{"id":25629,"date":"2012-01-16T12:15:20","date_gmt":"2012-01-16T18:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=25629"},"modified":"2012-01-16T13:27:26","modified_gmt":"2012-01-16T19:27:26","slug":"dialog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=25629","title":{"rendered":"Dialog"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the past fifty years, it’s been one of the most consistent, constant themes in American politics; the media trend left, and when in doubt shades conservatism; conservatives in turn distrust media and its motives.<\/p>\n

For the past forty years, National Public Radio has added the cherry of prim, smug elitism to the sundae of media bias. \u00a0From Nina Totenberg wishing AIDS on Jesse Helms<\/a> to the excision of Juan Williams for thoughtcrimes<\/a>\u00a0to everything to ever pass the lips of Bob Garfield or Brooke Gladstone<\/a>, to their burgeoning involvement with George Soros<\/a>, NPR has been an audio museum of the recent history, mores and prejudices of the American center-left mid-to-upper class for two generations.<\/p>\n

For the past thirty-plus years, Minnesota Public Radio has been the soundtrack of Minnesota’s relentlessly-earnest, Volvo-driving, free-range-alpaca-wearing, St. Olaf-educated, Wellstone-worshipping set. \u00a0From Garrison Keillor’s corrosive bigotry<\/a> to the inexplicable employment of Catherine Lanpher to Keri Miller’s on-air toenail-painting of DFL politicians to the incessant, clubby assumptions (my favorite a few weeks ago; my neighbor, Marianne Combs, responding to the fact that four male GOP Senators announced the caucus’ response to the Amy Koch flap with a giggly “well, of course they were all men – it’s the Republican Party!”), MPR is broadly regarded as the new source of record for upper-midwest progressivism, \u00a0Of course, this blog owes a fair chunk of whatever prominence it has to Garrison Keillor, if indirectly;\u00a0It was almost ten years ago that pointing out the screechingly obvious about Garrison Keillor put this blog on the map;\u00a0my first Instalanche, 30,000 hits or so \u00a0back in November of 2002, drove\u00a0Shot In The Dark’s\u00a0<\/em>traffic<\/a>\u00a0from 30 visitors a day to 300 a day, literally overnight. \u00a0Shot In The Dark\u00a0<\/em>is the blog that Garrison Keillor built, in a sense.<\/p>\n

And so conservatives and the media – public and commercial – sit like the Hatfields and the McCoys, behind their parapets, winging the odd zinger at each other, secure in their assumptions.<\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

So let me step outside the fortress for a moment and wave a white hanky of truce, and walk back just a tad of orthodoxy.<\/p>\n

Because for a good chunk of this past twenty years or so, Minnesota Public Radio’s \u00a0newsroom (as opposed to their programming department) has done a decent job of trying to do a balanced, or at least a detached and apolitical, job of covering the news. \u00a0It’s not been perfect – but they’ve taken a much better run at it than, say, the Strib’s <\/em>editorial board.<\/p>\n

In and among the bureaucracy down at the Taj Ma Kling, nestled amidst “American Public Media”, is the “Public Insight Network” (henceforth “PIN”), an ongoing project to develop a broader, more diverse set of sources and feedback for their news coverage and programming.<\/p>\n

Last week, a PIN producer, Melody Ng, contacted me. \u00a0Part of her job – and a very frustrating part, apparently – has been to develop more conservative sources.<\/p>\n

And according to Ng. it’s been slow going.<\/p>\n

Conservatives apparently like to keep the mainstream media at arms’ length – public or private.<\/p>\n

We had a great talk about the whole relationship between conservatives and the media. \u00a0My theory – some conservatives are wary of the\u00a0Jane Goodall-like anthropological approach<\/a> to some journalists’ approaches to conservatism, in addition, many of us who’ve had some dealings with the mainstream media have seen our words yanked out of context and turned into something we didn’t intend.<\/p>\n

(For what it’s worth, my experience with MPR – I’ve been interviewed <\/a>a few times\u00a0by Jess Mador, have been a guest on the late, lamented “In The Loop<\/a>“, and have gotten one of\u00a0the most flattering comments my writing has ever gotten<\/a> from Bob Collins – has been good)..<\/p>\n

Anyway – I said I’d be happy to help.<\/p>\n

And along those lines, I thought I’d toss a few questions out to my audience.<\/p>\n