{"id":232281,"date":"2016-03-18T00:27:45","date_gmt":"2016-03-18T00:27:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/when-your-media-are-disappointed-by-opposition-to-bigotry\/"},"modified":"2016-03-18T00:59:09","modified_gmt":"2016-03-18T00:59:09","slug":"when-your-media-are-disappointed-by-opposition-to-bigotry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/when-your-media-are-disappointed-by-opposition-to-bigotry\/","title":{"rendered":"When Your Media Are \u2018Disappointed\u2019 by Opposition to Bigotry"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Cokie<\/a><\/p>\n

When Cokie Roberts is your firebrand, things have come to quite a pass.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

As the aggressive behavior<\/a> of his supporters becomes as much of a story as the violence implied in his politics, Donald Trump is bringing together folks who agree on little else to denounce him. It\u2019s true Marco Rubio<\/a> and Ted Cruz<\/a> have policies in some ways even more regressive than Trump\u2019s, but then neither of them is openly pining<\/a> for the days when protesters were carried off on stretchers.<\/p>\n

Turnout by thousands of appalled citizens led to the cancellation of Trump\u2019s Chicago rally, and a coalition of public interest groups, including MoveOn, Color of Change, Greenpeace and Jobs with Justice, released an open letter<\/a> calling for a mass Nonviolent Mobilization to Stand Up to what they called a \u201cfive alarm fire\u201d for democracy.<\/p>\n

So it might not seem extreme for Cokie Roberts, commentator emeritus at NPR<\/strong>, to say in a column<\/a> that Trump\u2019s nomination would be a \u201cdevastating blow\u201d to the US\u2019s reputation around the world.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Roberts\u2019 column was too much for the public radio network that many insist leans left. So Roberts was brought on Morning Edition<\/strong> (3\/14\/16<\/a>) to be admonished by host David Greene:<\/p>\n

Objectivity is so fundamental to what we do. Can you blame people like me for being a little disappointed to hear you come out and take a personal position on something like this in a campaign?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For her part, Roberts claimed to be a \u201ctotally unpartisan human being\u201d who is just \u201cvery interested in civility.\u201d When Cokie Roberts<\/a> is your firebrand, things have come to quite a pass. This is the host who gushed<\/a> to David Letterman that she was \u00a0\u201ca total sucker for the guys who stand up with all the ribbons on and stuff\u201d\u2014meaning military officials\u2014and \u201cso when they say stuff, I tend to believe it.\u201d Her advice<\/a> to Bill Clinton after the Republican congressional victories of 1994 was \u201cmove to the right, which is the advice that somebody should have given him a long time ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which, I suppose, is just to say: Keep in mind that some of the news outlets you rely on hold that being anti-bigotry biases your journalism. That is news you can use.<\/p>\n

\n

Janine Jackson is the program director of FAIR and the host of CounterSpin<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n

You can contact NPR<\/strong> ombud Elizabeth Jensen via NPR<\/strong>\u2018s contact form<\/a> or via Twitter<\/strong>:\u00a0@ejensenNYC<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission from FAIR<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Cokie Roberts is your firebrand, things have come to quite a pass. As the aggressive behavior of his supporters becomes as much of a story as the violence implied in his politics, Donald Trump is bringing together folks who agree on little else to denounce him. It\u2019s true Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-232281","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire","7":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}