Posted on 04/09/2024 8:46:18 AM PDT by Red Badger
Screenshot/YouTube/Leo Baeck Institute, New York
Veteran National Public Radio (NPR) editor Uri Berliner published an essay on Tuesday exposing the government-funded outlet’s alleged bias during former President Donald Trump’s presidency.
Berliner, who has been at NPR for 25 years, alleges in the essay published in The Free Press that the outlet was striving to take down Trump during his presidency by citing Russia-collusion allegations that were later debunked. He also asserts that all levels of the organization were aligned on the prioritization of race and identity, leading to a lack of “viewpoint diversity” and increase in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
“Persistent rumors that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia over the election became the catnip that drove reporting,” he wrote. “At NPR, we hitched our wagon to Trump’s most visible antagonist, Representative Adam Schiff.”
“But what began as tough, straightforward coverage of a belligerent, truth-impaired president veered toward efforts to damage or topple Trump’s presidency,” he added.
Berliner also criticized the outlet’s managing editor for neglecting to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story during the 2020 presidential election, saying “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.”
NPR also based reporting on former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci’s statements on the COVID-19 pandemic originating naturally, according to Berliner.
“We became fervent members of Team Natural Origin, even declaring that the lab leak had been debunked by scientists,” he wrote. “But that wasn’t the case.”
NPR has devoted significant resources to establishing a more diverse audience, but it has not been successful, Berliner wrote.
“In 2023, according to our demographic research, 6 percent of our news audience was black, far short of the overall U.S. adult population, which is 14.4 percent black,” he wrote. “And Hispanics were only 7 percent, compared to the overall Hispanic adult population, around 19 percent. Our news audience doesn’t come close to reflecting America. It’s overwhelmingly white and progressive, and clustered around coastal cities and college towns.”
“An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America,” Berliner wrote. “That wouldn’t be a problem for an openly polemical news outlet serving a niche audience. But for NPR, which purports to consider all things, it’s devastating both for its journalism and its business model.”
The editor also noted the outlet’s audience has moved dramatically to the left, based on polling. “Back in 2011, although NPR’s audience tilted a bit to the left, it still bore a resemblance to America at large,” he wrote. “Twenty-six percent of listeners described themselves as conservative, 23 percent as middle of the road, and 37 percent as liberal.”
“By 2023, the picture was completely different: only 11 percent described themselves as very or somewhat conservative, 21 percent as middle of the road, and 67 percent of listeners said they were very or somewhat liberal. We weren’t just losing conservatives; we were also losing moderates and traditional liberals,” Berliner added.
“Race and identity became paramount” at the outlet after the death of George Floyd in 2020, Berliner wrote. He asserts all levels of the organization were aligned on the prioritization of race and identity, leading to a lack of “viewpoint diversity” and increase in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
“We were given unconscious bias training sessions,” Berliner wrote. “A growing DEI staff offered regular meetings imploring us to ‘start talking about race.’ Monthly dialogues were offered for ‘women of color’ and ‘men of color.’ Nonbinary people of color were included, too. These initiatives, bolstered by a $1 million grant from the NPR Foundation, came from management, from the top down.”
“Crucially, they were in sync culturally with what was happening at the grassroots—among producers, reporters, and other staffers. Most visible was a burgeoning number of employee resource (or affinity) groups based on identity,” he added.
The groups consisted of racial, ethnic and sexual minorities, according to Berliner. “The role and standing of affinity groups, including those outside NPR, were more than that,” Berliner wrote. “They became a priority for NPR’s union, SAG-AFTRA—an item in collective bargaining.”
NPR CEO John Lansing announced in a February 2023 memo that the outlet will lay off 10% of its employees and freeze vacant positions. The cuts were a result of the “erosion” of advertising revenue, particularly for podcasts, NPR reported.
NPR receives less than 1% of its funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, federal agencies and departments, according to its website.
NPR did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
NPR should have zero federal funding.
Maybe Trump can put pressure on a Republican Congress to defund it, if the Republicans are in charge.
Not just defund it. Its assets should be sold, and the proceeds put back into the US Treasury.
When they say the Russian collision story was later debunk..do they mean they knew almost instantly it was a crock..but they went with it anyway.
Just like they knew..before billy bob would be King.. they were corrupt pycho scum bags.
An effort was made to eliminate fed funding during Trump years. It failed.
Most of the NPR stations’ budget comes from individual donations and corporate giving. For the latter, there was once (2008) a list of companies who somehow donated to NPR—movie studios, cereal makers, car companies—even “Fox Broadcasting”. Tax writeoff. (One company, GE, had sponsored the Marketplace show and the theme song at one point wove in the “we bring good things to life” section. Non commercial, my butt.)
Radio stations take advantage of being NCE: Non Commercial Educational. “Listeners Like You” (not me) donate, though lately that has been lagging as people are expecting to get all that for free. Religious networks/stations like “K-Love” do the same thing. A bunch of people may donate, say, $35/month. No advertising needed to keep it alive being NCE.
Boston.com: “WBUR facing ‘tough choices,’ possible staffing cuts amid ‘dramatic’ loss of money
Business for the radio station has “never been harder,” the Boston-based news station’s CEO wrote in an email to members Wednesday.”
The station has lost close to half of its on-air sponsorship income in the last five years and is asking for help to avoid joining the legion of news organizations that have been bought out or faced layoffs in recent months.
One doesn't need detailed "market research" to know this. NPR is simply awful in its brain-dead, reactionary woke bias.
Was this man fired from NPR for speaking such truth?
Article also says:
>> Philanthropists contributed $500 million to support local news in 2023, according to the Northwestern report
Joan Kroc of McDonalds gave a bunch of money to NPR/PBS, I believe. I’m NOT lovin’ it.
Not yet....................
“At NPR, we hitched our wagon to Trump’s most visible antagonist, Representative Adam Schiff.”
That pretty much says it all.
NPR was the firt UniParty mouth organ.
It’s redundant now that media consolidation has reached its zenith
The only rational decision about NPR is “when does it get defunded and shut down?”
We all knew this is what goes on in nearly every media organization, every university, big corporate boardroom, etc.
What is frightening is to now see some on the left come forward in shock that this is not what they wanted. We see this with the mutilation of children, the grooming of children, the prioritization of trespassers over citizens and very little enforcement of the law unless you are a political opponent.
That growing backlash by some on the left means we are in the end-stages of the socialist takeover. The suppression of free speech and gestapo-like FBI behavior are only going to turn more and more violent....especially against those on the left who speak out.
But now the socialist leaders have cemented their victory with the importation of the socialist “shock troops” that helped bring communism to multiple South & Central American nations....they are just awaiting word to protest against capitalism, the constitution and individual liberty.
Interesting, but not surprising, for a lib to cop to the charge well after he retired with a pension. It’s the dem MO.
Add PBS to the list of liberal outlets. The “journalists” at PBS are refugees from CNN and continue the Democrat narrative with the taxpayers paying for the mouthpiece. I can’t stand to watch the PBS news for it is overtly biased.
Ideological bigots,, been saying it for years
Thanks for the public confession. Now we can go straight to the hanging.
L
Should have heard them during Reagan.
Their taxpayer funding demands that NPR report all points of view in a fair and balanced manner. They do not.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.