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Yesterday, NPR’s PR flack was haranguing me on the phone about how NPR had nothing to do with getting Lisa Simeone fired from an independent program called Soundprint. This was despite NPR having gone public with its concerns over Simeone’s “unethical” participation in democracy, and Soundprint’s referencing of NPR’s “ethics” rules in firing Simeone. It was also despite NPR’s clear intention to get Simeone removed from our airwaves.
I have no evidence that NPR contacted Soundprint, but “World of Opera” is a different story. Today I read that NPR has dropped distribution of “World of Opera,” a program produced by WDAV which contracts with Simeone to host it. NPR’s original frantic email and blog post had read:
“We’re in conversations with WDAV about how they intend to handle this. We of course take this issue very seriously.” (The issue of participating in a democratic society and not backing a corporate agenda like bigshot NPR hosts who opinionate on Fox, in op-eds, and at big business speaking events for big bucks.)
Lisa was told to be on a phone call with NPR and WDAV Thursday morning, but NPR canceled the call without telling her, as she waited by the phone. NPR’s Anna Christopher Bross tells me that NPR spoke with WDAV about how to handle Simeone. She says they went through many possible scenarios, and that NPR has been completely transparent. I asked her what any of the scenarios were, and she refused to say. I asked if one of them was the only one anyone has discussed, namely firing Simeone, and she wouldn’t say. But the announcement by WDAV was “Ms. Simeone remains the host of World of Opera.” The decision was not to fire her. NPR announced “Classical public radio station WDAV says Lisa Simeone will continue to host World of Opera.” The decision was not to discontinue her.
Now, unable to get Simeone fired, a decision which NPR would have carefully blamed entirely on WDAV, our public radio thugs have taken the only approach left to them if people who condescend to supporting the political efforts of the poor are to be kept out of public sight: NPR has dropped the program.
Clearly Soundprint deserves its full share of condemnation in all of this, and WDAV merits strong support. WDAV will be distributing “World of Opera” on its own and should have our backing. But NPR has lowered itself to the bottom rung of our communications system. Mara Liaason can opinionate on Fox News while providing an objective god’s-eye view on NPR. Scott Simon can publish opinion columns in corporate newspapers while reporting the facts. Cokie Roberts can take corporate speaking fees that could cover most people’s mortgages without being perceived as in any way tarnished. But Lisa Simeone cannot introduce operas while having taken the unforgivable step of supporting a nonviolent movement on behalf of the lower 99% of us. Despicable.
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NPR is for well-heeled middle-aged engineers, lawyers and doctors living in the affluent neighborhoods of coastal American cities. These people indulge in the vision of themselves as “liberals”, vote Democrat, and donate spare funds to foreign microlending operations while insuring their daughters are sent to private schools in order to save them from the decline in the US.
I banned NPR from my reality a long time ago; it was something about the newness and cost of the SUVs and Mercedes driven by the NPR listeners I encountered.
Look: traditional mass media is a dead end for any form of modern thinking, worldview, activism, whatever. NPR, Fox, NBC, NYT, whatever, they’re all the same, part of the same layer of top-down communication that the many and varied elites of society collectively spread their information and views.
Don’t get angry at NPR; just tune out NPR. Forget NPR exists.
NPR is for liberals who are not paying attention. I would extend that to people who are not as high up the financial food chain but otherwise fall into similar cliches about what constitutes the “typical” NPR listener. Sometimes I wonder in Congress if the people who want to defund NPR really want to do that or if it’s some dog and pony show while secretly telling NPR to keep carrying their right wing water for them. At this point, I’m all for defunding NPR. Maybe the local stations can start doing more of their own programming again.
I used to be a regular listener of World of Opera and had largely stopped because I had lost interest in listening to obscure operas performed in a mostly middle of the road fashion. I really couldn’t tell one from another and I actually like opera when I can follow what’s going on and there is something distinct in the performances. The other reason I stopped is the unpalatable NPR “news breaks”. If WEKU is still broadcasting it, I may start listening again just on principle.
Speaking of WEKU, there was no mention of this fiasco last week on their website. They run World of Opera on Sunday nights and they had another execrable fund raiser where they utter tripe that surely they can’t possibly believe themselves. I used to listen to this station 24/7 since the late 70′s, but I have it on just enough for something I might actually want to hear which is very little now that they’ve switched to almost all talk. They alienated their music listeners to the point that they hijacked a local jazz station and run about 90/10 ratio of classical to jazz on a station whose signal is so weak that the core area of its original listeners found themselves suddenly in a fringe reception area.
But on the main subject of the what what NPR actually did, when you think they can’t go any lower, just wait a few minutes. They will. And then do it again. As more people start waking up to what NPR has become, they can watch those pledge dollars really start to dry up and yet they’ll never understand why their exquisite new arrangement of deck chairs has done nothing to stop the cold, cold water flowing through their massive hull breach of idiocy.
Come on you people! How can you run a tight empire if you allow people such as Simeone to speak up and not be punished? If you are toeing the party line, you may do anything and it will be overlooked. Just consider the npr ‘news’ mentioners or justice thomas. I’m waiting to see the transparency of npr in discussion with WDAV.
I completely agree. I don’t know what the big deal about NPR is.
All of this over an opera show?
Really?
Since when was opera for the 99%?
David Swanson–don’t forget Linda Gradstein, who violated NPR’s rules time and time again, but is “reporting” for NPR, which presents her pro-Israel propaganda as “news.”
NPR is just one of the most visible examples of how inexcusably irresponsible it was for Obama to allow Bush cronies to stay on when he became president.
That was a great video clip she recorded. Jeez, how much more “public” can you get?
Public: of, relating to, or affecting all the people or the whole area of a nation or state
Occupy NPR to at least force them to drop the Public from the name.
AB-SO-FREAKIN’-LUTELY STELLAR WORK, David. Thanks so much for more broadly exposing NPR as another brick in the duopoly-perpetuating wall.
I can only hope that a juicy lawsuit results.
Your typical latte’ limousine liberals. As Phil Ochs would say “Ten degrees left of center when times are good and ten degrees right of center when it effects them personally.”
I agree. I haven’t donated to NPR in at least a decade or more. If I listen at all, it’s taken with a huge bag of salt. NPR is nothing more less than Fox Lite, and anymore these days, it’s becoming just plain old “Fox.” Very conservative. Not a wiff of even being so-called “centrist” (which it sorta-kinda was for a while but not so much now).
Is anyone going to listen to NPR anymore?
We need to boycott NPR. Since Bush appointed the entire board for Corporation for Public Broadcasting with Republicans and conservadems with Bruce Rameras chair, NPR has become a very anemic communications entity. We need to stop donating to these agencies and stop fighting the Repubs when they threaten to cut funding. NPR is beyond salvageable. Use the cut to CPB and put the money toward the infrastructure bank.
No, all of this over NPR targeting an employee because she supported a proscribed political movement. NPR’s selective enforcement of it’s ethical norms revels that NPR lacks fair ethical norms.
NPR’s lack of journalistic ethics and human decency is news.
http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com/2011/10/22/fait-diver-opera-news/
second that
Yeh–in response to a note I’d sent NPR objecting to the firing in the first place, I got a patronizing missive that was falling all over itself to disclaim any responsibility for Ms Simeone’s firing–claiming NPR “had no role” in any of it, that she’d continue in her job, the program would continue to be heard, blah blah blah–and omitting to mention, AT ALL, that NPR was getting its petty little revenge by discontinuing distribution of the program!
THAT deserved a short, pertinent response from me about their hypocrisy and about insulting listeners with mealy-mouthed nonsense.
I do think it’s important to call a spade a spade with these clowns.
Can’t boycott because I have never once listened to NPR. Simply had better things to do.
In Italy opera has ALWAYS been for the 99%.
Not so here in the U.S. alas.
There are 2 good interviewers on wnyc, the NYC NPR outlet: Brian Lehrer and Leonard Lopate. Gonna send them notes that they are now dead to me, ditto the fundraising emails I get from them.
That’s actually OK bc I outgrew both of them several years ago, outgrew in the sense that as I read more books and learned more stuff, their interviews became too basic.
“Love Me I’m a Liberal” is the best exposition of what – and who – co-opted the American Left.
EVER.
BTW, same thing is happening to BBC. I keep its main news page open on one of my windows and it’s become indistinguishable to msnbc’s main page.
All for one and one for all.
That’s why we stand for Simeone because she stands for the 99.
Really not all that hard to figure out, eh. ;)
“Don’t get angry at NPR; just tune out NPR. Forget NPR exists.” – sixgill (sorry, no numbered posts, but up top aways)
Should we just forget about having public radio stations altogether, sixgill?
I am angry at NPR. I am angry at every institution purporting to be ‘public’ which wields such power over what we see and hear.
We’ve been tuned out far too long. Or tuned in, not realizing how manipulated we have been. Now, when we the tuned out and the tuned in unite, hey, that’s a movement!
NPR – my stories about the network go back to 1972. They still do some things well, but they have always done some things terribly.
You can live-stream WDAV on your computer. The iPhone app, TuneIn Radio can give you access to their main programming anywhere your phone works.
There are several opera channels available through TuneIn Radio. I recommend KING FM’s opera channel. You can access the Metropolitan Opera’s opera channel on your computer.
I hate to admit it,Jest, but you are probably right. I sang opera for 22 years as a member of the Nashville Opera Chorus, and served on the board of the company for a number of years.
Is it possible you got talked out of liking opera by people who wanted you to buy their modern crap?
Compare what Lisa Simeone did to what NPR reporter Sheera Frenkel did in this October 2009 story that seemed to praise the racism of vigilante groups who keep Israeli Jewish women from dating Israeli Arab men:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113724468
Imagine if Frenkel had been reporting about a similar vigilante group in the USA in 1964, attempting to keep white girls from being seen with or socializing with African-American men.
Thanks for staying on top of this, David!
I gave up on NPR back when it went to All Impeachment, All the Time. And now that I’ve been a regular at FDL for years, I start to break out in a rash when I hear it on a friend’s radio.
And this episode just…grrrrr.
It seems to me that this is just NPR trying to “prove” they have no “liberal bias” after their fiasco firing of Juan Williams. He has made a fortune out of his book about the incident and, as David so clearly points out, there are many other “reporters” at NPR that engage in far more egregious violations.
I listen to NPR in the mornings because it always gets me angry so I get out of bed. A typical NPR story: Friday morning they reported that “President Obama’s failed jobs bill was defeated again by the senate. <> “This is nothing but a tax on business owners who are already overtaxed and over-regulated.” That was it. No democratic counterpart to McConnell, no analysis of his statement. It has been this way since the Bush years. It sickens me. Fair and balanced, NPR-style, means 3 Republicans get to speak at length for every soundbite that includes a Democratic mention.
They get nothing from me now. I listen to a world of radio for free on iTunes.
The first airing of World Of Opera since the Simeone discharge issue is this evening, 6 pm EDT on WDAV-FM (and WDAV HD-1), which also streams from wdav.org. Since radio per se can’t provide subtitles (though a stream could, as a recent model AV receiver could), Lisa provides appropriate commentary from time to time during the program.
So, it’s “Lisa Simeone” and her voice the WDAV listeners hear and have come to know. WDAV understands about ‘listeners’ and what radio is.
NPR doesn’t have listeners, it has ‘markets’ and affiliates, and is run by schmucks who want to believe OWS is ‘political’ even as the OWS participants everywhere know it’s 99% economic.
Thing is, we have to pay some attention as they’re what your friends and neighbors have been told to think is “the far left”. And as much a captive of their corporate sponsors as they are, they’re still an order of magnitude better than network TV and drive-time commercial radio news, which is what most Americans still depend on to inform them. (This is not to praise NPR but to show just how bad is the state of the very news sources on which most Americans most use.)
(Arrgh. Change “use” to “rely” in that last sentence’s last word.)
One of my favorites of his to be sure. Mojo Nixon did an update of it along with a few others.
I also like Here’s to The State of Mississippi.
Ochs also did a version of it where he substituted Richard Nixon though I think you could now substitute a number people/places and it work very well.
thirded!
It’s part and parcel of socialist tendencies, to make access to art, literature, classical music accessible, this should be part of a well rounded education.
Think about all those great communist posters.. one thing that is still present in eastern block countries is fantastic art including full bronze statues in the parks where everyone could share it.
In capitalism we are consumers or workers and a rich cultural society doesn’t extend to the serfs and slaves, we cut out all the fancy stuff with tech certificates. No need for art appreciation, history and what not.
WDAV (at wdav.org) would be thrilled to hear from people who support the station’s decision to keep Lisa Simeone as host of World Of Opera.
It’s a college-owned station, Davidson College can handily support the radio station, which doesn’t subscribe to NPR or other national feeds. It plays only classical music, has a few classical-music oriented programs like World Of Opera, some including recorded live performances. The station doesn’t pay NPR or APR, etc., for ‘shows’.
I’ve never contributed a dime to NPR or PBS or to any of its affiliates, most of which are university-connected stations. WDAV just concluded its fundraiser week (they were relentless). I might become a ‘member’.
This morning, on WDAV’s Morning Air, Lauren Rico featured Itzhak Perlman with the Pittsburgh Symphony playing Michel LeGrand’s I Will Wait For You, and Erich Kunzel conducting the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra’s Theme From The Summer Of ’42, also by LeGrand.
I assumed Lauren was making a political statement…
When one of the local NPR stations did their fundraising thing, I emailed them and told them exactly why I would not donate to them: their right wing talking points are becoming pervasive. What particularly pissed me off was a fluff piece they did on Mitch Daniels that heralded his wizard-like skills of budgeting. I reminded these jerks that Mitch happened to double the national debt for Chimpy & Co. and as long as they avoided factual reporting they could kiss my money goodbye.
I shot off the email, and to my surprise I rec’d a reply that had about 8 different people cc’d. My take on the issue is that the local stations are under barrage for the right wing bullshit the national shows are packaging in their news programs, basic bubblemania from Bubbletown.
My recommendation, during pledge week, write a few emails and call out NPR for their dodging of factual information. And while you’re at it, call for Inskeep, Simon, Lara Niason, or whatever the fuck her name is and Cokie “i’m an expert on everying” Roberts to all be shown the door.
This is not to denigrade the many excellent shows and commentators they have. We just shouldn’t have to settle for 50% excellent and 50% beltway punditry.
I understand the concern about NPR trying to control the actions of their employees. That is wrong.
What I don’t understand is the surprise that NPR would do this. I’ve always preferred Pacifica Radio to NPR because NPR is not what people perceive it to be. It’s like the Barack Obama of liberal radio.
Pacifica Radio gives us Democracy Now!, while NPR give us stuff like this:
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/npr-nice-polite-republicans-planet-mo
I guess NPR’s lack of journalistic ethics isn’t news to me.
Plus, I prefer jazz to opera.
*shrugs*
NPR isn’t all that public.
http://www.npr.org/about/aboutnpr/publicradiofinances.html
~16% of their funding is from public sources, 20% comes from corporate sponsorship.
In other words, they get more money from business than gov’t.
This didn’t start with Lisa Simeone nor with Juan Willliams. NPR chose to not cover, on its newsmagazines, the story of the cause of the 2005 New Orleans flood, as documented in the 2010 film “The Big Uneasy”. NPR then chose to censor the “enhanced underwriting”–h/t Dick Cheney–announcements for the film, forbidding the language: “documentary about why New Orleans flooded”. Yet that’s what the film was, based completely on two independent forensic engineering investigations into the flooding, and on the testimony of a federally-protected whistleblower inside the US Army Corps of Engineers. Even earlier, NPR was as credulous (to be kind) in its coverage of the runup to the Iraq War as were the Times and the Post–except that the papers at least apologized later on.
You’d probably dig this blog:
http://nprcheck.blogspot.com/
I am a resident of a “coastal city” (in the San Francisco Bay Area) and I’m turning NPR off.
Here in Maine we don’t have a lot of options. The local community station has Democracy Now, but if I’m driving I usually listen to NPR. They’ll occasionally have a show that features someone like Chris Hedges, and the BBC news isn’t nearly as objectionable as ATC or Morning Edition, which have become almost unlistenable. I’m not an opera fan, but Lisa Simeone was always so easy to listen to, and she actually got me interested in and appreciative of opera when I happened upon her show. The whole episode is appalling, but unfortunately, not surprising.
Your coverage & reportage of the New Orleans disaster is what comes to my mind whenever Katrina is mentioned. You will be remembered, Harry, as you (and others) have been honored for uncovering and reporting the historical facts.
Unfortunately, NPR is represented by Nathan Thurm …
Thatcher ruined the BBC a long time ago.
You must mean WERU. It is true that the station often cuts out when driving. I listen to MPBN for the local news. I hate when they say we have the news you “trust”. Bull, I don’t trust anything I hear on NPR. I stopped giving when they became National Petroleum Radio during Illegal Gulf War I.
The rest of the time I listen to WERU and WGBH Classical New England.
This action by NPR is despicable. Thursday and Friday NPR was pleading that it was being wrongly accused of getting Ms. Simeone fired from Soundprint. They just forgot to mention that at the same time they were working to get her fired – removed from the air – from station WDAV and World of Opera. When WDAV turned out to have a backbone and declined to remove Ms. Simeone, NPR cancelled the program’s distribution. Disingenuous does not quite describe NPR. Sleazy is more accurate.
WHICH MANAGER AT NPR DID THIS ???
———————————
Anybody here for focus ?
Anybody up for head-hunting for that bastard ?
Anybody for making that tool famous ?
Get with it. don’t blame all of NPR for one Bush-era mole/holdover/creep.
I reply there occasionally. I’ve been reading it for about a year or so. Many of the commenters read like firepups here.
NPR has taken great pains to satisfy the political elites of both the republican and democratic parties. Each side is as corrupt as the other but both can find a way to protect the propaganda that they are allowed to distribute as news to the local NPR stations. Listen to your local or state news where the station gives the microphone to the politician to make some announcement on how great he is and the program that he is sponsoring. Did anyone ever hear a question by a local NPR journalist? Back in the 50′s and 60′s the older generation pointed out how communism controlled the media and the stories, now we have the same thing but controlled the candidates in office.
When ticket prices are well above 99 dollars, only the 1% can enjoy opera and most of them are so bloody stupid, they’ll stand up and yell “bravo” for a dreadful performance.
I encourage everyone to seek out “alternative” opera productions in your city. In Chicago, we have Chicago Opera Vanguard and several others who are redefining the genre and delivering productions of incredible quality for reasonable ticket prices.
Take the bloat out of opera!
Followed your link to C&L, then found a link to the unedited interview in the comments.
Listening to the first half, I wondered what the fuss was about – glad I didn’t stop there. He really tried to rake her over the coals – with zero success. Ma is lucky she is willing to represent them.
I do wish she had thought (or been given a chance) to get to the basics. (In fairness, she started a time of two, and he sidetracked her.)
Banks need depositors to survive. If everyone is unemployed, they will have none. Millions are unable to pay off mortgage and credit card debt to the banks. If all those debts go bad, the banks will fail; simple as that.
The above paragraph will make more sense if you heard the interview.
I just got off the line with the NPR ombudsman, who said that the show would be continuing, with Ms. S. as part of it. Was he misinformed, incorrect or have they changed their minds?
Maybe they were just being disingenuous, as I didn’t specifically ask ‘did you cancel this show’, but rather ‘is it going forward with her’.
In any event, what y’ll said about NPR. Pacifica, on the other hand, is the best …
As a 1982 Davidson College graduate and former WDAV employee, the more I read about this case, the angrier I got.
NPR tried to fire Simeone … who was a freelancer … for a contractor … for the network. That’s like NPR trying to fire me. What’s more, they tried to get my alma mater to do their dirty work for them. The station and college, to their great credit, reviewed their contract with NPR, reviewed their contract with Simeone, decided that no one had violated a DAMN thing and that everyone just needed to settle down.
NPR responded by dropping “World of Opera.”
I’ve got almost 35 years in media and PR, and I cannot find a single journalistic, moral, ethical, legal or PR upside to that decision. It appears to be a hissy fit, pure and simple.
I’ve blogged about this case a good bit at the GOS and at my own place, including the fact that this whole kerfuffle began because a Roll Call reporter either fabricated a “controversy” or was in the tank for a right-wing source. I’m not letting that drop, either: If she doesn’t respond, I’ll go right up the publication’s editorial food chain, blogging about it as I go.
Meanwhile, anyone wishing to contribute to WDAV can do so here. You can also listen online.