Roasting the Press Episode 70 for Sunday, May 11th, 2025
Trump Tariffs, NPR Funding & Propaganda, The Ten Families Who Control Canada & Taxes for "Education."
Trump Tariffs, NPR Funding & Propaganda
Stories about the “Trump Tariffs” are getting silly. For example, the May 10th, 2025 National Public Radio (NPR) post, “Tariff troubles: A rubber duck museum is migrating to Canada to stay afloat,” notes that Canadians are boycotting US goods in response to Trump’s tariffs and his quip about Canada becoming the “51st state.”
The post cites the Point Roberts, Washington based Rubber Duck Museum’s closure as a quirky casualty of the tariff war. According to NPR, the big draw of the museum is the gift shop, where they sell rubber ducks to mostly Canadian tourists.
But the ducks are no longer flying off the shelves. According to NPR:
Since President Trump launched tariff wars on countries, including Canada and China, and began insisting Canada will be the 51st state, far fewer Canadian visitors have flocked to this US outpost.
After months of dismal sales, and now looking at 145% tariffs on goods from China (where most of the ducks are manufactured), the owners say they are packing up the ducks and moving them across the border into Canada.
The story feels like a caricature of anti-American sentiment, amplified by media to stoke nationalist fervor.
The Rubber Duck Museum’s declining sales aren’t explored or validated and NPR’s framing of tariffs as a cultural attack on small business smells like propaganda, a charge which, as outlined in the May 2nd, 2024 NPR post, “Trump says he's ending federal funding for NPR and PBS. They say he can't,” has been leveled against NPR before.
The Wikipedia “NPR Controversies” goes into details on over a dozen recent cases of “ideological bias,” at NPR. Perhaps the most interesting case are the allegations of bias leveled against NPR by senior NPR contributor Uri Berliner
For more on this story, check out the April 17th, 2024 Reason TV on YouTube post, ”NPR suspends editor for EXPOSING liberal bias | Free Media.”
Other recent NPR tariff stories include:
The May 8th, 2025 NPR post, “Americans are already seeing Trump's tariffs kick in. They sent in receipts to prove it,” which focused on small business challenges.
The May 2nd, 2025 NPR post, “China says it's considering trade talks with US, but demands canceled tariffs,” and the May 10th, 2025 NPR post, “US and China begin talks amid tensions over Trump's tariff war.”
The May 11th, 2025 Planet Money on NPR post, “Are Trump's tariffs a bargaining chip for a new global economic order?,” which suggest that “Trump tariffs,” will devalue the dollar, encourage “stagflation” and won’t boost US manufacturing, although consumers will surely suffer.
If you look at these stories in the aggregate, you notice things.
The stories frame tariffs as chaotic and harmful, aligning with mainstream economic skepticism on the topic. They use emotive language (“trade war,” “reeling markets” and “trillions wiped out”) which amplifies fear and downplays positive outcomes.
The stories highlight consumer and small business pain but give less attention to actual and potential benefits, like incentivizing increased domestic production. They also focus on China’s high tariffs, possibly to emphasize the US-Chinese conflict and encourage an “evil Chinese” villain trope and encourage interest in the story.
It’s worth noting that NPR, its biases and its government funding is wrapped up with Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) investigations into the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and other Federal government agencies which secretly fund favorable journalists.
As outlined in the February 17th, 2025 Asia Times post, “US government agencies gaslight world with massive media subsidies,” USAID has been funding 6,200 journalists, 707 non-state media outlets, and 279 media-focused NGOs in more than 30 countries including the US to publish stories favorable to US government, and domestic Democratic party interests.
For more on that story, check out the February 7th, 2025 Conversations Among The Ruins on YouTube post, “USAID Exposed: Propaganda, Media Funding & Global Influence.”
The Ten Families Who Control Canada
Want to know who really runs Canada?
Here’s the May 7th, 2025 Tajana Truthseeker (truthseeker01011) on Instagram post, “Who are the Owners of Canada,” with some preliminary answers, some background on the question and some suggestions for future areas of research.
Taxes for “Education”
And finally tonight, here’s an interesting and undated post currently making the rounds on social media.
The video seems to have originated on Tik Tok in April 2025 where it was banned, officially for the swearing, and perhaps unofficially for the politics.
It’s currently making the rounds on Telegram.
It’s followed by an interesting discussion on the perspectives and biases of current university students and how those biases contrast and conflict with both the parents who pay for this education and the organizations expected to employ them.
“Roasting the Press,” is an open forum with new media journalists critiquing and complaining about our well funded competitors, the stories they create and the techniques they use.
For more information on the show, or to become a guest, please send an email to chuck.black@protonmail.com.
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