I’ve listened to Radiolab occasionally but I find their self-congratulatory twee voice very hard to take. When they stick with hard science they’re pretty cool; a recent episode on trees (http://www.radiolab.org/story/from-tree-to-shining-tree/) is mind-blowing but others clearly suffer from the bias discussed in the article. I basically gave up on listening to NPR way back in 1990 when they shut out all ethical debate and cheer-led for the first Gulf War from their “liberal” perch. NPR’s pro-empire worldview remains, and they are best understood as propaganda for elite liberal intellectuals that normalizes neo-Liberalism (wars, corporate oligarchy) to the exclusion of anything resembling genuine Progressive consciousness.
Sadly, I have many friends who consider themselves Liberals who listen to NPR and don’t understand the brainwashing they are willingly undergoing. One could almost say NPR’s function is to validate the elite liberal construct field and make sure it never morphs into anything resembling a political awakening. As Rosa Luxembourg noted, “Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.”
