Air America

[Donna Halper]

Dan S wrote--
>Maybe the people who CAN discern the difference have simply
>deserted the AM band for NPR.

Alas, for those who value hearing both sides, NPR has slid a bit more 
towards the right, for reasons I can certainly understand-- their funding 
depends on making nice to the party in power.  Republican conservatives 
have long tried to hold up that funding.  So now, both NPR and PBS are 
giving more thorough coverage to the president and to issues near and dear 
to Republicans.  It was NPR that aired day after day of interviews with 
Conservative Christians during the campaign, including an hour interview 
with the film-maker who made a documentary equating Mr Bush with Jesus (a 
film reviewed sent to thousands of churches, btw).  I am not saying there 
is anything wrong with covering the conservative right wing, but contrary 
to the myth of the "liberal media", if you listened to NPR during the 
campaign, and many content analyses were done, coverage of Bush and 
coverage of Kerry were equal in terms of minutes aired, and coverage of 
Bush was much more thorough than in the previous election.  I'm sure the 
folks in congress will still complain, but if their goal was to get NPR to 
become more centrist and less leftist, I believe they succeeded.