Fraters Libertas

Pride and/or Prejudice

Local blogger Steve Gigl writes in to cast another cold eye on Brian Lambert’s reporting on MPR:

Do you suppose Lambert might be an occasional guest on Lydon's alleged show?

Anyway, my favorite sentence in all of that is this: "Persistent criticism from conservatives notwithstanding, both MPR and NPR are proud of the ideological balance they bring to reporting and on-air dialogues."

Funny, you'd think that a balanced show in a nation that seems ideologically divided near 50-50 would get criticism from BOTH sides, wouldn't you? Even Soucheray and Hewitt get accused of not being conservative enough fairly regularly.

Good points by Steve. Even if MPR thought they were balanced (and I’m sure they do think that), it seems that consistent criticism exclusively from one side of the political spectrum should create at least some doubt in their minds as to their objectivity. Doubts that perhaps they’re missing something or that maybe their culture is so politically homogenous and insular they’re not able to objectively evaluate their own performance in this regard. Given similar stimulus, that’s how I’d react. But according to Lambert, they’re so sure that they’re doing a good job at being objective, they’re proud of it. (Pride - a deadly sin, no less!)

My recent engagement with MPR over their selective labeling of education advocacy organizations confirms this characterization of pride in the face of criticism. My initial inquiries were rebuffed with a customer service type telling me, in essence - ‘I looked into your claim of bias, turns out there’s nothing to it. Thanks for your comments.’

Only with repeated inquiries did I draw a thorough response from the MPR reporter. I will say his excuses seemed legitimate and not necessarily a product of conscious bias. But they were clear proof of the insular culture at MPR. This guy hadn’t even heard of the concept of selective labeling before and certainly didn’t know conservatives have a big problem with it. Therefore, he thought nothing of labeling one group as “conservative” while failing to label another, overtly liberal group, with any qualification whatsoever.

He revealed he knew that the conservative group had a political agenda for their advocacy, but that it never occured to him that the other group, in clear opposition on the issues, had any political orientation at all. To him they were just “Parents United.” And he didn’t bother to do any research on them, because he didn’t think it was important to his story.

So if that reporting wasn’t biased in design, then it was merely inaccurate, naive, and lazy, resulting in a distorted portrayal of events. Now does that sound like anything to be proud of?