In a scathing account from within National Public Radio (NPR), Senior Editor Uri Berliner blasted the company for open political bias and activism. Berliner, who says that he is liberal politically, wrote about how NPR went from a left-leaning media outlet to a virtual Democratic operation echoing narratives from figures like Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Cal.). The objections have long been voiced, including on this blog, but this account is coming from a long-standing and respected editor from within the company.
Beliner details how NPR, like many media outlets, became openly activist after the election of Donald Trump to the point that the company now employs 87 registered Democrats in editorial positions but not a single Republican in its Washington, DC, headquarters.
In his essay for The Free Press, Berliner notes that after Trump’s election in 2016, the most notable change was shutting down any skepticism or even curiosity about the truth of Democratic talking points in scandals like Russiagate. Berliner said that NPR “hitched our wagon” to Schiff and his now debunked claims.
Berliner says that he was rebuffed in seeking a modicum of balance in the coverage about the coronavirus “lab leak theory,” the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, Hunter Biden’s laptop, and the 2016 Russia hoax.
As discussed on this blog, NPR repeated false stories like the claims from the Lafayette Park riot. Berliner gives an account that is strikingly familiar for many of us who have raised the purging of conservative or libertarian voices from our faculties in higher education:
“So on May 3, 2021, I presented the findings at an all-hands editorial staff meeting. When I suggested we had a diversity problem with a score of 87 Democrats and zero Republicans, the response wasn’t hostile. It was worse. It was met with profound indifference. I got a few messages from surprised, curious colleagues. But the messages were of the “oh wow, that’s weird” variety, as if the lopsided tally was a random anomaly rather than a critical failure of our diversity North Star.
In a follow-up email exchange, a top NPR news executive told me that she had been “skewered” for bringing up diversity of thought when she arrived at NPR. So, she said, “I want to be careful how we discuss this publicly.”
For years, I have been persistent. When I believe our coverage has gone off the rails, I have written regular emails to top news leaders, sometimes even having one-on-one sessions with them. On March 10, 2022, I wrote to a top news executive about the numerous times we described the controversial education bill in Florida as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill when it didn’t even use the word gay. I pushed to set the record straight, and wrote another time to ask why we keep using that word that many Hispanics hate—Latinx. On March 31, 2022, I was invited to a managers’ meeting to present my observations”
Former NPR analyst Juan Williams stated in an interview this week that, as a strong liberal voice (now at Fox), he found the same bias at NPR. Williams was fired by NPR as this shift seemed to go into high gear toward greater intolerance for opposing views.
Despite these criticisms, NPR has doubled down on its activism. For example, when it came time to select a new CEO, NPR could have tacked to the center to address the growing criticism. Instead, the new CEO became 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. Those deleted postings included a 2018 declaration that “Donald Trump is a racist” and a variety of race-based commentary. They also included a statement that appeared to excuse looting.
NPR has abandoned core policies on neutrality as its newsroom has become more activist and strident. For example, 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.
The bias seemed to snowball into a type of willful blindness in the coverage of the outlet, which is supported by federal funds.
After the New York Post first reported on Hunter Biden’s laptop in 2020, NPR declared that it would not cover the story. It actually issued a statement that seemed to proudly refuse to pursue the story, which was found to be legitimate:
“We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.”
Berliner’s account is reminiscent of the recent disclosures from within the New York Times. Former editors have described that same open intolerance for opposing views and a refusal to balance coverage.
Former New York Times editorial page editor James Bennet has finally spoken publicly about his role in one of the most disgraceful chapters in American journalism: the Times’ cringing apology for running a 2020 column by Sen. Tom Cotton. Bennet said publisher AG Sulzberger “set me on fire and threw me in the garbage” to appease the mob.
Former New York Times editor Adam Rubenstein also wrote a lengthy essay at The Atlantic that pulled back the curtain on the newspaper and its alleged bias in its coverage. The essay follows similar pieces from former editors and writers that range from Bari Weiss to his former colleague James Bennet. The essay describes a similar work environment where even his passing reference to liking Chick-Fil-A sandwiches led to a condemnation of shocked colleagues.
None of this is likely to change the culture at NPR any more than such discussions have changed faculties in higher education. Raising the virtual elimination of conservative or Republican voices on faculties is met by the same forced expressions of disbelief. While mild concern is expressed, it is often over the “perception” of those of us who view universities as intolerant or orthodox.
Of course, there remains the question of why the public should give huge amounts of money to a media outlet that is so politically biased. News outlets have every right to pursue such political agendas, but none but NPR claim public support, including from half of the country that embraces the viewpoints that it routinely omits from its airways.
I totally agree. When it comes to reporting on the Israeli/ Hamas war NPR has been so biased. You would think they support terrorists. I can no longer trust this news source
The very definition of HAMAS is abduction, emotional abuse, physical abuse, torture, rape, mayhem, murder, torment, agony, and infliction of misery.
HAMAS is not an endeavor of human beings; HAMAS is an endeavor or despicable evil.
HAMAS is a descriptive for inhuman depravity.
HAMAS shall not be used in the conversation of polite society or even in the caves and lairs of vicious, predatory animals.
The press doesn’t “report” on HAMAS, the entire universe is required and compelled to totally annihilate HAMAS and its ilk in perpetuity to eternity.
Israel will be done ONLY when HAMAS is immutably incapable of existence ever again, in any time or any era, until the end of time.
NPR IS NOT A NEWS SOURCE, ITS AN ARM OF THE DEMOCRAT NATIONAL COMMITTEE!
Honestly, it’s a tie between Mother Jones and NPR for the whitest liberal news available on Earth. NPR has been a joke for a very long time; the fact that they are so viciously leftist now isn’t exactly a surprise as hands change generationally. Impossible to take seriously. I never listened in the first place to their utterly white bread with mayonnaise brand of ‘news’ or ‘culture’; I wouldn’t even notice if they ceased to be a thing in the future, and I hope their karma comes full circle. They were a subject on a very old satire website called, ‘Stuff White People Like’, and that was years ago. The irony and tone-deafness is too thick to cut with a chainsaw with these people. What they call ‘America’ is what the rest of us call, ‘a bubble’. Good riddance.
As I noted below their jazz and classical music are good. Those things are not as white bread, as minorities including Asians and African Americans make a sizable contribution. I wish they’d stick to those and ditch the propaganda dressed up as news and features.
@oldmanfromkansas
And neither are they new. These white people decided they were the best ones to explain it to other white people, in spite of the fact that to this day there are thriving independent jazz scenes in places like Philadelphia or even Smoke in NYC that are pretty dang incredible. I stand by the mayonnaise.
For these people to think they are taste makers is a complete denial of reality, and an utter disregard for things that are happening in realtime that they don’t know about because of that bubble, even in the internet and smartphone era. That may have worked in the 80s, it sure doesn’t work now.
It isn’t that hard. go outside of your house/apartment, and see what people are actually doing instead of ascribing to the nonsense of NPR or similar in the name of being ‘independent’, which is absolutely as corporate, ‘the man’ (being funded in part by the government), and frankly, milquetoast, as anything could hope to be. Life is still happening all around us, you will not be awakened to that listening to news hand selected by petulant children that think rain or an eclipse means they are doomed. Find your heart and live your life. That is what they hate the most, a cardinal sin, and at present, we all have to stand against their mediocrity and subservience.
Jonathan: You column is another case of the pot calling the kettle black. Complaints by the right of political “bias” by NPR are legend. What you never talk about is the conservative “bias” of Fox where you work as a “legal analyst”. Your job is to provide an echo chamber for Fox’s talking point of the day. So just about 15 hours after Fox featured a story Berliner’s complaints about NPR you write your column. Coincidence? Nope.
You claim “NPR has abandoned core politics on neutrality as its newsroom has become more activated and strident”. The same claim could be made about Fox. For example, in it’s coverage of the Comer impeachment inquiry. Comer appeared frequently on Fox to defend his claims about Hunter and Joe Biden. Did Fox bring on Jamie Raskin or Dan Goldman or any other Dem on Comer’s Committee who could have provided a counterpoint? Nope. But that would have provided the “neutrality” you claim is necessary in reporting the news. But Fox continues to back the Comer failed investigation of the Biden family. So if we want to talk about “bias” in reporting Fox does it every day!
The main thrust of your column is that NPR should be defunded. For years the House GOP has tried that. Last year, TX GOP Rep. Ronny Jackson offered a bill to defund NPR and PBS. Jackson claimed: “For decades, radical Democrats have siphoned (FACT CHECK: Funding for public broadcasting was approved by the House. It was not “siphoned”) hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to NPR and PBS under the guise of ‘serving the public’ despite sharing all the same propaganda of any other radical-left corporate news outlet. Taxpayers should not be forced to support biased media like NPR and PBS against their will”. And how was Jackson’s bill received? He couldn’t find one co-sponsor! Even in Speaker Mike Johnson’s continued stop gap funding bills no money has been cut for NPR or PBS.
You are whistling past the graveyard if you think public broadcasting is going to be cut anytime soon!
Would Raskin ever go on Fox?
1/22/25.
Dennis,
Lets talk about what is really important to American’s and that is inflation.
It went up again in March, more so than expected and is the fourth consecutive month of ‘hotter than expected’ Core CPI.
Wall St. is chiming in, and none of it looks good for Biden.
Even Biden’s former chief of staff, Ron Klain, is criticizing Biden’s focus on bridges and not inflation.
Then there is the election red hot issue of the Biden Southern Border crisis. Biden just recently announced on a Univision interview, he plans to issue an executive order to ‘dramatically limit the number of asylum-seekers’ who can cross the southern border and issue the executive order by the end of April.
But wait! Didnt he need funding, or Congress to do something to do what previous presidents admins have done? Trump had a mostly secure border, and Obama deported even more illegals than Trump did.
These are real issues that are important to real Americans.
Remove the public funding for NPR and Public Television and they can do or say whatever they want.
Except be valuable to society
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.
As you mention, NPR is public funded. As this anecdote demonstrates, they are not news, but were actively trying to influence the 2020 election.
This article almost makes me feel a little sorry for Juan Williams – er, no – he is still a delusional brainwashed man who still clings to that ideology from outside its gate. How sad.
The best thing Juan ever did was to call foul on the people seeking dirt on Clarence Thomas. Just like for one brief moment in summer 2018 my two favorite senators were Lindsey Graham and Susan Collens (re Brett Kavanaugh).
Senior Editor Uri Berliner gets an “A” for belated effort. However, does he also realize that his demonstrated impotence in dealing with this problem yet staying on as a “senior editor” has only fueled the process?
Uri, many face serious moral dilemmas in life and fail to make the right choice. Count yourself among them.
The problem with NPR is that not listening to it is not enough. Our taxes go to pay for that left wing crap. It turns my stomach.
The hypocrisy here is absolutely staggering. Of course we all know that the Fox Fantasy Channel is the gold standard for independent and unbiased reporting. The fact that Hannity, Ingraham, Carlson, and the rest of the motley crew have actively campaigned for Trump and the rest of the MAGA morons proves how wonderfully unbiased they are, right?
I dont watch Fox.
I used to, past tense, listen to NPR.
Yes, but last time I checked Fox was not subsidized by our tax dollars.
Fox is private. Also, for every Fox there are a hundred media companies that lean hard left. The Left just can’t get over that the existence of Fox means the Left’s monopoly on propaganda is not total. That’s why the Left sheds so many tears about Fox, as exemplified in this comment section.
OldManFromKS,
Well said and spot on.
Nobody is claiming that Fox is unbiased. The difference is simple: Fox news isn’t funded with by the federal government, and NPR is (partially). That’s the only issue here.
The NYT, the Atlantic, and Fox News are private enterprises. They can be as biased as they want. If you do not like their bias, don’t watch or don’t take a subscription. NPR, on the other hand, is a public enterprise and paid for by tax money. Bias at a public broadcasting company is unacceptable, regardless whether it tilts to the left or the right. So, Congress must be clear and demand new management or simply stop funding NPR.
Public funds
Does Fox claim to be “national” television or radio?
As I have stated on the good professor’s blog, I used to listen to NPR from sun up till Ky signed off. Did they have their left slant? Yes. But you could still listen, dismiss the slant and get the news. And they did have some very good, driveway moments.
2016 happened and the slant got way worse, with their CNN like panel-o-pundits attacking anything and everything from Trump, to Republicans, to conservatives and anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders.
Then, amazingly, it got worse and they went all in on wokeism. Everything was viewed through the lens of wokeism. It was so bad, even Matt Taibbi wrote an article that everything was about race or gender.
They were giving a preview about an article about exercise and diet. Okay, I was interested. So I tuned in.
It was like eight minutes of how exercise and dieting is based in white supremacy. That is right! As I mentioned yesterday, we have a health crisis called obesity, that costs American’s thousands of dollars in health care and they want to claim the solution, exercise and diet, are based in white supremacy?
How dumb is that?
Am old enough to remember when the nightly news shows had just a one minute ‘editorial’ segment.
Now it’s more like all editorial-type partisan commentary, and (maybe) one minute of real news.
-Cat
Cat – reminiscent of Rodney Dangerfield: I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.
Media bias has been around forever. It really started getting bad with Bush 43. Recall Ronnie White. Remember how Ashcroft got pilloried for blocking him. NYTimes covered the story–the news reports never mentioned that White had failed the bar the first time around (as did Michelle Obama, btw) and that he was on academic probation in law school. I emailed the reporter to ask why, and the answer was that Ashcroft didn’t mention these things. What?
I’m convinced that anyone who listens to npr/pri/etc. uncritically, simply wants to live in an alternate reality.
Steve Inskeep is the worst.
An alternate reality is the only home for the prog/left – they cannot make their delusional ideology work in the real world as we have witnessed so many times and with so much loss of blood and treasure from the past. When will it sink in that this is a failed ideology?
We’re at about 150 years and counting and still people want to cling to this failed ideology. I suppose if you are a loser and need that ideology, coming up with a better one is contrary to being a loser, so they never escape that vortex of suck.
Like it or not Trump is this country’s last hope. If he doesn’t win in the fall every organization connected to the government will be irrevocably overrun with leftists.
Rico, I just read a story about the new DEI appointee that Blinken placed at the State Department and she is an America hating leftist.
This is why I’m betting the left will steal, er win this election – they have everything to gain and not too much to lose.
Another nice column. People seem to be blissfully unaware that their misdeeds, in terms of journalistic integrity, misdeeds that are lauded as virtues in the echo chamber, are all noticed, tabulated and judged in the cold clear light of history. And history is now. The fact that there are currently no consequences for any of the abuses that are taking place does not mean that there never will be. This is an error that all despots and their lackeys make; they believe the two-edged sword will never turn on them. It will. I don’t know when or how, but the bad guys have never won, and they’re not going to win this time. All they’re doing is exposing themselves.
NPR’s listeners have not deserted NPR, NPR has deserted them, just as the Left has deserted the working class and the poor. The old Left cared about all workers and all poor people, the new Left cares about select groups and virtue signaling. The old Left had values, the new Left has cell phones. To refer to NPR has “Leftist” is only correct if you insert the adjective ‘new’ — or perhaps ‘supercilious,’ given their contempt for everyone who does not share their prejudices.
As for NPR, I stopped listening to it long ago, precisely because it was increasingly dominated by people who could not tell the difference between reporting and editorializing.
As for Berliner, his screed in the Free Press would be more convincing if he left NPRand took up residence on Substack, along with Greenwald, Taibbi, Hersh, and other journalists who have paid a price for their convictions.
If he just took notice of this now then he was never an editor but was always a partisan. I wonder what made him willing to publicly admit that NPR is exactly what the rest of us understood it to be for quite some time. Has this been covered by the major media or is this article just singing to the choir, so to speak, and the rest of the prog goobers still see NPR as the ultimate fount of truth?
Even Berliner commits the same sins that he is decrying when he states, “when talking to one of the most even handed and fair reporters at the network I was surprised when he said we must do everything we can to hurt Trump”. This is an “even handed” and “fair reporter”? This is how off kilter their world is.
That was Berliner’s point: that the most even-handed person they have is still rabidly partisan.
No, my complaint is that Berliner considers the partisan and biased “reporter” to be fair and unbiased when in fact he is neither.
Interesting that the CEO who engineered much of the most radical transition had previously served as the head of Voice of America. So he moved from international to domestic propaganda.
Add Berliner’s name to the names of Bernard Goldberg, a LIBERAL who left CBS News and went on to write many great books about bias in the media, Bari Weiss, a LIBERAL who left the NY Times due to bias and is now a successful red-pilled journalist and James Bennet, a LIBERAL who was fired from the NY Times for having the audacity to publish a column by a senator.