Liasson Should be Fired

Mara Liasson - Image courtesy NPR

National Public Radio (NPR) has always allowed its reporters a lot of leeway when reporting on their beats.  As a journalist I have a problem with this.  If a reporter is doing their job they should not be allowed to add their personal opinion to the piece.  Or, the rhetoric must be labelled commentary.  But NPR has allowed this many times over the years and yesterday morning, one of it's national political correspondents used the forum of Weekend Edition Sunday to attack the President and states' rights.

Mara Liasson has attacked President Donald Trump previously with no action on her employers part.  NPR, which portrays itself as balanced in national news coverage, should have by now disciplined Liasson for editorializing while she is reporting.  Yesterday under the guise of reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms. Liasson attacked Trump's policies on self quarantine in the coronavirus era.  She also used the same editorial to criticize states for not allowing the federal government to dictate policy to them.  The host of the Weekend Edition Sunday Program, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, never attempted to question Liasson on her lengthy editorial and the network never used the word commentary on Liasson's rant.

This is not the first time Ms. Liasson has been criticized for her editorializing during a so called news story.  Liasson was criticized severely in 2013 by liberals when she started working at Fox News.  At the time NPR looked into it and instead of censuring Liasson, praised her.

Were I the managing editor of NPR, Mara Liasson would no longer be working there.  Her actions are  unprofessional and unacceptable and she is an embarrassment to the rest of the network's reporters.  It's time for Ms. Liasson to go back to local radio reporting and not be permitted 
a national forum such as NPR.

I Couldn't Have Said It Any Better

Courtesy Wikipedia

If you read this blog regularly you know I am a huge fan of baseball.  I am also a huge critic of Major League Baseball. (MLB).  I have  recently written and will continue to write how the games have become boring at the big league level because they get played at a snail's pace.  As background, here is an article I posted a year ago June critical of MLB for making it so boring.

This past Wednesday National Public Radio (NPR) sports commentator Mike Pesca offered the same opinion that the game is too slow and boring.

To hear his commentary you can go to this page and listen to or download Pesca's thoughts on how slow the game is being played at the highest level.

Hail to the Chief

Congratulations to the new President of the United States of America Donald Trump!  Trump was sworn in on Friday and those who didn't vote for him continue to whine about him not being duly elected.  As a citizen of the United States of America I really wish they would grow up and quit their whining.

I have family members and friends who say "Oh, he didn't get the most votes in the election".  They are correct.  But the last time I checked the Electoral College has decided the winner of the presidency in every election since this country started.  If the Electoral College is such a bad idea why haven't the whiners gotten off their butts and tried to change the US Constitution?  A question that needs to be asked of the "whiners" is why didn't they go to the polls in November like they did when Barack Obama was elected in 2008 and 2012?  Analysts have repeatedly cited the failure of minorities and Democrats to go to the polls in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida.  It's pretty simple.  If minorities and Democrats had voted for Hillary Clinton at the same rate they did Mr. Obama, Ms. Clinton would be President. But, she's not because her advisers didn't campaign in key counties and didn't get out the vote where they should have.

People in the "rust belt" (those states I mentioned above) are fed up with the economy and with the federal government.  Many have lost their jobs and their standard of living is worse than it was eight years ago.  I do not blame Mr. Obama for that.  In fact, I think he did a great job of running this nation.  Like many others the blame needs to go to Congress.  Many voters wouldn't vote against their congressional representatives but did apparently blame the Democrats in Congress for problems that were never resolved.  My thought is many of those voted against Hillary Clinton or just didn't vote as a protest of the feckless legislative branch of the federal government.

Finally, there are some national media biased against the Trump administration because he has called them out on their policies.  As a former journalist I have to say some reporters I know are among the laziest people on earth.  They are either unwilling to challenge Mr. Trump's opponents or else just don't understand why US citizens are angry.

This morning I heard one of the most biased interviews on NPR disguised as journalism.  I have no idea why these individuals were allowed to rant and complain about the Trump presidency for more than eleven minutes.  The name of the piece was: "Examining Obama's Legacy on Race Relations and What to Expect from Trump".  One individual on the panel, a "journalist' by the name of Debra Dickerson, spouted hatred of whites and at one point stated "Whites had better wake up".  Apparently she is of the belief that we are on the verge of a civil war and cited skirmishes in the 1800's along the Missouri - Kansas border.  I respect Ms. Dickerson's right to write what she wants.  But, NPR shame on you for giving this racist a forum on public radio stations under the guise of journalism.

It will be interesting to see how some national media treat our 45th president and if as Trump states they are trying to de-legitimize his presidency.

I Would Like to Have Gotten this Job

Most of the time when I write about the media it's to criticize something I've read or seen.

But, today's post is to compliment NPR on a story it aired on today's "Morning Edition". It's about a job I should have applied for and the lucky individual who got the "position".

Turn on your speakers and click here to listen to it: