It appears that National Public Radio has solved the problem of the intolerance for opposing views, detailed in an article by award-winning editor Uri Berliner: he is now out of NPR. Berliner resigned after NPR suspended him and various other journalists and the CEO lashed out at his discussing their political bias. For those of us in higher education, it is a chillingly familiar pattern. Editors, journalists, and listeners at the public-supported outlet will now be able to return to the echo-chambered coverage without the distracting voice of a dissenter.
After Berliner wrote his piece in the Free Press, NPR CEO Katherine Maher attacked Berliner and made clear that NPR had no intention to change its one-sided editorial staff or its coverage. Others at NPR also went public with their criticism of him and falsely portrayed his criticism as opposed to actual racial and other diversity of the staff.
In his article, NPR’s David Folkenflik acknowledges that the Berliner criticism “angered many of his colleagues.”
Maher’s response was hardly surprising.
After years of criticism over NPR’s political bias, the search for a new CEO was viewed as an opportunity to select someone without such partisan baggage. Instead, it selected Maher, who has been criticized for controversial postings on subjects ranging from looters to Trump. Those now-deleted postings included a 2018 declaration that “Donald Trump is a racist” and a variety of political commentary.
Maher was unlikely to address the problem. She is part of the problem. Maher lashed out at Berliner, calling his criticism and call for greater diversity in the newsroom “profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning.”
So now Berliner has resigned rather than work at a media outlet where he was shunned and denounced. In a social media post on Wednesday, Berliner published his resignation letter to NPR leadership and stated “I 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.”
It is all-too-familiar to many of us in higher education where conservatives, libertarians, and republicans have been purged from most faculties. This is done through a mix of filling open slots with liberal academics while making life intolerable for those who remain.
For years, a conservative North Carolina professor faced calls for termination over controversial tweets and was pushed to retire. Dr. Mike Adams, a professor of sociology and criminology, had long been a lightning rod of controversy. In 2014, we discussed his prevailing in a lawsuit that alleged discrimination due to his conservative views. He was then targeted again after an inflammatory tweet calling North Carolina a “slave state.” That led to his being pressured to resign with a settlement. He then committed suicide just days before his last day as a professor.
A survey conducted by the Harvard Crimson shows that more than three-quarters of Harvard Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences faculty respondents identify as “liberal” or “very liberal.” Only 2.5% identified as “conservative,” and only 0.4% as “very conservative.”
The same is true at other schools. A study found that only nine percent of law school professors identify as conservative at the top 50 law schools. A 2017 study found only 15 percent of faculties overall were conservative. Another survey showed that 33 out of 65 departments lacked a single conservative faculty member.
Conservative or libertarian professors are often targeted or shunned on faculties. Activists target every aspect of an academic life that holds meaning for intellectuals from the denial of publications, associations, and speaking opportunities. Few want to risk such isolation and remain silent as other colleagues are hammered and harassed. I have had colleagues who have resigned in frustration. It is simply no longer fulfilling, let alone fun, to come to work. They simply leave.
The result is to achieve precisely what these journalists and academics desired: they are left with little contradiction or opposing voices. Even as revenues and audience numbers fall at NPR, editors and journalists are still personally reinforced by removing voices like Berliner’s. Their views become amplified in the absence of contradiction. At NPR where the audience is now almost 70 self-identified liberals, it is the media version of comfort food. You can now go to NPR and hear the same narratives without challenge.
Regardless of the slant, there remains the question of why all Americans should have to pay taxes to support NPR. Maher and the company just made clear that they will not change their approach or their bias. Yet, they expect all Americans to support them in this effort. However, they would be appalled if the government were to subsidize Fox Radio.
As I have previously written, that is the right of NPR to slant its coverage and certainly the right of listeners to use such sources for news. However, it does not have a right to public subsidy.
NPR is illegal and unconstitutional.
The Communications Act of 1934 and the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 are illegal and unconstitutional.
NPR is unconstitutional in that it may not be taxed for or funded by Congress, per Article 1, Section 8.
Congress may not regulate the press, broadcast, or any other industry, per Article 1, Section 8.
Congress has the power to regulate ONLY the value of money, commerce among the States (i.e. to preclude bias), and land and naval Forces, per Article 1, Section 8.
Free industries operating in the free markets of the free private sector are compelled by market forces and potentially disastrous litigation to self-regulate.
Government has no legal basis or authority to operate or assist a commercial enterprise.
It is the people who are maximally free and government that is maximally limited and restricted.
The entire communist (liberal, progressive, socialist, democrat, RINO, AINO) American welfare state may not be taxed for, funded, or regulated into existence and is unconstitutional, per Article 1, Section 8.
The singular American failure is the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court.
Please ask any distinguished and august member of that illustrious branch to cite the Constitution for any form, fashion, aspect, or facet of a legal basis for regulation of the press, the broadcast press, or the establishment and operation of, or the provision of assistance to, an otherwise commercial enterprise, in this case, NPR.
And here’s another videoclip of Katherine Maher from Ian Miles Chong saying:
[Q]NPR’s CEO Katherine Maher on the truth:
“Our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that’s getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done.” [/Q]
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1780492620634202153
I don’t think she’s helping NPR in the old “credibility department.” She’s certainly making Uri Berliner’s point, isn’t she?
WOW! Here’s a clip from a Christopher Rufo X post of a Katherine Maher interview with the Atlantic Council where she says.
[Q]”EXCLUSIVE: Katherine Maher says the “the number one challenge” in her fight against disinformation is “the First Amendment in the United States,” which makes it “a little bit tricky” to censor “bad information” and “the influence peddlers” who spread it.
NPR’s censor-in-chief.[/Q]
This from the CEO of the NPR, which pushed the “Russian Collusion” story and suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story. (Whether the laptop’s contents were Russian disinfomation or not, the story deserved to be covered objectively.)
Christopher Rufo is having too much fun with this, and I blush to admit I’m enjoying it immensely.
Short link: https://tinyurl.com/4nbkdzyx
Long link: https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1780597079439446250?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1780597079439446250%7Ctwgr%5E95d1efe4315220e92be814ac4e80699c91843dd8%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Finstapundit.com%2F642518%2F
Anyone here familiar with the Dunning-Kruger effect????
Dunning and Kruger are psychologists who performed a fascinating series of experiments back in the 90’s.
They showed that people with little expertise or ability assume they have superior expertise or ability. This over-estimation occurs as a result of the fact that they don’t have enough knowledge to know they don’t have enough knowledge.
Basically what it means is that stupid people are too stupid to know how stupid they are.
And the more ignorant they are, the less likely they can recognize their own ignorance.
Dunning has a nice summary here:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-supporters-dunning-kruger-effect-213904/
Related to the essay topic, the contribution of her/his inane comment and 2 bucks would buy Anonymous a cup of coffee.
Anonymous said: “…Dunning-Kruger effect…”
Also nicely summed up in the first stanza of this apocryphal proverb dating back at least to the 17th century in one form or another:
“He who knows not, and knows not he knows not. He is a fool; shun him.
He who knows not, and knows he knows not. He is simple; teach him.
He who knows, and knows not he knows. He is asleep; wake him.
He who knows, and knows he knows. He is wise; follow him.”
Was this an historic manifestation of the Dunning-Kruger effect?
______________________________________________________________________
“I’ll have those n—–s voting Democratic for 200 years.”
– Lyndon Baines Johnson
____________________________
The American Founders and Framers circumvented the Dunning-Kruger argument.
They simply provided maximal freedom to the whole of society to be accessed through and facilitated by self-reliance in an environment of domestic tranquility through the implementation of a Constitution and Bill of Rights that provided maximal freedom to individuals while severely limiting and restricting government.
People must adapt to the outcomes of freedom.
Freedom does not adapt to people…
Dictatorship does.
In the case of contemporary America, it is the communist “dictatorship of the proletariat” that has adapted to and subjugated the once-free American people; it has been thus since 1860.
This is an absolutely classic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect in action!!!
NPR is the voice of the DNC – defund them now and let them compete in the marketplace. Who knows, they might put MSNBC out of business
The Constitution DEFUNDED NPR before the Communications Act of 1934, the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, and NPR were initially contemplated or conceived of by communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOs) in America.
So; NPR is PRAVDA only in english.
aka National Panhandler Radio
Anonymous said: “aka National Panhandler Radio”
Nasty Puss Regurgitated? seems to go well with Maher’s pronouncements.
He could get a hot job in a Red State especially Florida or Texas
The hottest job markets in America (WSJ rankings)…
1) Salt Lake City, Utah
2) Jacksonville, Florida
3) Orlando, Florida
4) Tampa, Florida
5) Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
6) Miami, Florida
7) Austin, Texas
8) Nashville, Tennessee
9) Seattle, Washington
10) Dallas, Texas
https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/utahs-tech-hub-powers-americas-hottest-job-market-wsj-ranking-finds-e67d0171
The fact that Maher’s criticism is strictly about her feelings, rather than facts, pretty much says it all. If you think about it, we live in world where feelings trump facts. Men can be women, cats can be dogs, Ukraine can beat Russia, my money can be your money and right can be wrong if your feelings are strong enough. We are a nation of toddlers in a perpetual state of tantrum and we desperately need, as Kevin O’Leary put it, an adult in the room. But anytime an adult ventures an opinion, he or she is pummeled by the intellectual equivalent of dirty diapers.
Who still even pays attention to NPR
Isn’t it an acronym for no proper reporting😂
I for one am not surprised that Uri resigned. I am sure all his former co-workers and the CEO herself went out of their way to make it a easy and obvious choice.
I hope all this attention NPR is getting is forcing them some self-reflection, and self awareness at how they are the ones who lack diversity, are the drivers of division and hate.
Nah! Of course they wont! Just like all the lies they told, and then when we found out about their lies, they will just pretend it never happened.
NPR is state-run media. They are intolerant, hateful, do not reflect the voices of all Americans, and do not serve the public. They would never exist if it wasn’t for the government and government-funded NGOs. Do not contribute to NPR.
NPR represents the views of the coastal elites who look down on hard working Americans in the trades, referring to them bitter-clingers, semi-fascists, and deplorables. These coastal elites, for whom NPR is their voice, favor the following: open borders; soft-on-crime DA’s; shutting down the economy by shutting down fossil fuels; Hamas terrorists over Israel, the most liberal democracy in the Middle East; ever higher taxes and spending; forever wars and the military-industrial complex; woke mutilation of kids under the rubric of “gender-affirming care”; woke DEI replacing merit as the basis to judge all things such as work performance, academic performance, and salaries; and big pharma and centralized control of health care decisions – such as whether to vax, whether to stay open as a small business, and whether to mask little kids. Those are just some of the destructive policies your tax dollars are supporting at NPR.
OldManFromKS,
Well said.
And they do look down upon us.
The question is why?
Are they actually superior because they live in some McMansion? Have a big lawn that produces nothing? See their degrees in nothing useful as an accomplishment?
Respectfully, and yet you refer to them as “elites.” There is little “elite” about them, other than that “elite” is (1) a term they used to describe themselves, to gain a long-coveted status; (2) used by their friends in media to establish and cement that designation for themselves; or (3) used by the Soros types to gain favor with the underling classes to create the new “country club” imprimatur with the goal of attracting new followers.
Do not contribute and tell your Congressional representatives to terminate public funding.
[Q]Maher lashed out at Berliner, calling his criticism and call for greater diversity in the newsroom “profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning.”[/Q]
“Disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning” is woke-speak for “we should all retreat to our safe-spaces.”
And nowhere does Maher say Uri got his facts (especially wrt the Trump collusion fiasco and the Hunter Biden computer story) wrong.
As Katherine Maher’s on-line history appears (to scathing ridicule), it’s becoming increasingly clear that Maher is to NPR as Alissa Heinerscheid was to Bud Light. The overall similarities between the two are striking and one can only hope that NPR enjoys the same success that Bud Light did after Heinerscheid hired Dylan Mulvaney.
I think taxpayer funding is far more than 1%. Who couldn’t make up a difference that small?
[Q]I think taxpayer funding is far more than 1%. Who couldn’t make up a difference that small?[/Q]
It is larger.
I believe that the slight-of-hand is that all “public radio” stations (including NPR) receive substantial funding one way or another from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
The CPB is a non-profit private company that is funded to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. (I think NPR gets 30%-40% of its budget from the CPB)
So the money is not given directly by the government to NPR. It is funneled through the NGO. All nice and neat.
Kind of like how HRC/DNC funneled campaign money through Perkins-Coie to Fusion GPS to Christopher Steele.
Enlightening comment! Thank you!
Brian said: “So the money is not given directly by the government to NPR. It is funneled through the NGO. All nice and neat.”
Yes. If you or I tried to get away with such a financial slight of hand, we’d be facing RICO charges for money laundering. And that also makes the solution to NPR clear: defund and disband the CPB, which performs no task entrusted to the Federal government by the Constitution. Once that is taken care of, NPR will dry up and blow away like the worthless chaff that it is.
And in today’s news regarding Truth Social stock (DJT) we have the classic dead cat bounce. For the rubes here who invested in this POS the definition is as follows:
“A dead cat bounce is a term used in financial markets to describe a temporary recovery in the price of a security or stock that has been experiencing significant downward price movement. The term is derived from the idea that even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a high enough height.”
This may be followed by a short squeeze wherein those who have shorted this stock panic and have to buy to cover their short positions, thus driving the price a little higher. However once this plays out to its finality the stock will collapse to zero.
This has always been the pattern for worthless stocks that have been manipulated by shady characters.
The individuals who started this company are currently under investigation by the SEC for insider trading. Trump is suing his partners who tried to swindle him. And now we know that when DWAC ( the SPAC that became DJT) was close to insolvency it was saved by a “loan” from Paxum Bank in Dominica. This bank is owned by a Russian with close ties to Putin. Its business is mostly to provide finance to the porn industry.
With Trump there is always a Russian connection and always a porn connection.
The pattern of dead cat bounce, followed by short squeeze, followed by total collapse is inevitable. The classic example of this was the ENRON collapse back in 2000.
The rubes holding this stock will lose everything!!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
^^ TDS troll. Ignore.
First they came for the journalists,
but instead of speaking up for them,
I made off-topic partisan ‘gotcha’ comments.
-Cat
and you hold stock of Democrats…makers of Newark, NJ, Bridgeport, ct, Chicago southside….destroying generation after generation of Americans… Now importing millions of illegals to destroy wages and steal jobs.
There is a reason the Richest love the Centralized Power of Democrats…ask Soros.
Very, very wierd!!!!
If we can activate our inner honey badger and speak in unison, we’ll get rid of these parasitic ideas by next Tuesday. If we don’t it’ll be a slow train ride to hell.
Immortal words from Gad Saad, professor of marketing, Concordia University (Montreal).
The phrase “shoot the messenger” immediately comes to mind.
Here’s hoping that the alarming action against Berliner by taxpayer-supported NPR will generate more opposition to transferring tax$$ to NPR and PBS. Bring on Congressional hearings to expose the problem, even if no legislation can survive D opposition. Other than local tv stations carrying PBS broadcasts of crime, spy and historically-significant fiction entertainment, PBS and NPR are no more than mouthpieces for the left, progressives, socialists, so-called environmentalists and Ds. Having lived in Pittsburgh PA for my first 56 years, I recall its “public” station, WQED-TV (home of Fred Rogers), maybe the first in the USA; so I know how far GOVERNMENT broadcasting has fallen.
The Democrat Fascists are winning and the Republicans are funding them!
Time to end all Federal Aid to non-profits, cities, states and colleges
lets see Democrats try funding their failures
Following on the theme of this post, I noticed this morning that RCP has a link to a piece by Conn Carroll at the Washington Examiner on this matter under the headline, “NPR’s Queen of the Karens.” It has a very feline unsympathetic quality that I might even call “cat like.”
All of this takes the cake. If you didn’t believe that the modern left is basically just insane before, and you still don’t now, when even the king of progressives (self-described pot smoking libertine) Bill Maher has had enough – I don’t know what to tell you about how asleep you are. You will not be free either in the future you are creating, crusty liberals that still think they are voting for JFK or that the democratic party was ever egalitarian when it didn’t serve them.
Nancy tearing up the speech, Nancy whitely appropriating African garb and kneeling, Nancy filling the gallery with immigrant children, Nancy hosting the J6 Hollywood feature film on the floor of Congress, the golden coffin for a dude that would have likely died in custody without (unnecessary, admittedly) police roughing up – either you all wake up, or we just assume you are stupid. and you better pray that w those of us who are awake can turn things around. You won’t notice, because you don’t notice anything and aren’t half as smart as you think you are, but we are standing on the edge of a very sharp blade. The kind that can split hairs.
Sorry for the typos galore. This is important to me so I make time when I swamped with other things. The trolls who are paid to sit on their behinds and drink all day and do this at their leisure and want to be pedantic can b*te me. At the least, you know we are real people.