Public Radio is painfully liberal in some aspects. I work in the smart grid industry, so I have a podcast with all of NPRs energy stories, and 90%+ are favorable to green energy, solar energy, wind energy - and Anti-Coal/Carbon products.
Now, as it turns out, that happens to be my sweet spot, so I love listening to the echo chamber - but I realize there is a HUGE sector of society (perhaps enough to elect a president) that believes in Carbon/Coal/Oil/Pipelines as the foundation of the US energy economy. Those views, as a policy, are severely under-reported on NPR.
Now - I listen to NPR because I believe those alternative views are inane - but that doesn't stop me from recognizing NRP's bias.
Unfortunately, these days, people are so used to having their own (biased, in almost all cases) views dished back to them, that an unbiased news source is unlikely to garner much in the way of attention.
That's fine with me - I can live without stories of the Rapture, government taking our guns away, welfare queens, communist (muslim now?) menace, etc... I'm comfortable in my little liberal shell.
There are a handful of partisan issues that are attached to renewable energy -- things like government funding (particularly through the stimulus bill), related allegations of favoritism and corruption, and climate change related regulation (cap & trade, etc.)
For example, a handful of "green energy" companies received stimulus funding and later went bankrupt; this has led to a great deal of partisan bickering over whether Obama is wasting taxpayer money, or whether we should leave it to private enterprise to figure out renewable energy. So while the concept of renewable energy is non-partisan, policies/discussion relating to funding and regulation of renewable energy can be quite partisan.
I would say something similar is the case with respect to many other issues that sound non-partisan, like national parks -- peripheral issues like government funding and restrictions on private enterprise (logging on federal land?) can lead to a fairly significant partisan divide, even on issues that don't seem controversial.
Now, as it turns out, that happens to be my sweet spot, so I love listening to the echo chamber - but I realize there is a HUGE sector of society (perhaps enough to elect a president) that believes in Carbon/Coal/Oil/Pipelines as the foundation of the US energy economy. Those views, as a policy, are severely under-reported on NPR.
Now - I listen to NPR because I believe those alternative views are inane - but that doesn't stop me from recognizing NRP's bias.
Unfortunately, these days, people are so used to having their own (biased, in almost all cases) views dished back to them, that an unbiased news source is unlikely to garner much in the way of attention.
That's fine with me - I can live without stories of the Rapture, government taking our guns away, welfare queens, communist (muslim now?) menace, etc... I'm comfortable in my little liberal shell.