Gradual Awakening re NPR

I no longer tune in

NPR has been in the news for the last few days. I agree with pretty much all the criticism of the NPR ethos and the people who create and consume the content.

I started listening to NPR in the early 1990s (about a decade after immigrating). I was in the mode of decoding America on the way to becoming an American. I was like a child who accepts the world as he receives and perceives it. I was not thinking about the political slant of stories. I am embarrassed to say that I was not aware that there was such a thing as political bias because I assumed that journalism was above that kind of advocacy.

I recall one of the most enlightening episodes (I don’t recall the name of the show, but it was during the pre-afternoon as I was probably ferrying one of my children to or from an after-school activity) was about the pharmacists who were refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control pills. I thought that the presenter had given the pharmacists sufficient space in which to state their rationale. I came to a couple of somewhat contradictory conclusions:

1. The pharmacists’ conviction about their opposition to abortion was remarkable and they were very courageous in their willingness to take an unpopular position, and that too a position that put their employment at risk.

2. The pharmacists were not justified in insisting that they be allowed to keep their jobs. For one thing, the task that they were being asked to do was not causing them to break any law. Second, it would just not do to give individual employees say in deciding which prescriptions they would fill and which they would not. Or, in a more generalized way, deciding which assigned tasks that were part of their jobs they would not perform.

3. To the extent that the pharmacists saw the law as immoral, the onus was on them to protest the law AND face the consequences (job loss) of that protest. That was the lesson that had gradually crystallized in my thinking as a result of the satyagraha or civil disobedience or non-violent non-cooperation that Mahatma Gandhi had used successfully against the British rule of India (and that had inspired MLK).

The NPR segment had successfully performed its core function—it had presented the facts without leaning on one or other side of the issue and had let me as a “learning” listener to arrive at my own conclusions about the issue.

Beginning of change

One of the first times I found myself not compelled by NPR content was when they read college application essays. Obviously, the essays were being selected based on what the producers saw as stories of overcoming hardship with a can-do spirit.

I noticed that the essays were about family dysfunction, racism, or illegal immigration. While I listened to these stories with compassion, I also noticed a slight urge in me to push back at these narratives.

As a legal immigrant who had gone through years of uncertainty and separation from family, I was not sympathetic to people who sought to come here by breaking the law… and then complained about the fallout of that decision. “You (or your parents) knew what you were getting into,” I felt like saying.

I was also gradually getting tired of the seemingly unrelenting stories of abuse and neglect at the hands of parents or caregivers. I had come from a family and society where parents sacrificed their entire lives just so their children could have more opportunities. I had personally known people who had few options and yet lived with stoic grace. I was doing the same so that my children would not suffer from a lack of family support or financial stability. I had jumped through all the hoops, following all the rules of the society of my birth and the country that I had adopted. I felt that stories of applicants inspired by their family or community deserved to be aired as well.

Finally, as someone who believed in the power of science and technology to lift people out of poverty, it bothered me that not one of the essays was about a student who dreamed of inventing something or coming up with a new cure.

I realized that when the time came to apply to colleges, students like my children would likely be shunted aside because they would not have stories of similar hardship. (Little did I know that such families would come to be considered “privileged.”) And that would happen precisely because their parents and caregivers were doing their moral duty to take good care of their families and because those students were being diligent and persevering.

Being in “learning” mode, I was not too disturbed by my observations. I filed it as just a different way in which American society was organized.

The break

I think it was about ten years ago when I listened to a segment about a proposed hike in the minimum wage. There were three guests on the show, two of whom were against the hike—one was from the US Chamber of Commerce and the other was from McDonalds. Their argument was that employers would start using robots and that there would be job losses. The third guest was a bank teller who described how her wage was too low to cover her basic needs. She was effectively ignored by the host and guests because all three refused to engage with her position.

Having grown up in India where there were no labor protections, I personally knew people who lacked sufficient food and shelter, let alone any other life conveniences. I had always been troubled by the awareness that middle class people like me relied on the labor of people for whom lives of basic dignity were out of reach. I had come to believe that, in a functioning rational society, an honest day’s work ought to support a life lacking in want or dependence on government support (which was anyway nonexistent in the India of my formative years).

To not take this moral stand, was, in my book, only one step removed from slavery. If slavery was wrong because people were not paid for their labor, shouldn’t it also be wrong to not pay people enough to stave off hunger and want?

So, it bothered me that the NPR segment had not bothered to include a union representative who would make the moral case for a living wage, or an economist who would show that paying people well actually improves the economy and stabilizes society because they have more money to spend on necessities and to take care of their families.

I lost respect for NPR that day. I started becoming more aware of the implicit bias in which stories get attention and how they are covered.

Full stop

I recall clearly the day I stopped tuning in to NPR.

On a 3-hour drive, the show playing on the radio was “1A.” I think it was in the aftermath of the 2017 rally in Charlottesville. It was a discussion about race and racism and ONLY that for the entire drive. It was as if there was nothing else going on in the world.

Although the language was suave, the message was that America is an irredeemably racist society. No counter positions that explained the extent and pace of progress were on offer. Or interviews with people of any race who had had positive encounters or changes of heart.

As a non-white immigrant living in the US since the 1980s, I had not personally experienced any racism. Instead, I had observed many positive interactions that crossed the racial line, especially in the South.

I decided that day that I would no longer accept a version that was empirically removed from reality and that seemed designed to look only at the shadow side.

Conclusion

I miss the old NPR. I miss programs that presented a 360-degree view of an issue without favor and let the listener make up her own mind.

More important, I miss programming that gives voice to the joys and concerns of ordinary Americans, regardless of their alignment with one or other political party.

Sure, there are entirely new ecosystems of podcasts, substacks/blogs, and websites. Many of them are opinion journalism and based on data crunching. There isn’t much on-the-ground reporting. Also, often each such outlet specializes in one particular topic or issue. And most of them avoid focusing on ordinary citizens. Even the esteemed Free Press shies from covering labor and immigration.

Our society is the poorer because of this lack.

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Photo credit: Vika Glitter: https://www.pexels.com/photo/boy-tuning-transistor-radio-1619779/