Talking Points Memo REALLY Reaches to Prove NPR Isn't Biased

Laughable.

If anyone still suspects that National Public Radio has a consistently liberal bias, listen to Robert Siegel’s interview with Brigid Flaherty, organizing director for the Alliance for a Greater New York, a labor advocacy group, on Wednesday’s All Things Considered.

The topic was the poverty-level wages paid to bank tellers and other employees in the bottom half of the banking industry. Siegel reminded listeners that U.S. taxpayers bailed out the financial industry when many of the nation’s largest banks teetered on the brink of collapse. He also pointed out that despite the taxpayer subsidies, Wall Street banks nevertheless paid their top executives huge salaries and bonuses.

Then Siegel asked Flaherty about a new study conducted by economists at the University of California at Berkeley’s Labor Center on behalf of a group called the Committee for Better Banks. Flaherty explained that in New York state, one out of three bank tellers are receiving some form of public assistance — such as food stamps and Medicaid — because their wages are so low. Siegel asked Flaherty: “How much do, say, bank tellers in New York City make?” Flaherty responded: “So on average, they make around $11 an hour, which yearly comes out to about $14,000 a year.”

“That’s very tough to live with in New York City,” Siegel responded. “You might be able to make ends meet, though, in some other parts of the country on that.”

It is at this point that it becomes clear that Robert Siegel is totally out of touch with the realities of living in America.

So, NPR isn’t biased because Robert Siegel is ignorant of life beyond his Manhattan/D.C. frame of reference? Actually, being part of the Manhattan/Beltway media bubble pretty much defines liberal bias. It most certainly doesn’t discount it.

This is what passes for logic on the left. One guy didn’t get his groupthink talking points correct so it proves that an entire network isn’t biased. If the writer had said the fact that Siegel was wearing a yellow tie yesterday proved lack of bias it would have made as much sense.

For the record, NPR is quite biased.

Carry on.