“I am resigning from NPR, a great American institution where I have worked for 25 years,” Uri Berliner wrote on his X social media account on Wednesday. Berliner wrote that he “cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay.”(see below)
Why are the American people forced to fund this vicious propaganda arm of the Democrat party?
National Public Radio (NPR) had suspended Senior Business Editor Uri Berliner after he publicly accused the network of espousing left-wing bias with an essay that began a media firestorm. Last week, Berliner received a letter that informed him of a five-day suspension without pay beginning Friday, according to a report by NPR’s media correspondent David Folkenflik. NPR told Berliner he failed to follow the network’s rules and get approval for outside work for other news outlets after his essay for The Free Press and follow-up interviews. The Free Press published the essay on Tuesday last week in which Berliner argued NPR “lost America’s trust” with its increasingly liberal bent. Berliner additionally wrote about how he tried to make some of his concerns known internally. He said no one ever “trashed” him, but he was repeatedly brushed off and nothing changed (Daily Wire).
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National Review: When Berliner looked into the partisan affiliations of NPR’s Washington, D.C., based editorial employees, he couldn’t find a single registered Republican. The media outlet has since taken flak over its new CEO’s resurfaced social-media posts. In 2020, Katherine Maher tweeted that former president Donald Trump is a racist and tried to minimize the rioting and looting during the George Floyd protests that summer (National Review).
NPR editor Uri Berliner tells how the network lost America’s trust in The Free Press
Uri Berliner, a senior business editor at NPR, says he started sounding the alarm internally when he noticed a bias creep into the network’s coverage. (Pete Kiehart for The Free Press)
I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.
Uri Berliner, a veteran at the public radio institution, says the network lost its way when it started telling listeners how to think.
You know the stereotype of the NPR listener: an EV-driving, Wordle-playing, tote bag–carrying coastal elite. It doesn’t precisely describe me, but it’s not far off. I’m Sarah Lawrence–educated, was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother, I drive a Subaru, and Spotify says my listening habits are most similar to people in Berkeley.
I fit the NPR mold. I’ll cop to that.
So when I got a job here 25 years ago, I never looked back. As a senior editor on the business desk where news is always breaking, we’ve covered upheavals in the workplace, supermarket prices, social media, and AI.
It’s true NPR has always had a liberal bent, but during most of my tenure here, an open-minded, curious culture prevailed. We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding.
In recent years, however, that has changed. Today, those who listen to NPR or read its coverage online find something different: the distilled worldview of a very small segment of the U.S. population.
If you are conservative, you will read this and say, duh, it’s always been this way.
But it hasn’t.
For decades, since its founding in 1970, a wide swath of America tuned in to NPR for reliable journalism and gorgeous audio pieces with birds singing in the Amazon. Millions came to us for conversations that exposed us to voices around the country and the world radically different from our own—engaging precisely because they were unguarded and unpredictable. No image generated more pride within NPR than the farmer listening to Morning Edition from his or her tractor at sunrise.
Back in 2011, although NPR’s audience tilted a bit to the left, it still bore a resemblance to America at large. Twenty-six percent of listeners described themselves as conservative, 23 percent as middle of the road, and 37 percent as liberal.
By 2023, the picture was completely different: only 11 percent described themselves as very or somewhat conservative, 21 percent as middle of the road, and 67 percent of listeners said they were very or somewhat liberal. We weren’t just losing conservatives; we were also losing moderates and traditional liberals.
An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America.
That wouldn’t be a problem for an openly polemical news outlet serving a niche audience. But for NPR, which purports to consider all things, it’s devastating both for its journalism and its business model.
Like many unfortunate things, the rise of advocacy took off with Donald Trump. As in many newsrooms, his election in 2016 was greeted at NPR with a mixture of disbelief, anger, and despair. (Just to note, I eagerly voted against Trump twice but felt we were obliged to cover him fairly.) But what began as tough, straightforward coverage of a belligerent, truth-impaired president veered toward efforts to damage or topple Trump’s presidency.
Persistent rumors that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia over the election became the catnip that drove reporting. At NPR, we hitched our wagon to Trump’s most visible antagonist, Representative Adam Schiff.
Schiff, who was the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, became NPR’s guiding hand, its ever-present muse. By my count, NPR hosts interviewed Schiff 25 times about Trump and Russia. During many of those conversations, Schiff alluded to purported evidence of collusion. The Schiff talking points became the drumbeat of NPR news reports.
But when the Mueller report found no credible evidence of collusion, NPR’s coverage was notably sparse. Russiagate quietly faded from our programming.
It is one thing to swing and miss on a major story. Unfortunately, it happens. You follow the wrong leads, you get misled by sources you trusted, you’re emotionally invested in a narrative, and bits of circumstantial evidence never add up. It’s bad to blow a big story.
What’s worse is to pretend it never happened, to move on with no mea culpas, no self-reflection. Especially when you expect high standards of transparency from public figures and institutions, but don’t practice those standards yourself. That’s what shatters trust and engenders cynicism about the media.
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Years ago I wonder about that term progressive. It was just a way to cover up that they were communist, Marxists and Rooseveltists. The Democrat Party has been playing with word salads since being founded by Andrew Jackson. In recent years they avoid terms like pro-abortion by calling supporters pro-choice. The Democrat Party is the party of communism, after all it was Clinton Roosevelt, a cousin of FDR, who is the author of the Communist Manifesto. He published his book in 1841. When did Marx plagiarise that book? Every policy of the Democratic Party has been working to achieve Clinton Roosevelt’s advocacy. No president recognised the USSR until FDR was elected. I wonder when Americans will be re-designated as ELOI?
“progressives” has just been a Democrat camouflage for communist, Marxist and Rooseveltist. Remember, Marx is not the author of the Communist Manifesto. It was a cousin of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Clinton Roosevelt. His 1941 book had a blue print for the New Deal and the NRA.
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Laddyboy
12 days ago
What do you call a person/group that handles the “pleasure trade” ? This is what most of the “msm” organizations have become for the American Hating muslem ‘b.soetoro/0bama’ that pulls the strings of the ‘biden regime’. May they face righteous punishment!
Stephen Honig
12 days ago
Nothing will change with MPR unless Trump defunds them. These people and others needed a good kick in the ass via money.
Isn’t the name Правда? Sorry for non-Russian speakers Pravda.
ORRN31
12 days ago
Too bad he didn’t speak out years ago – damage done.
TIJERANDY
12 days ago
These ‘failings’ apply to every fake news NETWORK outlet today, and for the last 20 years and more. Will they ever admit to their guilt? Not until they loose their credibility – and advertisers – across America. This man has awakened to the violation of ‘journalism’ and Truth and Justice and Fairness…how many more will? Like any addiction – drugs and alcohol – they must ‘hit rock bottom’ before they can begin to recover from their insanity.
Cowgirl Diva
11 days ago
An honest journalist whose voice will be more effective in another place..!!
We probably have few left. After all it was Edward R. Murrow that put those cultural Marxist theoreticians around the country from Columbia U.
Cowgirl Diva
11 days ago
An honest journalist whose voice will be better served by leaving NPR…!! He’s doing the right thing..!!
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teslarules
10 days ago
There you go, more confirmation of what a real FBI agent predicted his 1958 book The Naked Communist. In his Goals of the Communists he included these Goals:
#20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.
#21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV & motion pictures.
#24.Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
#25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and TV.
#26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural and healthy.”
#37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
I hope those Democrat voters will enjoy living in a communist country they have voted for.
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