NPR's COMMON CAUSE CONNECTIONS

Sometimes it's not what NPR tells it's listeners. It's what it does not tell them. Here is the latest ethical outrage:

"For its efforts, ALEC has recently come under a coordinated assault by many leftist organizations, especially Common Cause and 9-11 truther Van Jones' Color of Change. NPR's report purportedly raised "questions" over ALEC's tax status and quoted extensively from Common Cause. What listeners didn't learn, however, was that NPR's reporter, Peter Overby formerly worked for Common Cause."

"NPR's report also relied extensively on the opinion of Marcus Owens, a tax attorney at the firm Caplain & Drysdale. Left out of NPR's report, however, was the fact that Owens' firm recently represented Common Cause in litigation against the IRS. Of course, NPR treats Owens as a disinterested expert on non-profit tax law, raising "questions" which Common Cause can then echo later in the story. NPR's listeners might have benefited from the knowledge that there was a business interest between Owens' firm and Common Cause."  -BIG JOURNALISM