty muchthe same thing. So Donald Trump comes

(25:10):
in and he's that disruptor. Andnow you've got never Trumpers. You've got
people that are holding their nose,that will they're they're still Republicans, but
they're not going to vote for Trump. They want they want they want an
alternative. There are those that willhold their nose and we'll vote for Trump.
And then there are those that arelike, Okay, well you know

(25:30):
that if that's our choice, we'regoing to vote for Trump. And then
there are those over here in thein the choir box singing Hallelujah chorus because
they think that Trump is And Ireally kind of find this kind of icky.
But I see some of the memesabout Trump where they they actually venerate
him. They put him on aon some sort of of crucifix as as

(25:53):
though he's the second coming of Christ, and I just I find a defensive
So you go all the way fromnever trumpers to people over here who think
he's the second coming of Christ andhe's going to be the savior of the
entire country. Well, you knowwhat, I'm neither one of those extremes.
I'm somewhere here in the middle.But think about what Berliner's saying.

(26:18):
The rise of advocacy took off withDonald Trump. Isn't that where a lot
of the polarization and everything else began. So if you wanted, if you
wanted things to be messed up,broken so we could rebuild, well you

(26:41):
got it. And now people arebitching about it. I just find it
inc I find it mind boggling.But go back, go back to Berliner.
As in many newsrooms, he sayshis election in twenty sixteen was greeted
at NPR with a mixture of whatdo you think? What were the emotion
at NPR? Disbelief, anger,and despair. Now I've been through a

(27:10):
lot of presidential elections, staying uplate at night waiting, you know,
which way is Michigan going to go? Do we have the Florida returns in?
Yet we know what California is doing? Who cares? But watching all
the swing states and this is goingback and forth, and oh my gosh,
And the next thing I know,Jimmy Carter has been elected. And
I knew Jimmy Carter. I justknew in my heart that you know,

(27:30):
Ford wasn't gonna be able to beatCarter and car You know, Carter won,
but there's still that just moment ofdamn. But you know what I
got the next day, went towork, did whatever I was doing,
and thought, we'll live to fightagain. Never did I have Well,

(27:52):
I may have had disbelief and Trumpwas elected because I didn't really think you
could beat Hillary Clinton. So maybeI'm in that category of disbelief. But
I didn't have anger. I didn'thave despair. I've never had anger or
despair. I've been upset, butnone of those three emotions I don't think
Now, he says, parenthetically,just to note I eagerly voted against Trump

(28:18):
twice but felt we were obliged tocover him fairly. Now, why do
you put that parenthetical in your story? Because you are trying to make certain
UFPS, those in your newsroom,those in your cabal, that I'm still
one of you. I just wantyou to know this has nothing to do
you know I voted. I votedagainst Trump too, and noticed What's interesting

(28:44):
he doesn't put in there that Ivoted for Hillary Clinton. He doesn't put
in there that I voted for JoeBiden. He puts in there that I
eagerly voted against Trump twice. Letshould tell you all you need to know
right there, he continues, Butwhat began us a tough, straightforward coverage
of a belligerent, truth impaired president, veered toward efforts to damage or topple

(29:10):
Trump's presidency. That's all you know. I can stop right there. You
know why, because that's the cabal. He just gave you a description of
the cabal. Bef what began asand you'll you can agree or disagree with
that part with with the with thefirst part of the sentence. But what

(29:33):
began as tough, straightforward coverage ofa belligerent and let's face it, Trump
is belligerent, truth impaired president,and sometimes you sometimes know UH veered toward
efforts to damage or topple Trump's presidency? Is is that? Is that pushing

(29:59):
truth to power? Or is thathow to quote a famous newspaper, is
that how democracy dies? In darkness? Hm? What did they do?
So? What did they do afterTrump became elected? Do you know what
I know? But he admits it. Next. I used to love to

(30:21):
listen to Science Friday with Ira Plato, But now no matter what the topic,
he can't go five minutes without tryingto link it to climate change.
Kind of a given dragon, goodmorning. I used to love to listen

(30:41):
to Science Friday with Ira Plato,but now, no matter what the topic.
Okay, so it's five minutes withouttrying to link it to climate change.
I'm not enough of an NPR acolytethat I don't really know who that
is. But I get I getthat that's some reporter that's tying everything to

(31:07):
climate change. But he's probably rightbecause everything is climate change. The eclipse
was climate change, volcanoes, earthquakes, everything's climate change. I mean,
the quicker you learned that, theeasier off you are, real cook,
How I want to finish this?He just he talks about Adam Schiff,
the House Intelligence Committee, the wholeRussia collusion thing, the Molar Report.

(31:30):
He says, it's about the MolarReport. For example, when the Mollar
Report found no credible evidence of collusion, MPR's coverage was notably sparse. Russia
Gate quietly faded from our programming.Yeah, because there was, it was
it was a nothing burger. Butwhat did you do up until the point
you realized that you were going tolose all credibility among your listeners. You

(31:52):
quit reporting on it, because whenwhen Moller comes out and says, yeah,
we can't find any thing. Ifyou continued down the Russia Gate,
as Adam Schiff continued to do himself, at least you knew you had to
pull back. He talks about theHunter Biden laptop story. We don't want

(32:15):
to waste our time, he says, on stories that are not really stories,
and we don't want to waste thelisteners and reader simon stories that are
just pure distractions. But he says, of course it wasn't a pure distraction.
It was the laptop did belong toHunter Biden, and it's contents revealed
his connection to the corrupt world ofmulti million dollar influence peddling. Thank goodness,

(32:37):
he used that word, that phrase, and it's possible implications for his
father, and the laptop was Newsworthytalks about the lab league, how everything
they did, everything was designed todeliver a narrative and not to report on

(32:59):
the facts. This guy, youknow, I think what happens. I
don't know whether the guy is sick, has a terminal illness. I don't
know whether he just had his roadto Damascus moment. I don't know what
it was, but what we shoulddo is respect. He's probably still I

(33:21):
mean, he's probably still a diehardliberal, maybe so far as to be
so far left, he's a Marxist. But what we ought to do is
acknowledge the truth, the truth ofwhat he says, and I would just
honor it, put it into evidence, your honor, that the cabal really
does exist, and that it's incumbentupon you, every single one of you,

(33:47):
to recognize that the cabal is tryingto feed your stuff. And so
you know, even though you listento me, and I want you to
keep listening to me, you shouldlisten to other people and other sources,
and as you do often do,you should question what I have to say,
Question everything,