I'm not the parent post, and I generally agree with you, but I'll take a stab at it.

I used to have the opinion that NPR was left-leaning. This was primarily due to when I listened to it, which was during my late-morning commute. I believe I was listening to "All Things Considered," which is usually quite a good listen.

However, on certain subjects, I noticed what seemed to be a significant bias in the moderator. Expressions of shock or disbelief at certain things, giving some speakers more time than others, and not calling some speakers on blatantly talking around the question, for example.

Last time I checked, I think I was evaluated as a mildly socialist libertarian. I happen to know a fair amount about guns. As such, I notice terrible inaccuracies and biased language fairly often when reading mainstream media reports on gun-related incidents. The misuse of automatic, semi-automatic, "assault rifle" (which means "scary looking" to journalists), cache versus personal arsenal, etc. It's really a lot like the low quality of technical and science coverage. Basically, similar technical ineptitude leads journalists to appear right wing (e.g. climate change deniers) as what leads them to appear left-leaning (e.g. complete ignorance of gun terminology).

Other parts of NPR have a ridiculously narrow view of the world. "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" drives me mad with the narrowness of the comedy on there. As it happens, much of their comedy would probably fall under the category of leftist, but I was personally offended by the narrowness and inanity of an apolitical joke (specifically, they were laughing at an experimental airbag for motorcyclists which protects the often-broken hips from impact with the gas tank, but the commentators repeatedly assumed it was solely to protect the groin, so they effectively made "pee-pee" jokes for five minutes).

Anyway, while I don't consider NPR to be a leftist news outlet, per se, I would appreciate if they spent more time educating themselves on certain subjects and tried harder to hold guests accountable for answering questions presented.

The bias isn't necessarily in the sourcing or the facts, it's in the selective coverage and the constructed narratives and the overt bias in what kind of people and perspectives they choose to give a platform to.

I'm honestly surprised that anybody would expect NPR to be neutral or defend it as such. Their entire staff is extremely liberal. The idea that there would be a media organization staffed almost exclusively by liberals that put out totally unbiased journalism sounds like pure fantasy to me.

I think journalism in general will always tend to have a liberal bias, because the type of person who ends up in that career tends to be a liberal. It's similar to what's happening in academics. For whatever reason, liberals are just more likely to end up as teachers and TAs and professors and deans etc. Academics and journalism are both, to a certain extent and to varying degrees, nation-wide liberal echo-chambers.

Personally I'm not entirely convinced that NPR necessarily tilts left as there was a study conducted a number of years ago that suggested they were actually fairly close to center based on the sources they used in their reporting. Fox apparently only tilts slightly right, and WSJ's news pages actually tilted slightly left.

For Fox News, their rise has only been relatively recent. CNN's massive fall has only been in the last couple years. Further, I would also suggest that the reason WSJ has been so successful is that markets depend on accurate information - and in this, removing bias in favor of details and content is important given their audience makes money on both sides of a trade. Whereas you might say New York Times' aims to influence decision makers, WSJ would attempt to inform them. Of course their editorials tend libertarian/conservative and quite openly so. I completely disagree that most newspaper op-eds tend conservative - particularly given it's the editors themselves who declare themselves as liberal.

However, getting away from bias from a moment, whatever you may think, unabashedly conservative talk radio has found success specifically because it found a rather large underserviced niche. If to you, this means that these people are extremist right wingers is irrelevant. Both the quickly growing audience base of Fox and conservative talk radio (and the failure of Air America) reflect the reality that there was a market that was largely underserviced - and that Air America did not meet that need - despite their medium. It was their underlying message/content that did not resonate.

Again, in my opinion, NPR <i>leans</i> left. Fox news <i>leans</i> right. And if you want to watch the NEWS programming on Fox, then it is usually accurate as opposed to the OPINION programming on Fox like Glen Beck and O'Reilly.

Surprisingly enough, the most worldly, unbiased, informed and thorough daily news sources are the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately, both of them use some combination of pay-for-service access - which changes regularly as the newspaper industry figures it out. They're both very close to centered, although the editorial boards lean left and right respectively. The big difference, however, is that both also give voice to dissenting opinions (where appropriate - on the OPINION pages) and publish well-thought-out, if contrary, letters to the editor.

Some of the other commenters are right - you need to take a look at multiple sources and discern for yourself not only where they sit on the political spectrum, but also the percentage of news to bullshit each chooses to publish.

NPR is a news station that leans left - and you're right, most people that seek the truth also lean left for some reason.

But the left has nothing like "Fox News". There are no liberal infotainment channels that spread propaganda so blindly and unashamedly as Fox News.

Drawing parallels between any news station and "Fox News" is an insult.

I was insinuating that Fox News is EXTREMELY biased to the right. But to say that NPR is not left wing leaning... that's a complete joke. Diane Rehm is as much a militant democrat as O'Reilly is a republican. At least O'Reilly is for show. Rehm just has a smugness about her that smacks of distaste for all things republican. She builds one strawman after the other and lets her guests kick them down. Even for shows like PHC or WWDTM, they often delve into "low brow" territory where simply "being republican" is the punchline.

Fox News is almost comedic at this point. NPR is much more insidious.

Also note this website (HN) itself is very left leaning in its ideology. Probably because the vast majority of the viewership adhere to the common SV psychology, which is also left leaning.

Myself? I find it all disgusting, harbor distrust for all media. Like someone else mentioned... a long time ago (before I was born, I'm sure) they stopped telling the news and started hocking style to sell advertising space. You have to be awfully stylish yourself not to get sick of it once in awhile.

Still, among popular news sources on both the left and the right I think they are about as fair as they come. Certainly on NPR the hosts are not hostile towards opposing views and you can tell that they make an effort to let dissenting callers and guests be heard even though its often clear that they disagree. I also find that NPR tends to invite guests that are respected within their community instead of guests that are intended to showcase a weak or poorly supported viewpoint.

NPR does not make that untrue claim. What happens is they predominantly interview progressives when they interview majorities or minorities. In addition most of the staff and volunteers do not lean conservative or libertarian by any measure. As I said, I wager I'd see more political diversity at fox, and that's staggering, knowing about fox.

If you think NPR News has a liberal bias, that may be because reality has a liberal bias.

Plenty of Republican politicians go on NPR for interviews.

NPR opinion and talk radio pieces are slightly left of center.

If you had grown up in a country where, as I mentioned, "unbiased journalism" was assumed to be a lie from the start, I think you'd read whether or not NPR "carries itself with an air of impartiality" quite differently.

Most of the actual leftists that I know find NPR to be biased in quite the opposite direction than you seem to. They are irritated by its relentlessly pro-business positions, its endless interviews with conservative politicians, even discredited ones, and its almost complete failure to feature actual left-ish ideas other then when a specific politician (e.g. Sanders or AOC) makes a speech about something related.

I mentioned up-thread that I believe that NPR's bias is not really towards particular political or even social positions, but towards a genial defense of "things more or less as they are". They are a supremely "don't rock the boat (too much)" media outlet, and as a result rarely feature voices and ideas from the edges of the current Overton Window, let alone beyond it.

Not only do you imagine that CNN isn't seen as left (except by the only pillar of right-ness you've named, Fox) - but you know plenty of people who are left of CNN, which is already left of the median voter.

That you think NPR is a status quo defender - when their coverage of anything that touches on culture topics is extremely and consistently progressive - reaffirms that.

Please understand it's fine to be left-wing, but you will see the world as controlled by nefarious powers and agendas if you don't recognise that you are.

For example -they couldn't make a July 4th post without immediately turning it into a People's History seminar with a lecture about women's and indigenous rights.

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1411702308711325700

My view on public broadcasting is that its culture is CLEARLY left-leaning. That is, I don't think you could get hired and build a career in that world if you were known to be politically conservative or libertarian. Subconcious bias is worn on their sleeves, and they do tend to ensure that it always gets the last word (e.g. see virtually any interview segment involving gun control or illegal immigration).

However, I also think they TRY to be objective in their content. Even if there may be bias in story selection or story structure, I think they try to provide the building blocks so that you can think for yourself. One POV might consistently get the last word, but the other perspective(s) are represented in a segment.

Anyway, this topic and thread were on my mind, because I happen to be in the middle of reading the book "Listener Supported", a book on NPR history from longtime insider Jack Mitchell. The last section in the book deals with criticisms of bias that NPR has received over the years.

Mitchell is pretty candid in acknowledging public broadcasting's progressive roots and culture. However, I was surprised that most of the discussion involved attacks on NPR from the LEFT! A lot of people feel the same way as parent comment. Not that NPR is culturally right-wing, in the same manner as Fox News. But rather that its bias is not sufficiently left-wing. Or that it's a "trojan horse", appearing leftist yet subject to manipulation and too much a servant of the status-quo.

This perspective is interesting to me, if a bit frightening. Particularly reading the claim "they're mostly funded by the Koch's", and not seeing a SINGLE person on Hacker News counter that 8 hours later. In reality, David Koch has only made donations to the PBS show "Nova", has never donated a dime to NPR, and this is such a prevalent fake news trope that Snopes has had to cover it:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/koch-brothers-buy-npr/

You think about this sort of thing being right-wing material, spread by old people on Facebook. It's sobering to see its inverse here.