NPR fail: Editor concedes it’s only for liberals now
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A top editor of National Public Radio on Tuesday challenged the taxpayer-subsidized network to diversify its views, sources, reporters, and stories or continue to fail by producing news for liberals by liberals.
“Even within our diminished audience, there’s evidence of trouble at the most basic level: trust,” 25-year NPR veteran Uri Berliner wrote.
“With declining ratings, sorry levels of trust, and an audience that has become less diverse over time, the trajectory for NPR is not promising. Two paths seem clear. We can keep doing what we’re doing, hoping it will all work out. Or we could start over, with the basic building blocks of journalism. We could face up to where we’ve gone wrong,” he added in an essay published by the Free Press and commentary on the popular podcast Honestly with Bari Weiss.
In over 3,500 words, the senior business editor explained the changes inside NPR that have angered tax-paying conservatives for years as it has turned from both-sides coverage to uber-liberal bias.
Berliner said that while he voted against former President Donald Trump twice, he has always encouraged thought diversity on the staff and regularly called for it in memos and staff meetings.
But it never came. For example, in 2021, he looked up the party registration of staffers and found that 87 were Democrats and zero were Republicans. “It was met with profound indifference,” he said.
Instead, he said that the network’s leadership started to emphasize race and diversity as the “north star.” In his talk with Weiss, for example, he explained a system in which sources were asked their race so it could be tracked for executives.
"Race and identity became paramount in nearly every aspect of the workplace. Journalists were required to ask everyone we interviewed their race, gender, and ethnicity (among other questions), and had to enter it in a centralized tracking system. We were given unconscious bias training sessions. A growing DEI staff offered regular meetings imploring us to ‘start talking about race.’ Monthly dialogues were offered for ‘women of color’ and ‘men of color.’ Nonbinary people of color were included, too.
“These initiatives, bolstered by a $1 million grant from the NPR Foundation, came from management, from the top down. Crucially, they were in sync culturally with what was happening at the grassroots — among producers, reporters, and other staffers. Most visible was a burgeoning number of employee resource (or affinity) groups based on identity,” he wrote.
Story topics were also segregated, and many were ignored for political reasons. For example, NPR stayed away from covering first son Hunter Biden’s scandalous laptop, which the media dismissed until after Joe Biden was elected president.
“The laptop was newsworthy. But the timeless journalistic instinct of following a hot story lead was being squelched. During a meeting with colleagues, I listened as one of NPR’s best and most fair-minded journalists said it was good we weren’t following the laptop story because it could help Trump,” he wrote.
In his essay, he noted that NPR has been facing defunding calls from critics. But he said the answer wasn’t in killing the news source.
“Despite our missteps at NPR, defunding isn’t the answer. As the country becomes more fractured, there’s still a need for a public institution where stories are told and viewpoints exchanged in good faith. Defunding, as a rebuke from Congress, wouldn’t change the journalism at NPR. That needs to come from within,” he wrote.
What’s more, Berliner said he has high hopes that new CEO Katherine Maher might listen to his suggestions. “I’ll be rooting for her. It’s a tough job. Her first rule could be simple enough: don’t tell people how to think. It could even be the new North Star,” he wrote.
And to Weiss, Berliner said he took his case public instead of retiring because he wanted to improve NPR. “I felt an obligation to do this,” the editor said.
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Our thanks to Uri Berliner for simply stating the obvious truth.
The funding of this propaganda mill should end.
Who is Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax for ? Not to mention talk radio .
I haven’t watched Fox News since around 2000, and have never seen OAN or Newsmax.
Far left now?
OAN and Newsmax have small platforms. Fox News is, as one of your inspirations would say, for the masses. (The majority of the American people.)
Thank God for Barry Diller and Rupert Murdoch.
None of the above is funded by taxpayer money.
Which of those are paid for by the US government?
Republicans absolutely should demand that US taxpayer funding for NPR end.
How is being only for liberals a bad thing???????????????????
Taxpayers don't need to be funding another version of MSDNC, CNN, or the major media networks.
NPR can go private and continue to be as leftist as it wants.
Why do you think they need some GovCo money. They would die on the vine for lack of sponsorship/advertising.
To be fair, I believe they would have to give up their non-profit status as under current rules they are not allowed to run advertising.
I agree that government funding should end however. They contribute to the partisan divide in this country and around the world rather than provide the straight news.
38% of NPR funding comes from Corporate Sponsors - it's the largest share of their income.
From the article:
Yup that is exactly what I would expect from the lefties at NPR. But the American people shouldn't have to pay for leftist propaganda.
Your comment about the author of the article in your opening comment.
This is Berliner comment on how to change course at NPR
And this is your response to his idea of making changes at NPR.
Ah, the old cake and eat it to...Well done Vic.
NPR has to prove it can change first.
They currently operate as any government agency the Brandon administration. In other words more concerned about being woke than actually being unbiased.
It really is unfortunate that there simply no longer is a truly unbiased neutral media source. I've told this story many times but it fits here. Back in the mid to late 1950s when I was the Editor-in-Chief of my university weekly student newspaper, one that won the award both years I was editor for being the best weekly university student newspaper in all of Canada, our model for both content and format was the Christian Science Monitor. Back then CSM was awarded year after year with the prize for being the most unbiased newspaper in America. For obvious reasons that prize is no longer being awarded, because even the CSM leans left now. It seems to me that in America everything is either right or left, even to the extreme. And you wonder why there is such discontent in America.
Scotty, PLEASE, beam me back to the early 1950s. I want to live then, so much more than now.
Amen!
People use bothsidesism as a reason , and then justification, for inflicting Donald Trump upon America. We dont need any help adding to it from 7000 miles away.
Your side inflicted Brandon the Human Fuck Up Machine on us; which is the only reason that Trump is still relevant.
So thank you for that.
Is there any lie or crime you won’t excuse in the name of getting trump?
Bringing the former 'president' traitor to justice is not 'getting the turd'
What lie and or crime hasn't the former 'president' committed while 'president' and after he lost bigly to President Biden and continues to do so?
It appears that you would put a traitor back in office because you don't like Joe Biden's policies
He has one vote the same as you, so if Trump wins by one vote you can blame him, if not then blame the fact that democrats fielded a candidate so bad that they couldn't beat trump, Yankee closer Mariano Rivera just came out to endorse trump. do you think he will influence more or less voters than Ronin?
If trump wins I will blame everyone who voted for him. end of story.
MAGA is trying desperately to define abnormality down ,and in some ways appears to have been succeeding. that is why we live in a degraded country.
You mean it's not having an administration that has gone against the SCOTUS, fought to open borders, failed to protect its citizens and allowed our enemies to attack our allies?
“Yankee closer Mariano Rivera just came out to endorse trump…”
What a relief. (tee hee) We were all on tinder hooks. Perhaps trump will co opt ‘Enter Sandman’ as his entry music from the ‘bull’ pen…’never never land…’
How have I added to your "bothsidesism" with my comment. If anything it is a lament that there is such a paralyzing political division between two "sides".
"NPR editor found registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans 87 to zero in newsroom"
Yes, Democrats are known for telling the truth.
Faux news? NOT
Read the article? Seems Democrats aren't good at the truth; or just ignoring it when it doesn't fit their narrow views.
Hunter Biden's laptop is a prime example.
Since when? It hasn't happened in my lifetime
NPR has lost its journalistic integrity - just as FOX (all conservative all the time), MSNBC (affectionately known as MSDNC), CNN (Certainly Not Non-partisan) and other talk show networks (formerly known as news channels have also.
I have no problem with NPR toeing the liberal line (or the other channels doing as they do) but they need to stop the charade and drop the cloak of "unbiased reporting" once and for all.
No one believes it any more.