NPR You Kidding?

I don't really listen to a lot of National Public Radio. Oh, sometimes I turn it on, like when I'm hoping KCRW is playing the new Architecture in Helsinki album, but usually it's some dry report from Belgium about the ongoing Dull Tiny European Nation's Third Annual Log-Tossing Competition and Bake Sale, and I turn it off right away.

But I did hear a report on NPR's Morning Edition a while back by a lady named Barbara Bradley Hagerty that struck me as somewhat peculiar. She was talking about that Alabama idiot Judge Moore from who built that monument to the Ten Commandments outside his courthouse. Which is clearly not only in violation of the Constitution, but of the Ten Commandments! And this guy is a judge! Not only did she fail to mention the obvious "graven images" thing, but she didn't really challenge any of Moore's ideas directly.

I wish I could find a transcript online, but alas, I cannot (and besides, it's after 2 in the morning...I'm only one man...) Anyway, it was one of those Fox News kind of jobs, where she makes it sound like both sides make equal logical sense and have equal support, whereas in reality one side has the only reasonable argument and the other side is filled with sputtering inbred yokels whose idea of a sound, well-crafted line of argumentation is "Get Your Hands Off Of My GOD!!!!!"

But I never really thought more of it. I just assumed Ms. Hagerty or NPR were striving to make their coverage as fair as possible, and maybe gave Moore a little more leeway than neccessary to appear unbiased.

But now that the truly wonderful resource Media Matters has really done a complete workup on Ms. Hagerty, I see my idle observation was not unfounded. She's one o' them wacky religious half-wits after all.

Here's the incident that brought her to their attention in the first place, from a report Hagerty filed yesterday:

In a May 5 report about religious conservatives who believe that separation of church and state is inconsistent with the principles espoused by the country's founders, National Public Radio (NPR) religion correspondent Barbara Bradley Hagerty concluded by intoning: "While many Americans may travel a middle road, they are caught in the crossfire between those who believe that asserting Christian values is the greatest hope for America's future and those who see it as a threat."

They go on to explain that, in the report itself, Hagerty featured a number of Christian interviewees who see the theocratic agenda of the religious right as a threat to democracy and personal freedom. Which, of course, it is. So how can she frame the debate as "Christians" vs. "those who see Christianity as a threat"?

Obviously, that's not what the debate is about. I only see Christianity as a threat in so far as crazy-ass Christians want to impose its laws and concepts on me. I don't happen to subscribe to Christian beliefs. In fact, I think they are, for lack of a better word, really dumb. But that doesn't mean I don't want you to subscribe to them, if that's what you're into. So, it's not about wiping out Christianity or abhorring Christian values (although I do abhor their self-righteousness, fear of sex and feelings of domination over other cultures and the environment). It's about abhorring theocracy and mandatory worship.

So, yeah, that was an error in judgement. But it still could be a case of sloppy writing instead of inherent bias. But there are lots of posts linked on Media Matters to a variety of articles where Hagerty makes pretty outrageous statements about her religion and its intersection with politics. The real kicker is this item, reporting on Hagerty's comments to the 2003 Baptist Press National Student Journalism Conference.

Hagerty, religion correspondent at National Public Radio, told students that Christian journalists, by committing to truth, excellence and selflessness, can set themselves apart from their secular colleagues.

"When you or I as Christ-followers go to work each day, we have to perform our jobs in a fundamentally different way from other people because our employer is Christ and everything we do has to be run through the filter of this question: How does Jesus Christ view my performance? It raises the bar higher than the most demanding editor or supervisor could possibly do," she said.

Um...well...She doesn't say anything that's actually wrong here, I guess, although the tone makes me uncomfortable. I'd rather reporters working for National Public Radio felt that their employer was the public, rather than a dead Jew. I mean, "how does Christ view my performance"? With one hell of a magical fucking radio, I can promise you that, lady.

I'm going to go on an anti-religion tangent for a moment. Feel free to skip this paragraph if you're sick of reading me write that stuff. Okay, you're still here. Good. Why the hell do these Christians always have to relate everything having to do with religion in personal terms? That expression, "Personal relationship with God," that's a metaphor, okay, buddy? Religion is about getting in touch with the infinite, not gaining a magical, invisible friend up in the clouds who helps you out when you're on a reality show or playing in a big football game. So, Ms. Hagerty, did it ever occur to you that Christ might not be listening every single time you file a report? That maybe he had someone else more important to watch over, like a starving kid or a picture of his mother appearing on a tortilla in Juarez? Jesus already died for you sins; he's got to follow your career progress like a caring parent as well? You people are too demanding.

End rant. Here's some more insanity from Hagerty.

Christian journalists must decide to make God their primary audience.

Journalists will experience a conflict between seeking to glorify themselves and seeking to glorify God, she said. Christian journalists may have to perform difficult assignments without receiving commendations, but the desire to please God should drive them to complete those assignments with diligence, Hagerty said.

Can people really live this way? I mean, really? Can you go on for an entire lifetime working hard every day to please someone you've never met, someone you assume is real only because you've been told about him by authority figures you trust? I mean, I won't work hard if my boss is watching me from the same room. And I know he's real because he has instructed me to clean a toilet, and that's not the sort of thing you put up with from fictional characters.

I mean, she's telling young journalists that it's okay if you don't get any credit for your hard work as long as it makes God happy? What?

She concluded, "Early in my career at National Public Radio, I decided that being true to my God had to be the nonnegotiable. If it meant loosing my job, so be it. ... In the long run I had to think, is a story or even is a career ... more valuable than my relationship with God and eternal treasure in heaven? And I think the answer is no, and the decisions we make count for eternity."

Yup, that's the clincher. See, Barb, you're a reporter. That means something. It means that your whole job, the whole pint of you being on the radio, is to tell people what's true. Not what you think, not what you think God would want them to hear, but what actually happened, in as straight-forward and uncontaminated a manner as humanly possible.

This would be like your surgeon before an operation telling you that he hopes God doesn't tell him to stop the procedure halfway through, because God's will is more important than his job, so he'll have to let you die in the OR.

And what if you take in your hard drive to be fixed and they find pornography on there. God wouldn't want you to have porn on your computer, so placing religion over career, you'd have to get it fixed at some heathen electronic store.

Or what if you got on a bus on Halloween wearing a devil costume, and the bus driver refused to let you on because God wouldn't approve of your outfit?

Yeah, I'm exaggerating, but only kinda sorta. When you say, as a public servant (and that's exactly what a journalist for National Public Radio is), that your allegiance is to your own private faith and not to the best interests of your audience, well...I say, don't let the door hit your Pocket-Size Bible on the way out.