Speaker 1: What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to
this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon
to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you
want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream,
my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron,
go to dpeakclendarshow dot com. Make sure you hit the
subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your
smartphone or tablet, And again, thank you so much for
your support. A bit of breaking news here. Conservatives do
not like NPR. I feel like I need to Yeah,
I feel like I need to convey that because I'm
not sure if like half the country realizes this or not.
But this has been it's actually been a long held
belief or an opinion by many, many many people on
the right that NPR is biased. I grew up listening
to NPR. I worked for the NPR affiliate. Now I
was just mailing people their coffee mugs, okay, and then
I left that gig. It was I started as an
internship actually in my last year of college. And then
when I graduated college, uh, they had as the position
was open, and so they hired me for that for
that position, which was membership assistant, So I did the
daily deposits, So I took all the money that would
people would mail in and updated their accounts and such,
and then I would walk the deposit over to the
bank every day, and you know, helped with the fund drive,
planning and booking of the volunteers that would answer the phones,
went and got the food to feed the volunteers. They
have an underwriting department they call it, which is sales.
And if memory serves correctly, it was the first year
when I was there, So this would have like ninety two,
ninety or ninety No, sorry, this would have been ninety
seven ninety two. That was high school ninety seven, and
I think that was the first year. It was roughly
right around that time when they had just divested out
of the University of North Carolina Charlotte. They separated from
the university and they had I think at that point
become primarily funded, like the biggest funding I thought at
the time it had either flipped or was about to
flip or something to mainly underwriting. So they had been
generating all of this money from sales. And like, I'm
not trashing that at all. I mean, that's how like
this radio station is funded by the clients that we
have that advertise that's the model, and everybody that listens
understands that that's the model. And so when you hear
the same sorts of things going on on a public
radio station or a public television station, those are underwriters,
those are advertisers, and they're paying, and there are rules
that they have to follow, like I think you can't
do like calls to action like come on down or
get yourself over here or whatever. I don't think you're
allowed to do like price point. You can't do pricing,
I think, and you can't do I think it's like
comparisons or something. So so there are rules that the
public stations are governed by that we are not as
a commercial broadcaster. But the funding component has long been
a sore spot with the commercial broadcasters, myself included. I'm
not a fan of taxpayer money going to fund what
is essentially my competition. I don't appreciate that. And there
is some argument, like somehow or another, that that this is,
you know, a needed survey, and therefore it requires taxpayer funds,
And I would simply point to I don't know a
billion podcasts as proof that we do not need to
fund NPR or PBS, but they do such great work
and that work will be rewarded if it is in
fact great work. That's how that works. So you have
the digital platform that is available to everybody, there's very
little barrier to entry, especially for people with the skills
and expertise that have been working in these broadcast outlets.
But it has long been a bugaboo for the commercial
radio people that NPR gets the taxpayer money, because like,
that's coming from us, and then the NPR affiliates get
to take our money and use it to compete with
us and to have nicer facilities and more up to
date equipment and pay their people more money. Like that's
that's a bit of a sore spot, as you might imagine.
And then you layer on the level of bias, and
which I mentioned this yesterday. I think I listened to
the NPR affiliate, which, by the way, heads up, they're
doing their fun drive right now.
Speaker 2: So it's just.
Speaker 1: Ugh And I don't even hear like local news reports
with like reporters. They have people over there, they have reporters,
but I don't hear a lot of their reports like
ever on the on the air. But whatever, it doesn't matter,
Like I'm not I'm not here to bash their model
or anything like that. And I wish them all the best.
I just wish them the best without my money, you know,
without my tax payer money. So yesterday up on Capitol Hill,
there was a House Subcommittee on Government Efficiency that was
conducted into NPR and PBS regarding the continued funding of
those networks. The chair, Marjorie Taylor Green, said that the
purpose was to speak directly with the leadership of the
two primary outlets of public broadcasting. The primary witnesses were
the president and CEO of PBS, Paula Kerger, as well
as the CEO of NPR, Catherine Marr. And she is
right out of central casting for the modern awful, affluent,
white female liberal, right out of central casting, and as expected,
her record was a primary focus of the Republican lawmakers.
Now Democrats were up there, like, there's nothing wrong with
all this funding. It's a vital service. In Alaska, they
would not even have a radio station in Alaska but
for the public funding and all that. And that's what
they always cite the extreme examples. This is the Mott
and Bailey kind of a tactic. Right, they want to
kill big bird. So you take the easily defensible that's
the bailey, the easily defensible position, right, that's the or sorry,
that's the mott. Is the easily defensible position, which is
Sesame Street, which I think is actually owned by HBO. Now, right,
didn't they get the rights to all of the Sesame
Street and they moved all it was like a decade ago.
Everybody loves Sesame Street. You can't get rid of Sesame Street.
And then that's the easily defensible position. And then they
will advance the story time with the drag Queen. That's
the other programming that's not defensible but is also provided,
and that's the that's the bailey, that's the less defensible position.
So they advance the more radical agenda, and then when attacked,
they retreat to the mott, which is Sesame Street. And
that's what Democrats did yesterday. And then of course was
the we're too busy to be looking at this. This
is all just a distraction. We should be focused on
other things. And all that, I assure you. This has
been something that Republicans and conservatives have been mad about
for a very long time, and I for one, join
all of the others on the right who are happy
that the Congress is now looking to actually defund with
taxpayer money these enterprises. Let them compete. Let them compete,
and if their product is superior without all of the
taxpayer funding to keep them afloat.
Speaker 2: Then.
Speaker 1: Good on them. So I got audio? Oh boy, do
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last a lifetime. Alrighty so, Brad Slager, writing at RedState
dot com uh pointed out how Representative Robert Garcia, Democrat
from California. He posited that Republicans were concerned that Elma
was part of the Communist Party and that Ernie and
Bert were pushing a homosexual agenda. Yeah, it was a
pure indication that there would be no substantive arguments to
be made on behalf of NPR and PBS. And then
there was this from stevean Lynch. He is a Democratic
representative from Massachusetts.
Speaker 3: Madam chair for over two decades of service. On this
Oversight Committee. I've worked with members on both sides of
the aisle to investigate issues of critical importance to the
safety and security of the American people, including the conduct
of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, terrorist attacks against the
US Compound, Classified Annex, and Benghazi, and several major intelligence
and security breaches under democratic and Republican administrations. So I'm
sad to see that this once proud committee, the principal
investigative committee in the House of Representatives, has now stooped
to the lowest levels of partisanship and political theater to
hold a hearing to go after the likes of Elmo
and Cookie Monster, and after the ard Vark all for
the unforgivable sin of teaching the alphabet to low income
families children and providing accessible local news and programming. This
hearing also comes at the direction of President Trump and
Elon Musk, who have repeatedly called for the defunding of
all public media and claimed that media organizations such as
PBS and NPR are and I quote a liberal disinformation
machine close.
Speaker 1: Quote Yeah, well it has been NBR especially right, and
Jim Jordan outlined all of this see the three Biggest
Stories NPR took decidedly pro Democrat, anti Republican left wing
positions on and again. I I tune in to the
NPR station here in Charlotte, and I listen to and
from work to hear what they're what they're covering. And
it is always the same slant. It's always coming from
the same direction, and it's everything is told through this
you know, left wing prism through this filter. And that's fine,
by the way, just don't use my taxpayer money. Don't
use my money to do it.
Speaker 4: That's all.
Speaker 1: You can do whatever you want, you can have whatever
bias you want to have, you just don't get my
money to do it. That's the whole point. And by
the way, Arthur, the Ardvark thing like that show ended
like in twenty twenty two. So Slayer goes on to
say that mar Catherine Marr deflected from responsibility for NPR
slanted content as all of these examples that they were raising, well,
that predated her arrival at NPR. S Ye, how that
was before I got there. All of these scandals, all
of these things, all these examples of bias that happened
before I got here. Last year, he called it the
not on my watch deflection. Here is Tim Burchett. He
is or Burchette. He is from Tennessee. He's a Republican.
Speaker 5: And mar ma'am, you said in your opening statement that
you were going to be transformative, and I believe you've
failed to do that. Let me ask you, why did
you call President Trump a fascist and a deranged racist
sociopath in twenty.
Speaker 2: Twenty, Congressman, I appreciate the opportunity to address this. I
regret those tweets. I would not tweet them again today.
They represented a time where I was reflecting on something
that I believe that the President had said, rather than.
Speaker 5: Who he is.
Speaker 2: I don't presume that anyone is a racist.
Speaker 5: Would you don't believe anyone is a racist.
Speaker 2: I don't start by presuming anyone as a racist, Sir okay, etc.
Speaker 5: As NPR PBS ever conducted an internal review to assess
whether conservative or right landing perspectives are fairly representative news
and programming.
Speaker 2: Carson, What we look at is the distribution of people
who listen to our work. And we can tell you,
and I'm proud to tell you that for our digital
our podcasts, and our website, the distribution of Americans who
come to NPR does reflect political distribution of the nation.
In fact, the distribution on our websites. Thirty three percent
of folks who come are conservative versus twenty eight percent
who are liberal, and the rest identify as independent. So
the largest group is conservatives who come ten pars websites.
Speaker 5: So you believe that most Americans think President Trump is
a fascist and arranged racist sociopath.
Speaker 2: I don't believe that at also, Okay, ma'am.
Speaker 6: We obviously are constantly looking at the voices that we
bring forward. We take to heart our commitment to bringing
forward perspectives from across the country. Our programming comes from
our local stations, and I mentioned in my opening comment
the series that we did out of Arkansas Southern Storytellers.
That's just one little example. Ten percent of our schedule
is news. The rest of it is either children's programming
or programming based on history to give us all a
collective expression. And we're constantly looking to making sure that
we're bringing forward a diversity of viewpoints, in perspectives and
experiences that really do make up the fabric of this country.
Speaker 5: Okay, MPR Senior editor Leonard's been mentioned before, but he
was quoted to saying an open minded spirit no longer
exists within APR, and now, predictably, we don't have an
audience that reflects America. Yet you stated that the audience
does reflect America. He was suspended without pay for five
days for saying this, and of course he eventually resigned
in April twenty four. You've also stated that federal funding
is essential for MPR to operate, but also claim only
one percent of your funding comes from the federal government.
Speaker 2: Which is it, mister Berlinard was suspended for the outside
work policy, not for what he said, sir. In terms
of federal funding, the federal funds go to support our
operation of the public radio satellite system, which enables all
of our local stations to be able to communicate information
and broadcasts.
Speaker 5: Created earlier, ma'am. Funding is very fungible. It flows wherever
it needs to. I don't buy that argument. I wonder
if any of the members that committee would comment real quickly,
would you agree that Real America's Voice Newsmax, Fox or
News Nation if they were to see federal funds, would
you all support that? Yes or no? Mister Elman, Yes
or no.
Speaker 4: I'd have to get back to you on that, ma'am.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I actually don't have an opinion about them.
Speaker 1: No opinion.
Speaker 2: I don't have an opinion about that, sir. That would
be Congress's decision, thank you, Terry lady.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no opinion. Whether Fox should be taxpayer funded. I
don't have any theories on any of that. No, no,
not at all. Of course, of course it shouldn't. No,
these commercial broadcasters' news publications, they should not be taxpayers supported.
They should not be funded by the government. That's obvious.
But they can't say, oh, I have no opinion, that's
not true. They do have an opinion. Uri Berliner is
the former editor who came forward with the admissions of
NPR's bias. He wrote a column that appeared at the
Free Press, That's what she's saying. He got suspended for
for doing the for publishing it at an outside outlet,
not on NPR, which do you think NPR would have
published that story. He had complained to management, he had
complained to people all over the place, and nobody did
anything about it. He was the one that identified something
like eighty seven Democrats and zero Republicans in the DC staff.
That's who makes up the DC staff. I think it was.
It's referenced in another clip. You'll hear it, and we'll
take a deep dive on the numbers. Is it one
percent or is it critical funding? All right, if you're
listening to this show, you know I try to keep
up with all sorts of current events, and I know
you do too. And you've probably heard me say get
your news from multiple sources. Why well, because it's how
you detect media bias, which is why I've been so
impressed with ground News. It's an app, and it's a
website and it combines news from around the world in
one place so you can compare coverage and verify information.
You can check it out at check dot ground, dot
news slash pete. I put the link in the podcast
description too. I started using ground News a few months
ago and more recently chose to work with them as
an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories
get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows
you which stories get ignored by the left and the right.
See for yourself check dot ground, dot news, slash pete.
Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off
any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited
access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps
my podcast, but it also supports ground news as they
make the media landscape more transparent. The email is p
at the peteclendershow dot com and on Twitter at Pete Calendar.
Here's a Pete tweet from Teresa who says it is
great that NPR in public radio is being questioned by Congress.
I would like to see the emails related to their answers.
Do they have any proof? Yeah, the proof of what
the data that she mentioned? Yeah, I don't know. They're
just going to zero out the budget, like that's what
the Republicans want to do, and it's completely appropriate. They
will be able to continue to produce whatever they're producing,
you know, granted they may not be able to employ
the fourteen producers for every single episode that they currently use.
It's amazing, by the way, like I have said this
before and I will say it again, which is the
number of people that they have to work on a
single program is astounding. Anybody who works in radio knows this. Okay,
I've got Nick and I've got Bernie in this studio.
This is the biggest staff I have ever had to
produce a program that I have ever done. Two people
besides me, Right, that's it. And you listen to these
NPR programs and they start rattling off dozens of names
at the end of the show of all the people
that have produced the show, and it's like, well, why
do you have all these people producing the show? There's
no way there's that many people required to do a program.
You don't need that many people. But when you have
a lot of money, you could throw it all around
and whatever. And some of these programs are just like
recuts of past programs. This American life. I'm looking in
your direction, Russ says Pete. You mentioned the NPR argument
that you know, without US, rural areas would have no
radio stations. I think I know the answer. But why
do you think the left quiver of arguments is so
full of racisty and classist assumptions, like without US, poor
people can't get internet, black people don't have access to computers,
or don't have the ability to get an ID to vote,
and so on. Yeah, no one will be able to
figure out how to do radio in Alaska if we're
not there. This is their argument. All right, I got
some more audio clips. Let's get to him.
Speaker 2: This is.
Speaker 1: To do. Brandon Gill, This is awesome, Brandon Gill, Republic.
Speaker 7: You believe that America is addicted to white supremacy.
Speaker 2: I believe that I tweeted that, And as I've said earlier,
I believe much of my thinking has evolved over the
last half decade.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's another evolution of thinking. By the way, you
notice in her last answer to Tim Burchett, she said
that she was reflecting Trump is a racist, Like, oh,
I was just reflecting on it. You're not reflecting on anything.
You're calling Trump a racist, a sociopath, deranged or whatever.
Just own it. The tweets are still up. She hasn't
even deleted them, so that's not reflecting. That's a knee
jerk reaction. She's reacting. But you use the word reflecting
as if there's some deeper level of thought going on,
just like just like now she's saying, oh, I evolved,
like Obama evolved on gay marriage back to his original
position where he was for it, but then when he
ran for president and he had to come out against it,
and then in the second term he's for it again.
He evolved. And this is allowable if you're a Democrat.
You're allowed to evolve your thinking on these positions when
politically convenient or necessary.
Speaker 4: It has evolved. Why did you tweet that?
Speaker 2: I don't recall it exact context, sir, so I wouldn't
be able to.
Speaker 7: Say, Okay, do you believe that America believes in black
plunder and white democracy?
Speaker 2: I don't believe that, sir.
Speaker 7: You tweeted that is reparence to a book you were
reading at the time, apparently The Case for Reparations.
Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever read that book, sir.
Speaker 1: Okay, hang on a second, Hang on, So she has
a tweet that she now doesn't remember sending that she
sent apparently after reading a book that she says she
didn't read.
Speaker 4: You tweeted about it.
Speaker 7: You said you took a day off to fully read
The Case for Reparations. You put that on Twitter in
January of twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: I apologies. I don't recall that I did. Ok no
doubt that your tweet there is correct, But I don't
recall that.
Speaker 1: She doesn't remember taking a day off of work to
read a book called The Case for Reparations, which I
believe was written by Tany Coats. I think this was
twenty twenty. This was like Christopher Rufo, this is what
he just said. He's still laughing. He says about the
fact that mar tweeted that she took an entire day
off to read the Case for Reparations and then admitted
to Congress that she lied about it and had never
even read the book. That is the perfect symbol of
the awful mindset, the affluent white female liberal awfl the
awful mindset. Right, I'm gonna go on to Twitter today
and say I took the day off so I could
do the work. I did the work. That's my NPR voice.
By the way, she did not have nearly enough vocal
fry in her voice for NPR, so I'm not sure
if she should work on that or not. But it's like, seriously,
you claim to have taken a day off of work
to read a book, and then you tweet about white
plunder and now you're like, oh, I don't remember sending that.
I don't think I've read that book at all. It's
it really is a perfect encapsulation of the problem on
the left here.
Speaker 7: Okay, do you believe that white people and inherently feel
superior to other races?
Speaker 2: I do not.
Speaker 4: Don't.
Speaker 7: You tweeted something to that effect. You said, I grew
up feeling superior. Ha, how wide of me. Why did
you tweet that?
Speaker 2: I think I was probably reflecting on what it was
to be to grow up in an environment where I
had lots of advantages.
Speaker 7: It sounds like you're saying that white people feel superior.
Speaker 2: I don't believe that anybody feels that way, sir. I
was just reflecting on my own experiences.
Speaker 4: Do you think the white people should pay reparations?
Speaker 2: I have never said that, sir.
Speaker 4: Yes, you did said it in January of twenty twenty.
Speaker 7: You tweeted, yes, the North, yes, all of us, Yes, America, Yes,
our original collective sin and unpaid debt. Yes, reparations, yes
on this day.
Speaker 2: I don't believe that was a reference to fiscal reparations, sir.
Speaker 4: What kind of reparations was it a reference to?
Speaker 2: I think it was just a reference to the idea
that we all oh much to the people who came
before us.
Speaker 4: That's a bizarre way to frame what you tweeted.
Speaker 1: It is, are there are there other kinds of reparations?
Reparations means payment, That's what the whole debate about reparations
for slavery is about That's what she was talking about.
That's why she said yes the North like yes, because
that's one of the criticisms, like do the Northern States
have to pay reparations? They fought to free the slaves? Right,
I know, I know, but like that's like, just say slavery.
That's the Civil War thought over slavery. Right, It's a
Simpsons line. It's a reference to the Simpsons when up
who is taking a citizenship test and he starts explaining
all of the reasons for the Civil War, and the
examiners just like, just say slavery. So that's why she
sent the tweet saying what she said. It was about, Yes,
fiscal reparations. She's just lying about it now to congress
the perfect and thesabsolation of the awful mindset. All right,
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Let me read a couple of emails. This is from Dennis.
He says, I have never liked the fact that US
taxpayers have been paying for NPR, PBS, National Education Board
and funding Planned Parenthood. I will make an exception for
the cookie monster. I can relate to that character as
a Bernie Sanders type personality. There's Seth who says there
is a simple fix for the bias in these news
outlets using the Democrat leftist playbook, DEI hires fifty percent
of your employees need to be conservative Republicans. I bet
they'd close their doors if they had to hire right wingers.
Let me get back to this audio. This is Brandon
Gill just with this epic takedown of Catherine Marr, the
CEO of National Public Radio, reading her own words back
to her, and she seems to not remember or to
have now evolved, and Russ says, yes, when whenever these
lefties talk about, you know, what their thinking has evolved,
it just means that that position doesn't help me right now.
That earlier statement is not helpful to me right now.
So I have evolved away from it, but I do
reserve the right to evolve back to it immediately after
we're done with this hearing.
Speaker 7: Okay, how how many how much reparations have you personally paid?
Speaker 2: Sir? I don't believe that I've ever paid reparations.
Speaker 4: Okay, just for everybody else.
Speaker 2: I'm not asking anyone to be what you're suggesting that.
Speaker 1: Well, no, that was actually what she suggested. She said, yes,
reparations now, but not I'm not going to pay them
she's not paying the reparations. And she just got through
saying that she didn't mean fiscal reparations. But then when asked,
have you paid any she says no, I haven't. So
she's done literally nothing, even though she's calling for non
fiscal reparations that she didn't even do herself. There would
be no cost to you. Why would you? Why wouldn't
you engage in whatever a non fiscal reparation is. I
don't even know what that would be, but why wouldn't
you do it? It doesn't cost you anything? But she didn't
even do that. She hasn't paid anything. She hasn't done anything.
Classic awful behavior. Now on looting is morally wrong.
Speaker 2: I believe that looting is illegal, and I refer to
it as counterproductive. I think it should be prosecuted.
Speaker 7: You believe it's morally wrong, though, of course, of course,
then why did you refer to it as counter productive?
Speaker 4: The very different, very different way to describe it.
Speaker 2: It is both morally wrong and counterproductive, as well as.
Speaker 4: Being be tweeted. It's hard to be mad about protests.
Speaker 7: In reference to the BLM protests, not prioritizing the private
property of a system of oppression.
Speaker 1: It's hard to be mad at the violence. It's hard
to be mad about it. That's what she said. That's
not something you say if you believe it's morally wrong.
But now she does think it's morally wrong. She just
didn't when she was, you know, banging the drum for BLM.
Speaker 7: You didn't condemn the looting. You said that it was
counter productive. NPR also promoted a book called Indefensive Looting.
Do you think that that's an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars.
Speaker 2: I'm unfamiliar with that book, sir, and I don't believe
that was atwe did it?
Speaker 4: Think you read that book?
Speaker 1: But another one?
Speaker 2: I don't believe that I did read that book, sir.
Speaker 1: Do you think that there's another one? So she's she's
got two books that she tweets about reading, one of
which she said she had to take a whole day
off of work to read the book. And now she
has no recollection of reading these books. I don't know
these books. I've never seen these books. I do not
recall reading these books. But I tweeted that I read them,
and I adopted the narrative that was required of me
as a leftist. This is the perfect encapsulation of everything
wrong with NPR. She is the perfect hire. All right,
that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much
for listening. I could not do the show without your
support and the support of the businesses that advertise on
the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too
and tell them you heard it here. You can also
become a patron at my Patreon page or go to
dpetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening,
and don't break anything while I'm gone.