The new CEO for National Public Radio (NPR) has become instant news over social media postings that she deleted before the recent announcement of her selection. Katherine Maher is the former CEO of Wikipedia and sought to remove controversial postings on subjects ranging from looters to Trump.
Shannon Thaler at the New York Post reassembled Maher’s deleted postings including a 2018 declaration that “Donald Trump is a racist” and a variety of race-based commentary. That included a statement that appeared to excuse looting:
She is also quoted for saying that “white silence is complicity.” She has described her own “hysteric white woman voice.” She further stated: “I was taught to do it. I’ve done it. It’s a disturbing recognition. While I don’t recall ever using it to deliberately expose another person to immediate physical harm on my own cognizance, it’s not impossible. That is whiteness.”
She further stated “I grew up feeling superior (hah, how white of me) because I was from New England and my part of the country didn’t have slaves, or so I’d been taught.”
The concern is that Maher will further the advocacy journalism at NPR in framing the news to advance social and political agendas. NPR employees have already objected to efforts to maintain a neutral tone in reporting and declared “civility is a weapon wielded by the powerful.” The most interesting question is how NPR will implement its controversial policy on allowing journalists to join in protests.
NPR declared that it would allow employees to participate in political protests when the editors believe the causes advance the “freedom and dignity of human beings.”
The rule itself shows how impressionistic and unprofessional media has become in the woke era. NPR does not try to define what causes constitute advocacy for the “freedom and dignity of human beings.” How about climate change and environmental protection? Would it be prohibited to protest for a forest but okay if it is framed as “environmental justice”?
NPR seems to intentionally keep such questions vague while only citing such good causes as Black Lives Matter and gay rights:
“Is it OK to march in a demonstration and say, ‘Black lives matter’? What about a Pride parade? In theory, the answer today is, “Yes.” But in practice, NPR journalists will have to discuss specific decisions with their bosses, who in turn will have to ask a lot of questions.”
So the editors will have the power to choose between acceptable and unacceptable causes.
Maher will now play a role in determining what causes advance “human dignity” that justifies reporters crossing the line to join the protests. Given her own past advocacy, NPR may have found the perfect adjudicator for advocacy journalists.
On topic, my brother, who has not even paid attention to *pop* culture for 30 years, let alone anything of more import, refers to NPR as ‘the news’, listens every day, and that is pretty much what many in the demographic are thinking and how they operate. They do not think beyond that. At all. Seriously. No further engagement. Really – not at all, not for even a second. Not a millisecond. It will take literal leftist nazis rounding up people in their neighborhoods for them to even notice anything is happening at all.
The biggest mistake the creators of the WWW made was thinking that the average Joe shared their curiosity or lust for edification. Most don’t. They want easy access to porn or much worse, not to read something. Social media filled this void perfectly (and no offense to people that just share things with people they care about, but honestly: the sharing platforms of the past that didn’t involve exploiting you were better) The people at Google were not involved in creating the connection they now exploit, even claim dominance to. not even a little bit. Then came Zuckerburg etc. and web 2.0, and here we are. Fewa cared at the time. And here we are. Summon the devil, and good luck to you controlling him.
well said
Nobody but hard core commies and indoctrinated clowns listen to this gibberish
The only time I listen to NPR is when I want to hear the latest leftist propaganda. Then I know the precise opposite as what they present is actually the true story.
Defund. So simple. Defund. I don’t want my tax dollars supporting that sewage.
She got the job at NPR BECAUSE of these posts…not in spite of them.
You can tell all you need to know about NPR by what is NOT covered:
racial violence in NYC against Jews and Asians (see TabletMag “Open Season on Jews in New York City”) or items like the indigenous being kicked off their sacred lands in Nevada because Biden wants a lithium mine there. Meanwhile the North Slope Alaska Natives are being denied the right to drill or mine on THEIR land.
Don’t forget racial violence against white people and our white children in public schools
Read her bio…it’s like she was manufactured to be a pathetic POS.
The damage that she has overseen at Wikipedia, can be seen anytime we research someone that espouses conservative principals.
Rabid diversity (i.e. color judgment, class bigotry): notably racism and sexism… genderism.
How old is this moron? When I grew-up, we didn’t have slaves nor did anyone else in the US because slavery ended over 100 years before I was born.
Very likely she has no idea:
1. The entirety of the profits earned from slavery invested in the South were incinerated in the Civil War. There went the “reparations” not even to speak of the Blood Debt. (The northern interests who got rich off their end of the cotton–textiles– kept all their money and got even richer off the war).
2. Most American citizens are from immigration that came after the war.
NPR is leftist garbage propaganda paid for by American taxpayers. It should be defunded like UNWRA! The same for PBS. I fondly remember loyally watching the McNeil Lerher Report I have no doubt that both those newscaster were left of center but one would never know from their fair minded interviews and generally well balanced presentation of news stories. It is not just another mouth piece of the democratic left. Appalling use of taxpayer dollars.
It’s all well and good to say you will not donate to NPR but are you really ready to give up receiving your new NPR carrying bag?
“That is whiteness.”
Of all the childish excuses for rotten behavior. Of all the lame attempts to evade responsibility for bad choices —
My white genes made me do it. (?!)
As always, determinism used as a get-out-of-jail-free card.
I HATE NPR. I hate funding it even more! WTF are we giving our tax $ to them??!
It’s OK – their charter requires them to be non-partisan.
Maher states “I grew up feeling superior (hah, how white of me) because I was from New England and my part of the country didn’t have slaves, or so I’d been taught.” Maher’s admitted lack of education and similarly implied lack of inquisitiveness are telling for both her and NPR.
Only two functional courses of action with the selection of such an individual to head NPR:
1. No donations to NPR ever again and encourage others to do the same.
2. Support a candidate that promises to end NPR’s government funding and tax favored status.
The Constitution ends NPR’s funding.
Article 1, Section 8.
Impeach the judges and Justices that have failed to fulfill their sworn-oath duty.
Regarding #2: That promise has been made by countless politicians. They are going to get us out of the UN, and Amtrak, close down the national endowment for the arts, and they’re going to close down NPR and PBS. Real soon now…
NPR is good for only two things: jazz music and classical music. Whenever that stops and someone start to talk, I turn it off because, otherwise, my IQ would drop 20 points.
Advise you consider https://www.tsfjazz.com/. The jazz programing is far superior to anything NPR ever puts out.
Old Man, try Spotify so you can boycott NPR. It will lower your blood pressure.
Biden’s political situation is dire, and getting worse. What to do? Let’s start a war in the Mideast, claiming that Iran (or somebody else) is attacking our military personnel?
Does the taxpayer still give them money??????
“Does the taxpayer still give them money??????”
Yep, via CPB — which in 2024 gets some $525-million from the “government.”
We don’t give them the money. The government uses their badges and guns to take it out of our pockets via taxes. If you choose not to pay those taxes, they put you in jail.
In Other News: “Moscow finally had enough of NPR’s wokeness, turns on ‘Russian Woodpecker‘ to disrupt broadcast”
Russia fired up its Cold-War relic 10 megawatt over-the-horizon-radar station “Duga” to fend off what it described as “the annoying barrage of woke propaganda emitting from the American radio service NPR”. Amateur and Short-Wave Radio Enthusiasts quickly identified the familiar Woodpecker signal (a rapid thumping sound to listeners) modulated to AM Radio frequencies used by NPR. Liberals in the US were at least two orders of magnitude above their mean baseline outrage level ever since their beloved station was partially scrambled.
Russian spokeswoman Ivana Kutchyanewzoff claimed, “We wrote the book on propaganda and fake news as evidenced by our creation of stations such as RT.COM and Radio Moscow. Yet we could no longer tolerate NPR diluting the genre by comingling it with woke BS and cringe-worthy circus acts.”
Yeah, we should definitely trust Russia to tell the truth /s
NPR is so bad, at this point I’d trust Russia over NPR.
My decades long avoidance of NPR, and PBS, continues.