I Love Diane Rehm!!!
May 18th, 2005 by Ian
If you don’t listen to the Diane Rehm Show on NPR, then you are missing out on one of the best shows on public radio. This morning my love of Diane Rehm increased 10 fold. Her guest today is Kenneth Tomlinson. He is the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He has been busy the past two years trying to prove that public radio and television is liberally biased. He has threatened to reduce funding, created a review board for programs, and headed a witch hunt against specific shows. In a stroke of genius, he had a poll done of public broadcasting listeners to find out if they thought public radio/television was biased. What were the findings? 70% believed there is no bias, 20% believe there is a liberal bias, and 10% believe there is a conservative bias. So what do those numbers mean? To me, they mean that a great majority of listeners see no bias and it is only people at the radical ends of the spectrum who see a bias. The radicals always see a bias when the show doesn’t stick to their beliefs 100% of the time. I take the poll results to show that there is no problem with public broadcasting.
What does Kenneth Tomlinson say these numbers mean? He says these numbers clearly show there is a bias in public broadcasting. To back up his claim, he mentions that he even got calls from a few senators complaining about the bias. Diane, being the intelligent woman she is, quickly asked him if the opinion of these handful of senators should count more than all the people who were polled. Poor Ken couldn’t answer that question, he had to dodge it.
Diane kept the hard-hitting questions coming. And she did it in her usual polite and thoughtful manner. Ken couldn’t answer most of these. Instead he wants everyone to forget about this debate and move on. Forget about everything he has done and is doing. Let’s just move on and put this debate behind us. I’m sorry, Ken. When you start screwing with NPR, you start pissing off a lot of people. Kudos to Diane for grilling this man and pointing out his own blatant personal bias.
I’m interested to find out how this will all play out. Personally, I have found NPR to be very balanced. This is what I love about NPR. You know you can get the real news (not details on the latest diet craze or dog clothing like the local news) and you’ll get it without a personal slant.
What’s the matter with news about dog clothing!?
I agree wholeheartedly with your entry Ian. This morning I was listening to NPR and Dr. James Kennedy (Coral Ridge Ministries CEO) was being interviewed. It was definitely an eye-opening interview. I’ve never heard a man dodge so many questions in my life. He was put on the spot in several instances, if only his supporters listened to him maybe they would see that he is not the man they think he is when the right questions are asked.
Happy Birthday!
I actually have a hard time listening to Diane Rehm: Am I the only one who thinks it sounds like she’s going to keel over and die any second?
Hahahaha! I have to admit that I had a hard time listening to her in the beginning as well. She sounds like an old crone on the edge of death. I learned that she has a disease that requires her to have throat surgery every few months. Apparently the disease is what caused her voice to deteriorate and the surgeries are what have kept her from completely losing her voice. Once you get used to the voice, her interviews are great! After awhile, her voice becomes soothing.