Harper’s Magazine appears to be competing with The Onion in satire this week. It is awarding its First Amendment prize to NPR CEO Katherine Maher. It is akin to awarding a Second Amendment prize to Gavin Newsom. Maher has long been the very symbol of advocacy journalism and bias. Ironically, she is being given an award after steering NPR into the rocks to keep her job and its ideological bias.
Many of us have written for years about NPR’s biased reporting. Not all of this criticism was made out of hostility toward the outlet — many honestly 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 a “fascist” 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, NPR’s bias 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.
Rather than trying to reverse the long slide in its audience, Maher doubled down. She ultimately made the best possible case for defunding NPR. She refused to resign, effectively killing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Yet, Harper considers her a model of media.
In a press release on the awarding of the James C. Goodale First Amendment Award, Harper’s declared, “As president and CEO of NPR, Katherine Maher has guided one of America’s most important public media institutions through a period of extraordinary political, legal, and financial scrutiny, reaffirming journalism’s essential role in a democratic society.”
Maher has overseen the continued slide in ratings and revenue. In fairness, NPR’s audience has been declining for years. Indeed, that trend has been most pronounced since 2017 — the period when Berliner said the company began to openly pursue a political narrative and agenda to counter Donald Trump. The falling advertising revenue has led to deep staff cuts to deal with budget shortfalls. The shrinking NPR audience remains overwhelmingly white, older, and of course liberal.
Where others see the demise of a once popular and respected outlet, Harper’s sees a success story in an audience that has shed itself of conservative, libertarian, and moderate listeners — much like the audience of Harper’s.
The award is the latest example of how establishment media has become a ship of fools. Journalists now report for each other as the vast majority of Americans seek alternatives. They then give each other awards and continue to replicate their own views and mistakes. The one thing that they will not do is abandon their bias.
Maher is the greatest example of why these outlets refuse to change. Despite being blamed for killing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by refusing to resign, Maher and her staff still benefit personally from advocacy journalism. They are lionized by the left even as their influence and audience plummet.
According to Harper’s, that record is “reaffirming journalism’s essential role in a democratic society.” If Maher embodies the essence of American journalism, let alone a democratic society, why do so few people actually want to listen to her brand of journalism?
It is Uri Berliner who deserves this award, not the CEO who hounded him out for seeking greater balance at NPR.
sounds like another brand redefined: harper’s bazaar > harper’s magazine > harper’s bizarre
Harper’s choice for this ‘award’ was not only from the bottom of the barrel, but they were rooting in the wrong rotten barrel.
I, like many here, would have chosen Professor Turley. He would have added much needed dignity to their trinket.
Another obvious choice is Elon Musk. His purchase of X has done much for freedom of expression.
And I would add Marco Rubio whose speech in defense of Western Civilization in Athens has stirred many of us. I hope he becomes President.
NPR told Americans that they would have to shutdown once their federal funds were cut.
Still waiting
PBS and NPR Brace for Shutdown After Congress Cuts $1.1B in Public Media Funding
Well that is a steaming pile of yak sht.
When an outlet turns into a super rich person’s vanity publishing bauble, its fake news problem usually just gets worse. Market forces stop mattering. The outlet can still survive as a shell of its former self, as long as the rich person’s largesse endures. Fake news begets fake “business” models as declining readership/viewership, cratering advertising revenue, shrinking subscriber bases push the outlet farther and farther into vanity press territory. Should the patron/patroness start to feel like a fool, an award and a big party to celebrate the award can lift spirits. Once in a while, you get a patron like Bezos, who tries to de-fake his media property’s “news.” Hard to do.
At age 70, I do remember when NPR was mostly neutral. And it saddened me when I saw what they, PBS and the others had become.
Thankfully, there are much better sources of information available, which is partly why the legacy MSM is dying out.
The other part, of course, is their own choice to be so blatantly-biased, with any actual “journalism” coming from them having been left behind such a long time ago.
Harpers gives awards? It must be a coveted prize. Is beer and wine mag giving an award for best cab?
John Wideman is receiving best novelist, the Faulkner award. Everyone must read his novel The Lynchers. NYT was the 2025 win for journalism.
PT is going to the ceremony Oct 26th at the Morgan? Harper’s is advocacy journalism now. If you don’t vote for me you ain’t black award.
/s
The publication has been an extension of the MacArthur Foundation since 1983. It was edited by the repellent Lewis Lapham for 28 years. None of the editors since 2006 are people whose names you’d recognize.
I no longer listen to National Palestinian Radio (NPR) or the Palestinian Broadcasting System (PBS).
So now the Harper’s First Amendment Award has become another meaningless–nay, even contadictory–award like the debased Nobel Peace Prize.
The television and movie industry turned awards ceremonies into marketing and promotional events to push their movies and other projects. It’s extremely low cost content for TV programming: no scripts, no rehearsals, no stunts, no scenes shot off set or outdoors, etc. The actors, directors, producers all get free advertising, and the self absorbed actors even get to take a few minutes to push some cause.
Many other awards events have followed suit. They are often not about recognizing true excellence, but an excuse to push some cultural or political cause.
I agree with the statement that “Maher has long been the very symbol of advocacy journalism and bias.” However, that has little to do with the 1st Amendment. The 1st amendment does not mandate balanced coverage or prevent the avoidance of certain stories that don’t align with the preferred narrative. The irony of NPR is that for years supporters claimed that something like the “end of democracy due to a dearth in information” would happen if public funding for NPR was discontinued. Public funding for NPR has discontinued and democracy as we know it has barely taken notice and we are still drowning in information.
NPR has revealed (to me, at least) the Left’s skill in employing NGO’s subsidized by the taxpayers to do the work of the Left. Nice work!
Thanks to Elon Musk and DOGE for helping us to see this form of corruption at work in many other areas of government.
Harper’s bizarre