Trying For NPR Job? Helps To Be Named ‘Ari Shapiro”

On the drive home from work the other day, I was listening to an NPR report on a math geek get-together in Boston.

What got my attention wasn’t the story, but the name of the reporter:  Ari Daniel Shapiro.

The insertion of the middle name “Daniel” was perplexing, until it became clear that they were trying distinguish him from NPR White House correspondent Ari Shapiro.

But then I had to laugh— really?  Two Ari Shapiros, working for the same news organization?  I mean, dismiss conspiracies about Jewish media control if you will, but this one is just too hilarious to ignore.  Two (I presume) totally unrelated men, both with same first and last distinctly Jewish name, both talking up their take over the taxpayer-funded national public radio service.

The “greater” Ari: “GOP presidential candidates make bid for Jewish vote“

The “lesser” Ari: “Jewish holiday celebrated by Occupying Wall Street”

Whatever.  Their tastes, their interests, their spin— they bend in a predictable fashion.  

And of course, two Ari Shapiros isn’t just a silly coincidence.  It’s a very real pattern of domination and exclusion.  I note from the “greater Ari” bio how perfectly he fits the profile of the NPR preference:  He’s Jewish, he’s gay (and “married”), he went to Yale, he’s young, he sings for a group called Pink Martini.  He’s like the Nazi poster of the blond Aryan superman— substituting the NPR ideal for Hitler’s.  His mentor, Nina Totenberg, must be so proud.

The “lesser” Ari (at least in terms of NPR appearances) is no slouch, either (St. Andrews, MIT), but his resume betrays a commitment to his own Jewish identity and liberal causes, when he’s not focused on the science stuff.

Will Ari Daniel Shapiro, advocate for welfare recipients, give us a penetrating story on the morass of welfare scams in America?  Nah.

Wil Ari Shapiro, married gay man, give us a counterpoint essay on why gay marriage is a bad idea?  Nope.

Will either Shapiro dig into the damning details of the immigration mess?  Don’t count on it.

It’s going to be the same journalists, touting the same ideas, using the same sources and pressing the same hostility to America’s traditional majority.  You really don’t even need different names.