In this episode of Don’t Let the Door Hit Ya…
Welp, National Public Radio (NPR) made it official on Wednesday, announcing in a delusional, hypocritical article that it’s bidding adieu to Twitter after the Elon Musk-owned social media company “falsely labeled” the partially-taxpayer-funded media organization as “state-affiliated media.”
Lemme fix that: Twitter correctly labeled the demonstrably left-“leaning” NPR as state-affiliated media.
As reported by NPR itself, the [ahem] “non-profit” company said it will no longer post fresh content to its 52 official Twitter feeds, becoming the first major [ahem] “news organization” to go silent on the social media platform. (See: “butthurt.”) In explaining its decision, NPR cited Twitter’s decision to first label the network “state-affiliated media,” the same term it uses for propaganda outlets in Russia, China, and other autocratic countries.
Memo to NPR: Propaganda is generated by innumerable sources of all sizes and persuasions, clowns. All you need is a narrative and a platform from which to spread misinformation, and often outright lies, to your low-information audience — most of whom are intentionally and smugly low-information.
Here’s more from NPR CEO John Lansing:
The downside, whatever the downside, doesn’t change that fact. I would never have our content go anywhere that would risk our credibility.
Wait— credibility? No word if Lansing moonlights as a stand-up comic.
Lansing said NPR is instituting a “two-week grace period” so the staff who run the Twitter accounts can revise their social-media strategies, and that moving forward, individual NPR “journalists” and staffers can decide for themselves whether to continue using Twitter.
In an email to NPR staff explaining the decision, Lansing wrote:
It would be a disservice to the serious work you all do here to continue to share it on a platform that is associating the federal charter for public media with an abandoning of editorial independence or standards.
Setting aside the hilarity of Lansing’s absurd claims of credibility, editorial independence, and standards, his statements combine as a quintessential example of how the far-left genuinely believes its beliefs, positions, and narratives are base-line correct — and that therefore, all beliefs and positions to the right of their leftist takes are, by definition, incorrect or worse.
Here’s another example of the above, as reported by Breitbart, “[w]hen questioned if NPR would ever return to the platform, Lansing cast doubt on the idea.”
I would need some time to understand whether Twitter can be trusted again. At this point, I have lost my faith in the decision-making at Twitter.
Second memo to Mr. Lansing: Intelligent, non-left-wing Americans didn’t have to lose their faith in NPR; they never had it.
As noted by Breitbart, “NPR affiliates have often targeted conservative lawmakers with outright bias. In 2021, NPR published false claims in a book review of Hunter Biden’s memoir that his laptop was Russian disinformation. It has since issued a correction.” Multiple examples abound — and they have for decades.
On the bright side [sarc] the taxpayer-funded organization recently announced a 10-percent workforce layoff after the company declared a revenue shortfall of $30 million.
Incidentally, as luck would have it, The Babylon Bee — the best satire site in the known universe — or, as The Bee “self-identifies,” “Fake News You Can Trust!” ran a piece on Wednesday, as well. The headline?
National Public Radio Denies Being National or Public
National Public Radio Denies Being National Or Public https://t.co/n2VVPVyT4i pic.twitter.com/toOq8nbxGn
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) April 12, 2023
Here’s a snippet:
WASHINGTON, D.C. — National Public Radio, a government-supported news organization, is vehemently denying “slanderous” accusations that they are national and public.
“This false, libelous, scandalous, sickening, spurious claim about NPR is a shameful misrepresentation of the facts spread by Nazi white supremacists like Elon Musk,” said NPR President John Lansing.
“Just because we are funded by the state and dedicate every editorial decision to supporting the ever-growing intrusion of state power on public and private life until all freedom is driven out of the hearts of mankind for all eternity, doesn’t mean we are some kind of state-supported media company. That’s ridiculous.”
Experts at state-supported NPR confirmed that NPR is “completely independent” and “totally real news.”
“We urge all listeners to support us as a reliable, non-partisan, not-at-all-government-funded source for news about how the government can solve all your problems,” said Lansing.
Yet another perfect example from The Bee of why intelligent, spot-on satire that cuts close to the bone is the smartest humor out there, in my not-so-humble opinion. NPR was unavailable for comment. [heh]
The Bottom Line
So, yeah, I beat up on NPR quite a bit in this piece, just as I’ve done throughout the years. A large part of the reason has been the gold-standard hypocrisy of the NPR audience and their snooty-ass attitude.
As much as the aforementioned snoots get their leftist panties in a wad over Fox News, just imagine for a nanosecond the left-wing histrionics if a conservative version of NPR — funded in part by their taxpayer dollars — was even proposed, much less existed.
Case made. I’m outta here.
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