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'How I Left the Liberal Bubble': Ex-NPR CEO Admits Media Bias, Joins Red America and Loves It

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Ken Stern has lived his life as a proud Democrat and media executive. He attended liberal schools, worked on the Bill Clinton re-election campaign, married a Democratic Hill staffer and admittedly has always been a "straight-line Democratic voter."

He served as a top executive for National Public Radio and won accolades for its expansion during that time. In 2008, the Washington Post  called him "one of the key architects of NPR's rapid growth over the past decade."

So Stern's decision to "embed" in Red America for a year came as a surprise to many, but not to Stern.

He describes his wake-up call in his new book, Republican Like Me: How I Left the Liberal Bubble and Learned to Love the Right.

Stern says his epiphany came when he learned his Washington, D.C. neighborhood's pledge that the children recited every year before their annual parade. It says: "I pledge allegiance to Hobart Street Northwest...gay or straight, woman or man, all are welcome on Hobart Street – except for Republicans."

Stern realized that even with the "good fun" intended in the ending, it represented an "uncomfortable truth" – that although his neighbors espoused diversity and tolerance they really did not welcome anyone affiliated with the GOP.

As Stern thought about his neighborhood plus the research showing that liberals greatly outnumber conservatives in the media, he decided to venture into the Reddest states and engage in the Reddest activities he could find.

So, for a year, Stern went to NASCAR races. He hung out with Tea Party members at their gatherings and spent "many Sundays" in evangelical churches.

In a New York Post  column, Stern also describes spending time pig-hunting and advocates for defensive gun use (DGU) which he noted "is often dismissed by the media as myth."

He even went to the Urbana student missions conference where he was shocked to find college-age evangelicals engaged in intense discussions around racial equity and justice for refugees.

Some of Stern's take-aways from the year?

* Conservatives see the media as "hopelessly disconnected from their lives";
* The media should acknowledge its failure to represent Red America;
* Regret that he waited so long to get to know conservatives;
* The rest of the media needs to do the same.












 

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About The Author

Heather
Sells

Heather Sells covers wide-ranging stories for CBN News that include religious liberty, ministry trends, immigration, and education. She’s known for telling personal stories that capture the issues of the day, from the border sheriff who rescues migrants in the desert to the parents struggling with a child that identifies as transgender. In the last year, she has reported on immigration at the Texas border, from Washington, D.C., in advance of the Dobbs abortion case, at crisis pregnancy centers in Massachusetts, and on sexual abuse reform at the annual Southern Baptist meeting in Anaheim