“I find it puzzling that NPR objects to my exercising my rights as an American citizen — the right to free speech, the right to peaceable assembly — on my own time in my own life,” Simeone told the Baltimore Sun. “I’m not an NPR employee. I’m a freelancer. NPR doesn’t pay me. I’m also not a news reporter. I don’t cover politics. I’ve never brought a whiff of my political activities into the work I’ve done for NPR World of Opera. What is NPR afraid I’ll do — insert a seditious comment into a synopsis of Madame Butterfly?”
When the station producing the show refused to fire her, NPR pulled their distribution deal- the station is shouldering distribution themselves.
Hot on the heels of this latest (useless) attempt to placate right wing bullies I heard a report on Rick Perry's tax 'plan' from All Things Considered. He wants a flat tax, which amounts to a huge tax break for rich folks and a huge tax increase for nearly everyone else. Plus, it's not even a flat tax because it exempts capital gains. But, you can keep using the current system if you want. They, of course, asked no questions and raised no objections to any of this. Instead they played a clip of Perry singing its praises, some other guy who liked the idea, made some polite noises and moved on to the next story.
That not journalism, it's stenography. Fueled, I'm sure, by their overwhelming fear of anyone on the right saying mean things about them.
That this brand of institutional cowardice won't stop the jihad to defund them or the right wing reflexively belittling them as mouthpieces for that socialist dictator Barak Hussein Obama makes it all the more pathetic.
As noted, their response to schoolyard bullies is to bring more lunch money in the hopes of buying them off. It hasn't worked yet and I don't see it working in the future.
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