Suspended NPR editor Uri Berliner says woke CEO is ‘the opposite’ of what embattled network needs
Opinion by Alexandra Steigrad
• 15h • 5 min read
Link:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opin...er-who-called-out-left-wing-bias/ar-BB1lIwer/
[vids at site link, above]
NPR suspended a top editor who ripped the network last week over its left-leaning bias – but the journalist doubled down on Tuesday, saying its new, controversial CEO is the “opposite” of what the embattled radio outlet needs.
Uri Berliner – who published a bombshell essay last week claiming NPR has “lost America’s trust” by reporting the news with a left-wing slant – was sidelined for five days without pay beginning last Friday after his article ignited a firestorm.
Nevertheless, Berliner in a Tuesday interview ripped NPR CEO Katherine Maher over a trove of past posts unearthed on X. Those included calling Donald Trump “racist” in 2018 and blasting Hillary Clinton for using the terms “boy” and “girl,” saying she was “erasing language for non-binary people.”
“We’re looking for a leader right now who’s going to be unifying and bring more people into the tent and have a broader perspective on, sort of, what America is all about,” Berliner told NPR media scribe David Folkenflik Tuesday. “And this seems to be the opposite of that.”
Uri Berliner, the NPR journalist who penned an essay criticizing his company’s bias, was suspended and given a “final warning.” NewsNation© Provided by New York Post
Folkenflik, who reviewed a copy of the suspension letter from NPR brass, said the company told Berliner he had failed to secure its approval for outside work for other news outlets — a requirement for NPR journalists.
NPR called the letter a “final warning,” saying Berliner would be fired if he violated its policy again. Berliner is a dues-paying member of NPR’s newsroom union, but Folkenflik reported that the editor is not appealing the punishment.
Berliner, a Peabody Award-winning journalist who has worked at NPR for 25 years, called out journalistic blind spots around major news events, including the origins of COVID-19, the war in Gaza and the Hunter Biden laptop, in an essay published last Tuesday on
Bari Weiss’ online news site the Free Press.
NPR CEO Katherine Maher has come under fire for her own liberal bias in recent days, following her criticism of Berliner’s essay. Getty Images© Provided by New York Post
Last week, Maher defended NPR’s journalism, calling Berliner’s article “profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning,” The 42-year-old exec added that the essay amounted to “a criticism of our people on the basis of who we are.”
Folkenflik said Berliner took umbrage at that, saying she had “denigrated him.” Berliner said he had a private exchange with Maher in which he supported diversifying NPR’s workforce to look more like the US population at large — a point that she failed to address in the exchange, according to Berliner.
“I love NPR and feel it’s a national trust,” Berliner said. “We have great journalists here. If they shed their opinions and did the great journalism they’re capable of, this would be a much more interesting and fulfilling organization for our listeners.”
The fiasco has also put the spotlight on Maher, whose own left-leaning bias came to light in a
trove of ultra woke tweets she penned on X over the years.
In January, when Maher was announced as NPR’s new leader,
The Post revealed her penchant for parroting the progressive line on social media — including since-deleted Twitter posts like “Donald Trump is a racist,” which she wrote in 2018. She also
called HBO’s Bill Maher a “racist bigot” in tweet that year.
NPR quietly suspended Berliner and said it would enact internal monthly review of the network’s coverage. AFP via Getty Images© Provided by New York Post
In 2020, Maher weighed in on the widespread looting and property damage during the Black Lives Matter protests, saying it was “hard to be mad” about the destruction.
“I mean, sure, looting is counterproductive. But it’s hard to be mad about protests not prioritizing the private property of a system of oppression founded on treating people’s ancestors as private property,” she
wrote.
“White silence is complicity. If you are white, today is the day to start a conversation in your community,” she
added a day later.
Maher also weighed in on race-based reparations, writing in 2020: “Yes, the North, yes all of us, yes America. Yes, our original collective sin and unpaid debt. Yes, reparations. Yes, on this day.”
An NPR spokeswoman, Isabel Lara, said in statement Maher “was not working in journalism at the time and was exercising her First Amendment right to express herself like any other American citizen.”
The rep added that Maher had upheld the network’s code of ethics since she took the helm.
Berliner called out blind spots in NPR’s coverage in his essay. X/ Uri Berliner© Provided by New York Post
“Since stepping into the role she has upheld and is fully committed to NPR’s code of ethics and the independence of NPR’s newsroom,” the statement said. “The C.E.O. is not involved in editorial decisions.”
Christopher Rufo, a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, dug up some of Maher’s other race-tinged posts over the weekend, including one where she called herself “someone with cis white mobility privilege.”
In response, Tesla boss Elon Musk wrote, “This person is a crazy racist!”
In another bizarre post, Maher
wrote, “Had a dream where Kamala and I were on a road trip in an unspecified location, sampling and comparing nuts and baklava from roadside stands,” referring to Vice President Kamala Harris. “Woke up very hungry.”
Maher was announced as NPR’s new leader. Sportsfile via Getty Images© Provided by New York Post
Berliner’s essay sparked outrage from the network’s left-leaning colleagues. Late Monday afternoon, NPR chief news executive Edith Chapin announced to the newsroom that executive editor Eva Rodriguez would lead monthly meetings to review coverage.
Berliner said that among editorial staff at NPR’s Washington, DC, headquarters,
he counted 87 registered Democrats and no Republicans. He wrote that he presented these findings to his colleagues at a May 2021 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,” Berliner wrote. “It was worse. It was met with profound indifference.”
The fiasco also ignited a firestorm of criticism from prominent conservatives — with former President Donald Trump demanding NPR’s federal funding be yanked — and has led to internal tumult,
the New York Times reported Friday.
Berliner had
told The Times he had not been disciplined by managers when interviewed last Thursday, though he received a note from his supervisor reminding him that NPR required its employees to clear speaking appearances and media requests with standards and media relations.
Berliner said that among editorial staff at NPR’s Washington, DC, headquarters, he counted 87 registered Democrats and no Republicans. NPR© Provided by New York Post
He told The Times he didn’t run his initial remarks or those to the Gray Lady by NPR.
Days earlier,
Berliner appeared on Chris Cuomo’s show on NewsNation, telling the anchor that his essay garnered “a lot of support from colleagues, and many of them unexpected, who say they agree with me.”
“Some of them say this confidentially,” said Berliner, who added that he wrote the essay partly because “we’ve been too reluctant, too frightened to, too timid to deal with these things.”
Journalist
Matt Taibbi also slammed Maher for her biased views, as well as her lefty resume, which he wrote in his substack Racket News, reads so much like “overeducated nonsense-babbling white ladies that it’s difficult to believe she’s real.”
Amid the scrutiny on her CV and posts, Maher told
The New York Times on Tuesday that in America “everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen.”
“What matters is NPR’s work and my commitment as its C.E.O.: public service, editorial independence and the mission to serve all of the American public,” she said. “NPR is independent, beholden to no party, and without commercial interests.”
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