Congress seems to be careening toward a government shutdown, as Democratic and Republican leaders remain at an impasse over funding negotiations and expiring health care subsidies. Lawmakers have less than 24 hours to reach a deal before a midnight deadline.
Senate Democrats have refused to back the spending bill in an effort to force Republicans to negotiate on federal health care subsidies.
They are pushing for an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year in exchange for their support. Democrats also want to repeal cuts to health care programs that were enacted by the GOP’s tax and spending bill passed earlier this summer.
I agree with you on quality outlets. My phrasing was definitely partisan and you’re right, that’s something NPR tries to avoid for the sake of journalistic integrity.
But, much like the tolerance paradox, journalistic integrity is great, but that and 3.50 still can’t afford coffee.
Still, I, a left-wing hippie nut job, managed to pull out a sentence and read it as blaming the Dems.
Because NPR has tilted right for decades. They do it like that. “Just the facts, ma’am.”
There’s no such thing as an objective point of view. It’s not possible.
What is possible is saying something with enough implied meaning that saying the blandest version of the official narrative is supporting it. In this case the official narrative is that Democrats are doing bad things.
Here’s the difference: A lot of “low-tier” “news” outlets don’t know how to do that so they just put their spin on it and call it a day. NPR doesn’t work like that. Their audience is too smart for that. So - they have to sound like a 1948 MovieTone Newsreel. Black-and-white. Short, direct sentences. But if you look at those old MovieTone newsreels, you can pretty well grok their point of view pretty easily. Relentlessly American, patriarchal, strident.
Is anyone confused that the republiQan spending bill is extracting the maximum amount of money from the working class to give to the very wealthy? Is anyone confused that that’s what’s going on here? Democrats who have no power whatsoever have one chance and this is it - so why frame the story like the Democrats are doing this. Why? Because it’s true - enough. And, by doing it that way we avoid blaming the republiQans for being truly disgusting lackeys for the billionaires. And, we avoid getting sued by trump. And, we want the republiQans to win anyway. That’s why it reads like that.
This is not an outlier in their reporting. This is NPR. This is how they do.