It's taken a while, but now we're demonstrably living in the world of mainstream News/Bias, where standard hard news mixed with opinion, innuendo and partisanship is just simply considered...The News.

Now I'm old enough to remember how the breach of this trust in 2005-2006 canned the career of Dan Rather, who was kind of like the most trusted guy in news at the time. But like a cryogenically stored body thawed out once they discover the cure for cancer, Rather has re-emerged in recent years because a cure has been found for the truth. Which, it seems, is no longer as valuable as the motive behind the story. In other words, your news stories are now fables with a message instead of simple news stories. Dan Rather wanted to tell a story about George Bush that wasn't supported by his native tongue (JD from Sam Houston State Teacher's College), so he decided to blaze a new trail and incorporate "his truth" into the mix so that the "greater truth" could spread. Great idea. Too bad he was too avant-garde for his peers then.

But he's back now after 20 years, and just like a fine cabernet that improves after years in the dark, liberals and progressives finally recognize the bravery and beauty of Rather's sacrifice. I imagine he sees himself a little bit like Caesar leading his Triumph as he hits the outskirts of Rome after having been gone for a couple of decades. He's got a book, a Netflix series and a home on Substack now. And like Caesar himself, he just might avoid going into the Capitol proper to avert the new government's reach and Donald Trump. He'll probably tell his fans that he fears retribution and arrest but can remain silent no longer. So Bold. So Brave... sigh

Anyway, after 25 years (at least) of the legacy media switching out hard news for the opposite kind, keep an eye on this one to see how much traction it gets. If it breathes life into the whole progressive narrative after having been stomped on lately, we could see more attempts to undermine Trump's presidential leadership. //

Robert A Hahn
32 minutes ago
The fellow who brought down Dan Rather was an attorney in the Atlanta area who used the screen name "Buckhead" on Free Republic. At the time, "FR" was the largest conservative-leaning forum on the internet.

I was on there one night and saw a very short note from 'Buckhead.' It said, "I gotta go, so I can't follow this up. Dan Rather's proof is fake. That is Times New Roman font, which is part of Microsoft Word, and that did not exist when W was in the National Guard."

People on FR were already making gifs that flipped back and forth between the CBS News document and the same thing typed into Microsoft Word... and the two were identical.

That got picked up by one of the early blogs -- I think it was Hindraker at "Power Blog" -- and the rest is history.

I'm happy to inform you that NPR has told NPR that NPR is doing just fine. That includes a doubling down on the DEI regiment that has led the network to reduced viewership and a cratering of its credibility.

NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday afternoon that she and the news leadership team strongly reject Berliner's assessment. 

"We're proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories," she wrote. "We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world."

Without realizing it, Chapin has just admitted the primary problem with forcing "inclusion" by way of racially-based diversity quotas. Doing so does not lead to an increased range of viewpoints. Instead, because DEI is exclusively a left-wing pursuit, it leads to an overabundance of the same viewpoints in the newsroom. Far from being "critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world," it has led to NPR having no nuance in its reporting, instead parroting whatever its far-left staffers agree on.

One of Berliner's colleagues provided a heated response on the matter. 

"As a person of color who has often worked in newsrooms with little to no people who look like me, the efforts NPR has made to diversify its workforce and its sources are unique and appropriate given the news industry's long-standing lack of diversity," Alfonso says. "These efforts should be celebrated and not denigrated as Uri has done."

Again, the problem is demonstrated by the misplaced priorities being displayed. The goal of NPR's newsroom shouldn't be for this person to walk in and see people "who look like me." It should be to report the news honestly and fairly, without the bias that left-wing groupthink creates. 

As Berliner noted, his critique was about the lack of viewpoint diversity, not about the number of minorities on staff. It would be conceivable to increase the number of black reporters in the newsroom, for example, without creating a left-wing echo chamber. That would require hiring black reporters who are not died-in-the-wool Democrats, though, and NPR does not have a single Republican on its editorial staff.

Uri Berliner, a veteran at the public radio institution, says the network lost its way when it started telling listeners how to think. //

It’s true NPR has always had a liberal bent, but during most of my tenure here, an open-minded, curious culture prevailed. We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding.

In recent years, however, that has changed. Today, those who listen to NPR or read its coverage online find something different: the distilled worldview of a very small segment of the U.S. population.

If you are conservative, you will read this and say, duh, it’s always been this way.

But it hasn’t. //

Back in 2011, although NPR’s audience tilted a bit to the left, it still bore a resemblance to America at large. Twenty-six percent of listeners described themselves as conservative, 23 percent as middle of the road, and 37 percent as liberal.

By 2023, the picture was completely different: only 11 percent described themselves as very or somewhat conservative, 21 percent as middle of the road, and 67 percent of listeners said they were very or somewhat liberal. We weren’t just losing conservatives; we were also losing moderates and traditional liberals.

An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America. //

Given the circumstances of Floyd’s death, it would have been an ideal moment to tackle a difficult question: Is America, as progressive activists claim, beset by systemic racism in the 2020s—in law enforcement, education, housing, and elsewhere? We happen to have a very powerful tool for answering such questions: journalism. Journalism that lets evidence lead the way.

But the message from the top was very different. America’s infestation with systemic racism was declared loud and clear: it was a given. Our mission was to change it. //

In essence, this means the NPR union, of which I am a dues-paying member, has ensured that advocacy groups are given a seat at the table in determining the terms and vocabulary of our news coverage. //

More recently, we have approached the Israel-Hamas war and its spillover onto streets and campuses through the “intersectional” lens that has jumped from the faculty lounge to newsrooms. Oppressor versus oppressed. That’s meant highlighting the suffering of Palestinians at almost every turn while downplaying the atrocities of October 7, overlooking how Hamas intentionally puts Palestinian civilians in peril, and giving little weight to the explosion of antisemitic hate around the world. //

But what’s indisputable is that no one in a C-suite or upper management position has chosen to deal with the lack of viewpoint diversity at NPR and how that affects our journalism. //

Our news audience doesn’t come close to reflecting America. It’s overwhelmingly white and progressive, and clustered around coastal cities and college towns.

These are perilous times for news organizations. Last year, NPR laid off or bought out 10 percent of its staff and canceled four podcasts following a slump in advertising revenue. Our radio audience is dwindling and our podcast downloads are down from 2020. The digital stories on our website rarely have national impact. They aren’t conversation starters. Our competitive advantage in audio—where for years NPR had no peer—is vanishing. There are plenty of informative and entertaining podcasts to choose from. //

Defunding, as a rebuke from Congress, wouldn’t change the journalism at NPR. That needs to come from within.

In case you don’t know, we here at The Post call our front pages “the wood.” Back when the newspaper was typeset, metal letters weren’t large enough to handle the job of a big opening headline, so those letters were carved on wood blocks, then used to stamp the ink on the page.

The wood is a collaborative process. //

Last week, we picked the 24 woods that exemplified 2023.

From the gas-stove ban pursued by Gov. Hochul (SHE’S DE-RANGED) to Biden’s hoarding of classified documents next to his car (ANYBODY VETTE THIS GUY?) to the academic who held a machete to the neck of one of our reporters (THE NUTTY PROFESSOR).

We asked you to pick the 25th — and you came through.

You suggested the soap opera of George Santos (GEORGE JETTISON) and Hunter Biden (MR. GRIFT GOES TO WASHINGTON) and the government finally admitting COVID likely came from a Chinese government lab (IT HAD TO BE WU).

Doreen H. picked BIDEN RESIGNS, which we looked for and never found — but thanks for reading, Doreen. Maybe you’re getting hopeful for 2024. //

Many picked Donald Trump’s mugshot, which ran on the front page August 25 without a headline, perhaps the only time in our history that has happened. And so it became what readers wanted it to be. //

So: The results. The second runner up is SURRENDER, from Dec. 20, a picture of a lone Border Patrol officer facing down hundreds of migrants at the border — a crisis that continues into the new year.

The first runner up is New York’s Jamaal Bowman pulling the fire alarm to try to delay a vote in the House. DOES THIS LOOK LIKE A DOOR HANDLE? we said of his ridiculous excuses. //

And speaking of Democrat politicians behaving badly, the winner you picked for the 25th front page of 2023 by a wide margin is . . . HAUTE MESS.

Post reporter Jon Levine dressed as Senator John Fetterman, in long shorts and a sweatshirt, and tried to get into New York’s exclusive restaurants and clubs. Hey, if it’s good enough for the Senate, is it good enough for the Ritz?