The New York Times reports that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) called on National Public Radio (NPR) CEO Katherine Maher to resign before all federal funding for both the CPB and NPR was cut off. As in the past, Maher and the NPR board chose their own agendas over the interests of their institution and public radio.
I have long been a critic of Maher since her inexplicable selection by the NPR board to lead the media organization. Despite years of objections to NPR’s overt bias, many critics genuinely wanted NPR to reverse course and adopt more balanced coverage. That is why, when NPR was searching for a new CEO, I encouraged the board to hire a moderate figure without a history of political advocacy or controversy.
Instead, the board selected Katherine Maher, a former Wikipedia CEO widely criticized for her highly partisan and controversial public statements. She was the personification of advocacy journalism, even declaring that the First Amendment is the “number one challenge” that makes it “tricky” to censor or “modify” content as she would like.
Maher has supported “deplatforming” anyone she deems to be “fascists” and even suggested that she might support “punching Nazis.” She also declared that “our reverence for the truth might be a distraction [in] getting things done.”
As expected, the bias at NPR only got worse. The leadership even changed a longstanding rule barring journalists from joining political protests.
One editor had had enough. Uri Berliner had watched NPR become an echo chamber for the far left with a virtual purging of all conservatives and Republicans from the newsroom. Berliner noted that NPR’s Washington headquarters has 87 registered Democrats among its editors and zero Republicans.
Maher and NPR remained dismissive of such complaints. Maher attacked the award-winning Berliner for causing an “affront to the individual journalists who work incredibly hard.” She called his criticism “profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning.”
Berliner resigned, after noting how Maher’s “divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR” that he had been pointing out.
In her disastrous appearance before Congress, Maher sat next to PBS CEO Paula A. Kerger and dismissed criticism. What was not disclosed is that PBS agreed with some of us that, if Maher truly wanted to save federal funding and protect NPR, she would resign.
According to the Times, our calls for her resignation were being repeated internally. Instead, the board that made the foolish choice of hiring Maher chose their ideological and personal agendas over the interests of their institution . . . again.
In the meantime, Maher and others were going public, bewailing the threat to journalism and calling on citizens to do everything that they could to protect NPR. The only thing that they were not willing to do was admit their own failure.
We have seen the same pattern in academia.
The fact is that this academic echo chamber may be killing educational institutions, but the intolerance still works to the advantage of faculty who can control publications, speaking opportunities, and advancement with like-minded ideologues.
We have watched the same perverse incentive in the media where outlets are seeing plummeting readers and revenue. Journalism schools and editors now maintain that reporters should reject objectivity and neutrality as touchstones of journalism.
It does not matter that this advocacy journalism is killing the profession. Reporters and editors continue to saw at the limb upon which they sit due to the same advantage for academics. For reporters, converting newsrooms into echo chambers gives them more security, advancement, and opportunities.
Recently, the new Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis was brought into the paper to right the ship. He told the staff “let’s not sugarcoat it…We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”
The response from reporters was to call for owner Jeff Bezos to fire Lewis and others seeking to change the culture. The Post has been eliminating positions and just implemented another round of layoffs to address the budget shortfalls.
In the meantime, trust in the media is at record lows — paralleling the polling on higher education. The result is the rise of new media as people turn to blogs and other sources for their news.
(OT — though birds of a feather)
When Lenin seized power, he confiscated private property and redistributed it to his supporters. When the communist Castro seized power, he confiscated property and businesses, and redistributed them to his “people’s state” supporters.
On the day he assumed power, Mamdani seized private power (under the euphemism “COPA”) to redistribute to his supporters (e.g., NGO’s). He did so with his hand on the Koran.
That makes NYC, not Cuba on the Hudson — but Tehran on the Hudson.
NYC — You asked for it.
Looks like someone in MSM, CBS, is finally seeing the light,
“On too many stories, the press has missed the story. Because we’ve taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you.”
That changes now. The new CBS Evening News… pic.twitter.com/NKdvRJjYCS
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) January 1, 2026
Note, The Free Press creator and leader Bari Weiss is now also the head editor of CBS news. Hopefully she can turn CBS news around and make it more like The Free Press.
Already, the woke media is falsely accusing Bari Weiss of censorship (they say she “pulled” a CECOT piece that lambasts DHS for sending Venezuelan gang members there). Weiss as Chief Editor merely sent the piece back for rework to make it more fair and balanced. For instance, asking DHS if there are any alternatives as to where to send deportees whose home countries won’t take them. Weiss told the producers of the piece to do their jobs, and then CBS will publish it. That’s what a Chief Editor does. Branding it “censorship” is paranoid propaganda meant to mislead the public and demonize Weiss.
pbinca,
Agreed!
Weiss needs to clean up CBS news, especially 60-Minutes. Like to see her bring in some of the staff from The Free Press and show them what real journalism looks like.
Today on The Free Press we are reporting that Trump had a bowel movement, the likes of which had never been seen before. “It was a perfect bowel movement and all bowl and not the rim, like happens so often on these tiny toilets that take four or five flushes to even work.”
The 60 Minutes staff had asked DHS for their participation and DHS refused.
In other news, an accused rapist of children was let go when they said they would not participate in a trial.
In today’s CBS News Special report we cover how conservatives are praying for food to fall from heaven to feed starving children in the city center. One person in the mass prayer said “I know it would cost me nearly $6 more in taxes, but I like fancy coffee with foam on top too much to let even one starving child have a meal at my expense.” Another said “If the liberals love them so much the liberals can take care of them,” while tossing a half-eaten Big Mac, a portion of the third one of the day, into the garbage.
“Looks like someone in MSM, CBS, is finally seeing the light”
Talk is cheap, bu11$sh1t is selling at a 85% discount, and that is all you are likely to get from the failed MSM. Those fools clearly believe their own spewings, and so they also believe is all they need do is make some bogus contrite noises and wait things out.
Maher is simply an example of modern narcissism where people are arrogantly ignorant, overly educated lacking the inate intelligence to see the world objectively from another’s perspective.
Said another way, like many modern elitists, Maher lives in an echo chamber bubble, with blinders on and lives ONLY for herself.
Turley let’s it be known he’s against punching Nazis in this push piece meant to defocus on DOJ openly breaking the law with Epstein file release. Turley is a con man.
You’re an imbecile.
I second that. Expunge him!
“Expunge him!”
Sea cucumber style ;>?
Nazis dehumanized innocent people to rile up hatred against them, and to be able to harm/kill/punch them without having to feel bad about it.
Let it be known that you are for punching innocent people because you personally, falsely, apply a bad label (Nazi) to them. That’s what Nazis did.
Umm, is it a label when they are wearing a swastika armband and chanting “Jews will not replace us.”?
Anyone posting anonymously is a coward.
Some of us have important responsibilities that have nothing to do with left-right politics.
It’s only because radicals have taken up gutter tactics such as doxxing, cancelling, and anonymous death threats that I’m reluctant to put my real name on my comments. We should legally deter those vile, repugnant tactics with fast-response civil lawsuits, and monetary judgments as punishment.
Death threats are a federal crime (99.999% non-enforced). Civil lawsuit is decentralized enforcement, and would work much better. But it would require fast courts (rapid due diligence) to work at the speed of the internet.
The good professor did not say that. He pointed out how Maher wrote that she suggested she might support punching Nazis.
Seems to be a lot of pictures of Bill Clinton in the Epstein files that have been released. Bill looks pretty happy and friendly with those young girls.
Turley is pointing out how Maher and the NPR board would rather die on this hill in the name of advocacy journalism, lose more audience, sponsors, advertisers then change. A lot of MSM has or is feeling the same.
The professor isn’t good. He’s social media influencer shilling nonsense.
. PT is a Constitutional scholar. He’s also, generous, well mannered, dutiful, and possibly kind.
Far more of Trump’s face and involvement in Epstein’s operation than anyone else, Maxwell aside.
Should Clinton have been glowering instead? Has there been any sworn depositions indicating that Clinton raped girls as there have been about Trump? Trump said he had never flown on Epstein’s plane but it turns out he did, quite a few times.
Turley let’s it be known he’s against punching Nazis in this push piece meant to defocus on DOJ openly breaking the law with Epstein file
So hysterically ANGRY for so soon in the new year!!!!! Why did it come here knowing it would be reduced to fits of rage?
This Antifa commie lets it be known he’s all for for breaking the law and assaulting and beating the shyte out of Nazis. He/her/ze just wants to define who gets to decide who’s a Nazi, before asking somebody with a pair of gonads to do the punching on his/her/ze’s behalf. Well, we can define who are the Nazis are for he/her/ze… genocidal hatred of Jews would be a good place to start.
Game on – if you must. We can give he/her/ze his New Year’s Resolution by doing exactly that – assaulting and beating the shyte out of every New Hitler Youth Movement Nazi supporting the genocidal Arab terrorists of Hamas.
Then we can do some rounds of “Kick A Commie” – which means they’ll get an additional beating with feet as well as fists.
These commie apparatchiks cosplaying as having the nads to do this punching are still writing checks with their mouth that they don’t have the nads to cash.
Spoken like a true Nazi. Also, the Nazis didn’t solely want the genocide of Jews. They cast a wide net.
If it’s not being reported on CNN, NPR, ABC, NBC, it never happened. We all know that.
What do we actually know?
We know your two brain cells do not work together at all.
What do we actually know?
You are far more entertaining when a circus ringmaster has you perched on a stool, barking and clapping your flippers, while balancing a beach ball on your nose.
Sealioning:
Sealioning is a form of adolescent trolling where someone persistently demands answers to insincere questions to provoke a response, often pretending to seek a civil debate while actually trying to exhaust or frustrate others with no intention of real discourse. This behavior is characterized by a facade of politeness and a refusal to acknowledge previous answers. Often used as a tactic by whining Democrats in online forums and blogs
There is a saying for the person who wrote that post. “Stuck on Stupid.”.
These dinosaurs have been steadily losing their audiences. Alternatives have been growing. You are cynically detached. Recalculate.
“These dinosaurs have been steadily losing their audiences.”
So have Mad Magazine, Playboy, Mechanix Illustrated, and so on. No conservative printed newspaper outlasted the center and left ones. Print and traditional broadcast news companies have taken a pounding from the internet. There’s no need on the consumer side for any of them to be balanced when the internet can provide 100 different viewpoints in a few minutes.
What matters is what advertisers see as valuable. We have the example of Twitter that shed the vast majority of advertisers after Elon Musk decided to go scorched earth on moderation that was limiting conspiracy nuts, nuts who then drove so huge a number of participants to Bluesky that X stopped releasing user statistics which were showing most of the Twitter/X accounts were robots.
It was Wikipedia. Then, NPR. What is next?
When people take up a warlike mentality, this is exactly what happens. Common sense flies out the door. That is my definition of the doorway into zealotry. An institution that tens of thousands built up over 50 years (remember Car Talk, Prairie Home Companion?) is destroyed by a core of selfish zealots. Beware: institution wreckers abound in the Age of Rage, and not just on the left. The tell is departure from common sense, balanced reasoning into unhinged warfare.
“core of selfish zealots.” Na… a public service. What people want. You not, but you don’t count.
pbinca posts: …selfish zealots. Beware: institution wreckers abound in the Age of Rage, and not just on the left.
But pbinca assures you she isn’t a selfish zealot when she demands women be stripped of their Second Amendment right to choose to carry a handgun for self defense. All while attempting one of her infamous and fraudulent Democrat moral equivalencies: there are just as many filled with rage in similar positions as Maher within conservative and Republican ranks.
You know, the ones pbinca claims are publicly saying the First Amendment is a problem – the ones pbinca claims echo Maher by publicly saying in the positions they hold that it should be okay for the population to go out and Kick A Commie.
pbinca couldn’t make it a single day in 2026 before exposing her dirty panties to the world by dropping her post and then doing the Democrat Dump, Deflect and Disappear.
Oppo-branding award of the year. Just make up what you want to believe, and barf it out.
“Prairie Home Companion…”
Meh. There was always a robust and easily detected undercurrent of left-wing collectivism in Keilor;’ stuff.
Nothing like rushing towards oblivion while screaming “I’m right, I’m right” and “I will protect the truth and advocacy journalism to the death” and then looking down at the abyss and thinking “unh oh, maybe I’m wrong!!!”
NPR and PBS are beyond redemption.
GEB,
Good imagery!
I will occasionally tune in, in the truck to see if NPR has changed course . . . nope. Rather, flank speed right into the rocks.
Imagery? Since when does a pig farmer know the difference between an abyss and a pig pen? Got himself a thesaurus for xmas. It’s a start. Sorta hoped you’d hit a rock. Knock some sense into you.
Queue up hullbooby… 3…2….1… here he comes…
It’s Biblical when bad ideologies were thrown into pigs and the pigs ran off a cliff. It was a stampede. What was the name of the cliff , anon?
Gotta tune in the 5 Minutes of Hate from the likes of Alex Jones. Except for Alex getting his megaphone taken away for encouraging people to go after grieving parents of murdered children and calling them liars.
That killing in Nigeria? The government that is doing the killing is the religious conservatives who didn’t want their country taken over by Christians. Funny how it’s conservatism and not religion that is the basis for killing minorities.
“looking down at the abyss”
So far as I can see, neither NPR nor PBS has taken so much as a downward glance…
Whatever happened to “We don’t receive any government funding”?
“Whatever happened to “We don’t receive any government funding”?”
The use by date on that lie of the month expired
BillyG,
That message is from local broadcasters in regards to their salaries and the costs of running the station. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has no broadcast stations.
You would know that if you had ever paid attention.
NPR’s strategy is to stay alive until the Dems get control again at which time they expect their funding will be restored. They need listeners like Minnesota daycare centers need children to care for. They may only need to wait for the midterms.
“this academic echo chamber may be killing educational institutions, ”
“Educational” institutions, or any other organizations participating in such an abdication of reason are already the walking dead, ambulating only out of obscene hunger and reflex.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS1Y989kUOCUH7YZjxWt9kjogvme6uZeI7vew&s
Public broadcasting was never meant to be advocacy media.
The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 tied federal support to objectivity and balance on controversial issues and insulated public media from political control so it could serve the entire public. NPR and PBS were created to inform and educate, not to advance agendas or punish dissent.
When leadership refuses to step aside “for the good of public media,” even as audiences collapse and trust evaporates, that’s not courage. It’s capture. The mission didn’t fail the institution. The institution abandoned the mission.
Public funding is a public trust. Once that trust is broken, the subsidy is no longer justified.
“Public funding is a public trust. Once that trust is broken, the subsidy is no longer justified.”
“Public funding” at the Federal level is nearly always in violation of the limitations of power enumerated in the Constitution, and, beyond that, almost invariably produces outcomes contrary to the true interests of the public whose welfare was entrusted to government as its sole justification. We need to get rid of it, writ very large…
If federal public funding is constitutionally suspect, that raises the bar for legitimacy rather than excuses its abuse. Once a subsidy abandons its stated purpose, it forfeits even its conditional justification.
Olly, is federally funded education constitutional, suspect? What about federally funded general media? Must all people question their gender?
Strangers now raise children that aren’t their own producing generations of dysfunctional orphans? 😔
By that reasoning, weather satellites are unconstitutional.
We have yet to find out if profit-driven news media are compatible long-term with intermediating the public square dialog in a free society. For example, audience fragmentation and specialization would seem to be natural consequences of competing for-profit media. The question becomes, who under that system is going to take up unity and cohesion of the polity as part of their mission?
“for profit” makes no difference. NPR is non-profit you might note. Leftist for profit news outlets have been hemorrhaging audience, why, because they pretty much lie a great deal of the time., or simply refuse to cover stories that would hurt “their side.”
pbinca posted: By that reasoning, weather satellites are unconstitutional.
Your reasoning is that it is constitutional for you to demand that young women be deprived of their Second Amendment right to choose to carry a firearm for self defense. You – charitably – demand they can only be PERMITTED to do that once they’ve successfully passed an apprenticeship over a period of time – served under people who you select to be their supervisors and evaluators.
There are other people here less qualified to evaluate what is and isn’t constitutional – but you’re pretty lose to being at their level at the bottom. An advocate for the Constitution and Bill of Rights you are not – you are a partisan Democrat hack.
Now you can do your ol’ Democrat Dump And Disappear.
No, I’ve proposed young adults have to have a SPONSOR (a mature adult family member or associate). Who would fill that role is to be worked out by the young adult. Govt. bureaucrats have zero role in this arrangement! You misrepresented my proposal, but thanks for mentioning it.
How about a governor or president when raising a militia, pb? Sponsored?
Something about ethics and journalism, pbinca. 😂
Isn’t CPB, NPR actually unconstitutional? 1A disallows government media, journalism?
The problem is funding what the masses don’t find generally interesting. The public has grown a taste for flashing lights, bright colors, shiny things with lots of T&A and crude brutish topics?
Financing wasn’t a problem as screaming three minute jingle music fit the bill as Swan Lake was just too time consuming. CPB, PBS was originally an arm of education and perhaps an alternate aesthetic?
Because these entities are now dead presumably that was the true agenda of Ms. Maher . Simply, destruction of programming that presented access to an alternate aesthetic–> Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers, Shakespeare, symphonies etc.
Media has an agenda and a belief that life hasn’t a meaning except what is imposed on it. Media must be unburdened by what was and destroyed before the new meaning of life can be imposed. Unfortunately the new meaning of life is unnatural. 😂
^^^ the government might have given money to a conservative NPR, PBS entity?
The fact that Fox News, owned by Rupert Murdoch, has shifted so far right means that NPR and PBS have to shift left to balance it. Staying in one place or shifting with the radical right isn’t balance.
Public Broadcasting strikes out.
Horribly biased, more often than not just a mouthpiece
A recipient of public funds for what should be a privately-owned, self-supporting business.
To arrogant to see the above
I have limited commentary about Katherine Maher except that her vaunted ego transcends that of even that of Nobel prize winners – who earned it. Besides, if she resigned she would be admitting failure, impossible for Maher.
I can think of one Nobel Prize winner who absolutely did not earn it.
Ok. Except for Obama.
The Nobel Peace Prize is a separate organization than that for science.
Actually I think news media in the US have never been better. No, not the NY Times, Washington Post, MSNBC, NPR, etc. I mean the Internet in general and Substack in particular. Let a thousand flowers bloom!
Maybe not huh? Journalism in it hey day had people who abided to a code of ethics. Nowadays, any fool with a computer and a DSL line can lie all they want and call it journalism. Its simply a money-making endeavor. Think Candace Owens/Erika Kirk.
Nowadays, any fool with a computer and a DSL line can lie all they want and call it journalism. Its simply a money-making endeavor.
Think The Young Turks and every other Charlie Kirk hating Democrat Bolshevik Biden Birthing Boy, who hopes they have the credibility of being ethical. Meanwhile implying there is no difference between what Candace Owens has become and Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika.
Given Candace Owens newly found hatred of Israel, this Democrat New Hitler Youth Movement member should be hanging on and applauding every single word Candace Owens drops.
BTW… what are the chances these Democrat Commie Useless Idiots actually listened to what either of those two say? Rather than just copying and pasting vitriol they picked up this morning living down in the Democrat Borg?
What about the independent guy who exposed the Quality Learing Center?
Amen
Untrue on net, it’s inundated with AI, fakes.
I’m staying on for the public good. English translation, I have no where else to go.
Maher’s performance at the congressional hearing was a master class in dismissive arrogance and perceived invincibility. An utterly repulsive diva who would not be bothered to change a single thing about the way she and “her” organization were permanently tacking leftward. A perfect example of the intolerant Left.
If a women obfuscates, its bad. If a male does it, it’s …?
Bad
f a women obfuscates, its bad. If a male does it, it’s …?
…James Comey, Jack Smith… want the entire list? The Internet remembers (if you choose not to), that James Comey replied to direct questions over 250 times in just a couple of hours with “I don’t remember”. Jack Smith just did a repeat performance of that.
He was not celebrated by normal American women and men. It was as bad and worse.
Now speak up, as you asked us the question: tell us if you also agree. Don’t do the Democrat Dump, Deflect And Disappear that is the mark of a Democrat pet sealion.
“If a women obfuscates, its bad. If a male does it, it’s …?”
The Republican party with DJT its emperor.
At this point, what difference does it make?
👍
Isn’t it against the law to lie under oath? And isn’t it illegal to purposely withhold exculpatory evidence? And don’t these laws apply to Democrats as well as to Republicans? If so, why aren’t some of the J6 Subcommittee witnesses and all of the J6 Subcommittee members be wearing orange jumpsuits by now?
Its just a committee hearing, not a court trial. Different rules. The fact is, those folks in front of a committee know is an political event. The object is to score political points. Truth is irrelevant.
Double standards apply here. As they have for years now.
Congressional immunity applies to the House members I believe. The House could take it upon themselves to discipline those persons (possibly censure), but they are immune from criminal actions for any actions such as these.
MSM is slowing melting. Long live…. truth?
Nice opinion piece today.