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NPR, Network, and opinions-on-the-shape-of-the-earth-differ reporting

So Andrea Seabrook is unhappy with her experience in DC. Tired of being bald-faced lied-to by politicians. So she's mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. Except the whole time she was there at NPR, putting their lies on the air, she could have stood up and called them on it. Could have used her time to expose the lies, and hold their feet to the fire. Except she didn't. Was that because her corporate masters at NPR wouldn't let her? Or because access would be cut off if she did? Probably both. But she didn't say why in this interview. And in a classic example of my biggest problem with NPR, Bob Garfield didn't ask the next question, the hard question – why? Why didn't she point this out when she had a chance, before a large audience?

So why does she think starting a blog where she tells the truth is going to change things? She had a chance to change things, for more than a decade, and didn't. Maybe she tried. Maybe she rammed her head against the walls and quit when it got bloody – but she didn't say that in this interview. Rather the opposite.

The example that she gave in her interview was damning though. As an example of the equivalence of both sides, she compared a blatant out and out factual numerical lie by one politician, to a statement of opinion (and a reasonable one, to me) by another. Let's guess which party lied, and which had the opinion.

Ha. That's not fair. The R lied, of course. But just the fact that she somehow thinks that these two things are equivalent says a lot about why I won't be reading her blog.

Politics is the conflict of human nature. It's unreasonable to expect that it won't get mean and ugly, and your opponents won't impugn your motives. Fine. But there's a difference between impugning motives, and just making up numbers which are false. One can be fact-checked. And exposed in the media. But rarely is.

So I won't be reading her new gig, as even now, she still seems to think that reporting opinions-on-the-shape-of-the-earth-differ, both sides are equally bad, is okay.