Tim Graham tries a bit of guilt-by-association against NPR in a March 25 NewsBusters post, claiming that “This American Life” — which Graham calls a “trendy public-radio show” that “airs on many NPR stations” — which recently retracted a episode about a factory in China that produces Apple products for inaccuracies, “caused a black eye for NPR (by their one-degree association).”
Graham offers no evidence that NPR was harmed by the “This American Life” controversy — perhaps because, despite Graham’s insistence, there is no “one-degree association” between them.
“This American Life” is produced by Chicago Public Media and distributed by Public Radio International. both of these entities are completely separate from NPR. Also, there are no “NPR stations” per se. NPR operates no radio stations; rather, NPR provides news and other programming to independently owned public radio stations. While many public radio stations air NPR programming, to call them “NPR stations” as Graham does is something of a misnomer since they also run programming from PRI and other sources.
This is just lazy writing that permits Graham to make a lazy smear.