In my car to go and get my Starbucks fix this morning, I was listening, in a not very attentive way, to my local public radio station and Morning Edition, when suddenly the anchor mentioned a convention of liberal bloggers in Las Vegas this weekend. After a few short, bland statements about the growing role of liberal bloggers in political circles, he turned the mike over to John Ridley, a frequent reporter/commentator on NPR. Apparently NPR dispatched Mr. Ridley to attend Yearly Kos and report on what he saw because he makes a habit of going to Vegas every weekend from his home in Los Angeles.
So, what stories from Yearly Kos did Mr. Ridley choose to report upon? Did he mention any of the politicians who attended, such as Wesley Clark, Bill Richardson, Tom Vilsack or Mark Warner? Did he cover the controversy of Armando’s outing by The National Review online? Did he discuss the Plame panel and the speeches given by Joe Wilson and Larry Johnson? Did he do a meta story on all the national coverage Yearly Kos received from The New York Times, Washington Post etc.? Did he attend the panel on energy hosted by Jerome a Paris and Governor Richardson, or the Education panel with Teacher Ken and Governor Vilsack?
Well, not exactly. His story was all about John Ridley and his attempt to tape record the pundit training session hosted by the Center for American Progress (which, by the way, he knew was not permitted). And along the way he mocked the Yearly Kos attendees as young, naive and slightly hippy-like bumpkins.
You think I jest? You think NPR would actually run a serious piece about Yearly Kos? Sorry to disillusion you. No, what they did was send a guy on a mission to get a snarky hit piece any way he could.
Now I can appreciate that he was frustrated Gina and the other organizers of Yearly Kos wouldn’t allow him to take in his tape recorder to the session on pundit training. But those were the rules, and all the reporters and attendees had to abide by them, even Bryron York (whose his own hit piece about this event is HERE). At least I give York credit for stating his biases right up front for all to see. Ridley on the other hand was far more dishonest in his approach.
First we hear Ridley complaining about getting up so early in the morning to attend a conference in Vegas, as opposed to his usual routine when he hits Vegas of staying up all night to gamble. After a few snarky remarks about the type of people who would come to Vegas to attend the programs and activities presented at Yearly Kos (no fun lovers in this crowd, just a bunch of geeks, being the implied message). Next he cracks a lame joke about Mike Stark’s panel on Right Wing Radio, and then he dives in with a taped excerpt of Gina Cooper talking, an excerpt in which she appears to be confused and disorganized. We can’t really be sure, because no context is given to this 7 second blurb of recorded speech other than “This is Gina, one of the Yearly Kos organizers” but again his snide tone makes it clear that he’s in the hands of amateurs.
Something he attempts to confirm in his next soundbite with Gina where he has her describing herself as somone who was just an ordinary teacher 18 months ago, and now here she is organizing Yearly Kos. He presents a few more snippets of Gina talking about her passion for progressive causes, and how essential these panel discussions and training sessions are to people like her who have only recently become involved in politics. He even praises her for her spin free conversation with him, but again his tone makes it clear this is a back handed compliment.<p.
Next he gives us the remarks of "someone named Darksyde" without any context as to who that person is (a Daily Kos front page blogger and host of the Yearly Kos panel on science issues) Its a brief soundbite (again presented without any context) in which Ridly recorded Darksyde talking about how "frazzled he is this morning." The whole point of this little radio blurb is apparently to mock Darksyde's screen name. After all, he implies, how can you take these people seriously when they go by made up names like that? No discussion of the issue of online anonymity and privacy concerns is presented, just Ridley's mock commentary.
In the meantime he continues whining about how hard it was to get into the pundit panel for him. But being the intrepid reporter he is, he persevered, and finally got the reluctant Gina to grant him admission. It turns out all he had to do was agree to not record the training session. How hard was that? Again no context about people's legitimate concern about their privacy being exposed. This after all was supposed to be a training session for Yearly Kos conferees, not the media. But Ridley is too busy whining about how hard it was for him, outdated Radio reporter that he is (again presented with maximum snark) to mention any of those issues. As I told you, this was all about him and how he overcame those bumbling bloggers.
The piece de resistance, however, are the soundbites Ridley presents of a young attendee (sorry I can’t recall the name of the person) who lapses into hyperbole by calling Yearly Kos his generation’s “Woodstock.” God bless this young man, I admire his enthusiasm, but this just gave Ridley the opportunity to tar everyone who attended Yearly Kos as some out of touch younf counterculture wannabe, and he runs with it as you might expect. First, he mocks the Woodstock comparison by noting that there were only 1000 people at this convention, a number that, he notes will be dwarfed by the 30,000 coming to attend a truck show exhibition in a few weeks. His voice dripping with sarcasm, he gain repeats his point about Yearly Kos being a “no fun, and they take themselves way too seriously” event when he also mocks the poor man by noting that at least Woodstock had some good music.
Of course, Ridley can’t be bothered to correct the stereotypes he trades in here. No mention that the people attending were a mostly older and far more diverse group than he has portrayed to his radio audience with this “commentary.” Indeed, about the only discussion of what anyone did for a living was the remark Gina slipped in about being a teacher.
As for the pundit training session itself, he barely mentions it, even though this was why he spent “an hour and a half” on a Saturday morning arguing to get into it. He was far more concerned with making those of us who attended Yearly Kos look bad. That, and whining about how mistreated he was.
I expect to be sneered at by Fox News (when they deign to mention liberal blogs at all. But getting the “fair and balanced” treatment from NPR? They’re supposed to be National Public Radio, not a repository of sarcasm and Republican talking points about the the Uberliberals of the progressive blogosphere.
Of course, the biggest thing missing from Ridley’s commentary was any discussion about why progressive communities have formed and are growing so fast in the first place: the inadequacy national news outlets like NPR to report on the domination of our government by radical extremists in the Republican party, the media’s failure to expose republican scandals in Congress and the White House, and the loss of our liberties as a result of the Bush administration’s exploitation of 9/11. Oh, and Iraq too.
I guess Ridley had more important things on his mind. Like how to find a classier casino to gamble in other than the dumpy Riviera where Yearly Kos was held. Oh, by the way, that description of the Riviera Hotel is all Mr. Ridley’s. I wouldn’t know, never having been to Vegas.
