Dear Editor,
I am struck by the recent firing of the NPR journalist of 21 years who exposed that this government-sponsored media service is biased and any information that is positive about Republicans is squelched or misrepresented.
I do believe that we all know the media is biased, whether it is MSNBC and CNN on the liberal side or Fox on the conservative side. Unfortunately, these are privately owned businesses, and We, the People, make our choice of which we want to listen to. But a news source funded by a government that is allegedly devoted to free speech is heinous because it is not an agency of free speech.
It is sad beyond belief how much of news now is “opinion,” and it is human nature to want to hear people who confirm your own “opinions.” It is too bad we do not have a neutral place to hear just “news,” which I think NPR was supposed to be. Now is the time to pick yourself up by the bootstraps and “become” what this country “needs.”
It is my “opinion”(!) that NPR should make amends, which they don’t feel are necessary, to sponsor a presidential debate. Suppose Joe Biden does not want to debate. Why don’t they host a Best of Enemies 2.0, in reference to the Gore Vidal-William F. Buckley discussion of 56 years ago when the Democratic Convention also took place in Chicago?
These were two different serious thinkers who squared off over the issues, and it was so interesting that this debate is still occasionally shown in movie theaters in urban centers.
NPR could invite a couple of our top journalists to debate the day's issues. Rachel Maddow and Jesse Watters … or whomever. Our country needs a forum such as this to help us make an informed decision rather than all of us being the victims of one-sided “news.”
NPR could be doing a service then, as is their charter.
Randall Harman Putnam County
(Editor’s note: Uri Berliner is a 25-year veteran of NPR who received a five-day suspension without pay earlier this month after writing an opinion piece for online news site “The Free Press” that suggested the not-for-profit radio network had “lost America’s trust” by applying an almost universal progressive mindset in its reporting. Berliner resigned from NPR on Apr. 17 via a social media post, stating, “I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism. But I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay.”)