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cbayer

(146,218 posts) Mon Mar 25, 2013, 05:53 PM Mar 2013

NPR Gives Focus on the Family's Jim Daly a Pass

http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/danielschultz/6970/npr_gives_focus_on_the_family_s_jim_daly_a_pass/

March 25, 2013 5:25pm
by DANIEL SCHULTZ

What is with NPR these days? They’re famously held to be a bastion of liberal reporting, but you wouldn’t know it by listening to their weekend morning shows. Last week, I caught Scott Simon helping advance the discredited theory of liberal decline. This week Sunday host Rachel Martin lets Focus on the Family’s Jim Daly go unchallenged.

Daly was on the show to talk about how Focus is facing up to the tide of marriage equality, ahead of this week’s expected Supreme Court ruling on the subject. He did everything he could to project an aw-shucks, kinder and gentler face to Focus, acknowledging the complexity of society and human sexuality, allowing as how gays and lesbians could be Christians and “perfectly good” people, positing homosexuality as a sin like any other. He even interjected a note of humility into the proceedings: “I’m not the author of scripture, obviously,” he told Martin. “I’m just trying to read them and live by them even though I fail.”

And fail he does, slickly conflating two things scripture has to say about marriage, and ignoring a couple of others. Accordingly to Daly, covenant love can only take place in the context of opposite-sex commitment:

We think it’s pretty clear that God’s design for human sexuality is a male and a female committed to one another in marriage, for life. It’s interesting, because Jesus talks about that in Matthew and Mark in the gospels where he restates the Genesis commitment, which is “a man shall leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one.” He doesn’t say anything about same-gendered people getting together.

Now, I and others might interpret that Genesis passage (2:24) as emphasizing the covenant aspect of marriage, an issue that goes beyond the particularities of gender. Everybody should be faithful to their partners, in other words, whether it’s a same-sex or heterosexual relationship.

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NPR Gives Focus on the Family's Jim Daly a Pass (Original Post) cbayer Mar 2013 OP

Mr. Daly needs to read I Samuel, okasha Mar 2013 #1

Mr. Daly needs to go away. cbayer Mar 2013 #2

NPR hasn't been "liberal" since the Bush administration appointed a bunch of their people to key MADem Mar 2013 #3

I still love NPR and listen to it much of the day. cbayer Mar 2013 #4

They screwed Bill Moyers and they gutted Masterpiece Theater. Romney wanted to KILL Big Bird. MADem Mar 2013 #5

I have been fairly oblivious to the internal politics, but have been aware cbayer Mar 2013 #6

It's fine to interview 'em and give them a place to air their shitty little views. MADem Mar 2013 #7

Agree. I should probably pay more attention to their internal cbayer Mar 2013 #8

NPR is running scared and has been skepticscott Mar 2013 #9

okasha

(11,573 posts)

1. Mr. Daly needs to read I Samuel,

Reply to cbayer (Original post)

Mon Mar 25, 2013, 06:25 PM

Mar 2013

wherein David and Jonathan make a covenant amid a whole lot of kissing and loving each other like their own souls.

cbayer

(146,218 posts)

2. Mr. Daly needs to go away.

Reply to okasha (Reply #1)

Mon Mar 25, 2013, 06:37 PM

Mar 2013

I didn't hear this show this weekend, but I am surprised that NPR gave him a pass.

MADem

(135,425 posts)

3. NPR hasn't been "liberal" since the Bush administration appointed a bunch of their people to key

Reply to cbayer (Original post)

Tue Mar 26, 2013, 03:52 AM

Mar 2013

positions within the organization. It's kind of ironic how they gripe about how "liberal" it is and their people stomp on some of the network's most delightfully liberal tendencies...remember all the shit that Bill Moyers took from those idiots?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/16/business/media/16radio.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/16/business/worldbusiness/16iht-npr.html

cbayer

(146,218 posts)

4. I still love NPR and listen to it much of the day.

Reply to MADem (Reply #3)

Tue Mar 26, 2013, 10:07 AM

Mar 2013

I truly dislike highly biased programming in either direction. I want to hear both sides and be challenged by those that I don't agree with. NPR fits the bill.

But Focus on the Family goes a bit too far, imo.

MADem

(135,425 posts)

5. They screwed Bill Moyers and they gutted Masterpiece Theater. Romney wanted to KILL Big Bird.

Reply to cbayer (Reply #4)

Wed Mar 27, 2013, 01:10 PM

Mar 2013

They don't LIKE public broadcasting, be it TV or radio. They don't want it to survive, never mind thrive. The "other" side wants to kill it, and use outlets like Faux to disseminate their nonsense:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/why-the-republicans-hate_b_837481.html

Why do the radical Republicans in the House hate NPR?
First, they hate any successful public sector -- non-corporate venture. It flies in the face of radical conservative belief that the "private sector" always does things better....

Second, the Republicans hate the idea that NPR is drawing listeners from stations owned by corporations like Clear Channel. They are all about "competition" until private corporations have to compete with public sector ventures that can provide superior services for less money and don't have to pay millions in profits to satisfy their corporate task masters....

Third, Republicans want to kill NPR because it presents high quality, unbiased, factually accurate news. These qualities do not sit well with people who want the Rupert Murdoch's and Fox News's of the world to control what the public has the right to hear. They think unbiased news coverage is subversive....

Fourth, the Republicans in the House wanted to attack NPR to throw some red meat to the Tea Party portion of its base....

They're starting to crawl back from the abyss over at PBS, but there are still way too many intolerant assholes working for that outfit who were hired by those assholes Bush put on the board that think that "business" and "Wall Street" news deserves a big chunk of their programming day--despite the fact that Bloomberg, CNBC, Faux, et.al, have filled that niche decisively.

I think in some situations, that it's not a question of bias. It's a question of the wingnuts taking away an outlet for information that was underserved in the first place and shoving in more rightwing claptrap that anyone can get on ten commercial stations.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0617-27.htm

To them, Fair And Balanced sounds like Fauxsnooze...it doesn't sound like NPR/PBS...and anything that does sound like that, to their pea brains, needs to be crushed and eliminated.

cbayer

(146,218 posts)

6. I have been fairly oblivious to the internal politics, but have been aware

Reply to MADem (Reply #5)

Wed Mar 27, 2013, 01:22 PM

Mar 2013

that the right would like to trash it completely.

I really do enjoy some of the civil debate they offer. I like Shields and Brooks on Friday's NewsHour. I think Gwen Iffel does a good job of managing guests with differing opinions and those are generally civil.

If PBS becomes too one-sided, I think it gives the Repubs ammunition to limit any government funding and lessens the credibility of the programming in general.

But giving a platform to those on the far, far right is a big mistake, imo.

MADem

(135,425 posts)

7. It's fine to interview 'em and give them a place to air their shitty little views.

Reply to cbayer (Reply #6)

Wed Mar 27, 2013, 01:32 PM

Mar 2013

But the minute they get put on the board, and start hiring little weasels and seeding them throughout the organization like a bunch of little Trojan horses, is the day that Big Bird dies.

They can't be allowed to do that. NPR/PBS is a gem, it should be polished and treasured.

cbayer

(146,218 posts)

8. Agree. I should probably pay more attention to their internal

Reply to MADem (Reply #7)

Wed Mar 27, 2013, 01:38 PM

Mar 2013

workings and express my views when I make a contribution.

We only get TV through the air or by internet streaming. When we can get OTA TV, we get a whopping 12 PBS stations. Some are bad or not in English, but on any given night, I can generally find something a really like - Frontline, Bill Moyers, Independent Lens, Masterpiece, British mysteries, etc.

skepticscott

(13,029 posts)

9. NPR is running scared and has been

Reply to cbayer (Original post)

Wed Mar 27, 2013, 08:02 PM

Mar 2013

for a long time. They walk on eggs and go to great lengths to avoid offending anyone who might have a mind to yank their funding. All is takes is a few fundy pundits or members of Congress with a bug up their ass about some story that was too "liberal" to basically shut them down.

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