According to a recent Politico story, National Public Radio reporter Mara Liasson was asked to “reconsider” her regular appearances on Fox News programming. Liasson, whose most recent duties have involved commentary on the “Special Report” and “Fox News Sunday” programs, has worked for the network since 1997 but NPR executives were concerned about Fox using her and fellow NPR political analyst Juan Williams as “balance” for their other conservative commentators, leaving the perception that NPR is a left-leaning outfit. NPR tries to project itself publicly as a middle-of-the-road network.
While this can be considered a small part of the Obama admistration’s war against Fox News, it’s very interesting to note that NPR was a cheerleader for government intervention in the newspaper business. Readers may recall my Red County commentary last week where NPR CEO Vivian Schiller hilariously claimed that government funding doesn’t affect their reporting, that it actually makes them even more of a government watchdog!
The facts suggest otherwise.
NPR has been among many news outlets asleep at the switch as Fox News has uncovered damaging information about a number of Obama nominees and led the way on other investigative reports, while smaller, upstart publications have exposed other scandals, ACORN included.
In its own right, Fox News has placed so much heat on the administration that the White House fought back, attempting to shut Fox out of a reporting pool and continually referring to the network as an arm of the Republican Party. Obama himself snubbed Fox when he made the rounds of five other Sunday morning network commentary shows back on September 20.
For her part, the reporter in question has decided to continue her work with Fox, reportedly stating she’d seen no significant change in the network’s news coverage. It seems Mara Liasson is too good for NPR, but the network is too blinded by ideology to realize it.
