Will national mea culpas from Uri Berliner and Nellie Bowles be followed by anyone at, say, VTDigger?
by Rob Roper
A recent op-ed by then (now former) twenty-five-year veteran editor at National Public Radio, Uri Berliner, “How NPR lost America’s Trust,” citing systemic bias in the taxpayer funded media organization caused something of a firestorm. This was followed by a book by former New York Times reporter, Nellie Bowles, Morning After the Revolution, similarly exposing the far-left cult that has taken over the paper whose motto should be changed to “None of the News that makes the Left look bad.”
Of course, left-wing bias in “mainstream,” “legacy,” “whatever you want to call it” reporting outfits is no surprise to anyone paying even modest attention to the news, but this breach in the circled wagons of denial from those outfits is worth noting. It is critical in our constitutional republic that voters be informed and it is a free press’ job to do that informing honestly. Instead, what we’re getting is misinformation and, equally as alarming, no information on critical stories.
Berliner described the problem at NPR as a “the absence of viewpoint diversity,” going on to say, “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.” That’s a polite way of saying all NPR does now is push left-wing propaganda.
He cites examples of stories botched by bias – the Hunter Biden laptop story, the origins of Covid-19, the Trump Russian collusion hoax. What’s worse than getting those stories wrong, says Berliner, is the fact that NPR never admitted they got the stories wrong or issued any kind of correction. They are not interested in reporting facts, just maintaining the left-wing narrative.
Bowles describes the cult-like culture at the times with its “narrative enforcers” and cancel culture approach to dealing with anyone who dared question what was really happening in the progressive movement.
“If some of the new rules felt bizarre or maybe oppressive, that was okay…. If you want to be part of the movement for universal healthcare, which I did and do, then you cannot report critically on #defundthepolice. If you want to be part of a movement that supports gay marriage, and I did and do, then you can’t question whatever disinformation is spread that week…. If anything going on in the movement looked anything but perfect, the good reporter knew not to look.”
Bowles ended up leaving the paper in 2021 after refusing to cancel a colleague – she wouldn’t post a tweet that everyone was instructed to send out – calling for this person to be fired for a slightly off-progressive-message in an op-ed. Her book chronicles the stories that the Times refused to cover because of the disastrous outcomes of progressive policies and corruption in movement organizations such as Black Lives Matter, DEI, drugs violence and chaos in Autonomous Zones, the negative impacts of the “gender affirming care”, and the utter failure of “defund the police” movement.
Bowles is by no measure a conservative. She’s a gay liberal from San Francisco, but she wanted to cover stories – important, relevant, interesting stories – that raised questions. And that was verboten.
Into this explosion of news about the news, I came across this twitter post by Paul Heintz, editor in chief (Uh-oh, he didn’t get the memo that “chief” is now considered racist!) at Vermont Digger, “Dropping back in on this cursed platform [Twitter] to say that @vtdigger is on the hunt for a managing editor….”
This should raise some questions. Does Digger have an “absence of viewpoint diversity” on its staff like the one Berliner described at NPR? Does it avoid stories that make the progressive left look bad, or even raise questions about whether or not their policies work as promised? Does it give equal – or any – weight opposing points of view to the left-wing narrative?
I think we know the answer to this, and it’s not good for Vermont to have its largest news outlet lose all credibility because it has become a mere propaganda outfit run by activists, not reporters. So, I don’t know who will step up to take this managing editor position, but let’s hope against hope that it’s someone with a serious desire to actually report the news – dig into the stories about things like the Clean Heat Standard, which is supposed to, you know, totally remake our economy. Why is our education system delivering lower test scores at higher costs with fewer students? Are progressive law enforcement policies to blame for rising violent crime and drug-related deaths in our state? There’s quite a list of topics Vermonters would like to understand better.
And if such a person does emerge to take this job, for goodness sake don’t cancel them.
Rob Roper is a freelance writer who has been involved with Vermont politics and policy for over 20 years. This article reprinted with permission from Behind the Lines: Rob Roper on Vermont Politics, robertroper.substack.com