Sam Smith
As long as everyone's beating up on NPR, here's a more significant problem than its handling of Juan Williams that it shares with most of the conventional media: as long as a conservative or establishment group labels what they're doing as a "reform" media like NPR go along with it.
In its political sense, a "reform" is something that corrects past errors and to call such a policy a "reform" implies that the media fully agrees with it.
Here are a few dictionary defininitons:
"To put into a new and improved form or condition; to restore to a former good state, or bring from bad to good; to change from worse to better; to amend; to correct; as, to reform a profligate man; to reform corrupt manners or morals."
"Synonyms - To amend; correct; emend; rectify; mend; repair; better; improve; restore; reclaim."
"To return to a good state; to amend or correct one's own character or habits; as, a man of settled habits of vice will seldom reform."
"Amendment of what is defective, vicious, corrupt, or depraved; reformation; as, reform of elections; reform of government."
Yet we, find on NPR, reporters talking about immigration reform, education reform, banking reform . . . without the slightest sense in doing so they are doing as strong a political position as one could should of specifically advocating something.
So to hell with Juan Williams. Let's reform NPR by getting it to stop calling conservative programs "reform."
