NPR Sorta Apologizes for Acknowledges Tea Bag Cartoon and Claims (Ha-ha) it Doesn't Reflect Their Values

Douchebags -- they say vaguely the cartoon sat on the internet for two months without notice, until "the conservative blogosphere" noticed it.

No link. Of course no link.

Anyway, they once again claim that because a single tea party activist carried one sign using the term "tea bag," the "conservatives" invented the term "teabagger" for themselves and so it's our fault liberals have used that slur 66 bazillion times since that one guy.

No Apologies! I headlined this wrong. Byron York sets me straight:

ational Public Radio executives say there will be "no apology" for an animated cartoon on the network's website that has angered thousands of conservatives. The cartoon, entitled "How to Speak Tea Bag," by satirist Mark Fiore, will remain on the NPR site, executives tell NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard.

...

"Tea Bag," the video concludes. "Because other languages are just too hard."
Shepard, the NPR ombudsman, writes that the cartoon was originally posted on the NPR site on November 12, 2009 and attracted little attention. This week, however, it has been discovered, and NPR has gotten lots of comments, many of them from offended conservatives. (At this moment, there are 1,261 comments on "How to Speak Tea Bag" page.)

Shepard says neither she nor the NPR staffers who approved the cartoon knew that there was anything derogatory about the phrase "tea bagger."

Let me clear up my error: It was the NPR Ombudsman who said the cartoon did not reflect NPR values. I forgot that the Ombudsman is just one voice, and not really the voice of the organization at all.

So while the Ombudsman finds fault with it, NPR executives, who are really NPR, are saying "No apology."

posted by Ace at 02:38 PM

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