When it comes to liberal media bias, there’s perhaps no bigger culprit than NPR. Uri Berliner, a senior editor at NPR, wrote what’s been called “a bombshell expose” and “a voice of sanity” for The Free Press that spoke to that rampant bias. Keep in mind, NPR is taxpayer funded. Although NPR has tried to downplay the issue, it’s not exactly going away. In his Friday episode of “The Verdict,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) addressed the matter, highlighting the need to defund NPR.
…Maher responded to none of these specific points in substance. Instead, she attacks Berliner as “profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning” to his colleagues by calling out the company for its political bias.— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) April 14, 2024
To begin the segment, co-host Ben Ferguson shared what is no doubt on the minds of many, especially as he’s worked in media. “I don’t understand why my tax dollars are subsidizing a hardcore leftist organization and why I’m paying their salaries at NPR. That’s the reality,” he pointed out before mentioning Berliner’s revelations, reminding Berliner has been there for 25 years. As Cruz quoted from the start of the op-ed:
You know the stereotype of the NPR listener: an EV-driving, Wordle-playing, tote bag–carrying coastal elite. It doesn’t precisely describe me, but it’s not far off. I’m Sarah Lawrence–educated, was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother, I drive a Subaru, and Spotify says my listening habits are most similar to people in Berkeley.
I fit the NPR mold. I’ll cop to that.
So when I got a job here 25 years ago, I never looked back. As a senior editor on the business desk where news is always breaking, we’ve covered upheavals in the workplace, supermarket prices, social media, and AI.
It’s true NPR has always had a liberal bent, but during most of my tenure here, an open-minded, curious culture prevailed. We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding.
In recent years, however, that has changed. Today, those who listen to NPR or read its coverage online find something different: the distilled worldview of a very small segment of the U.S. population.
If you are conservative, you will read this and say, duh, it’s always been this way.
But it hasn’t.
For decades, since its founding in 1970, a wide swath of America tuned in to NPR for reliable journalism and gorgeous audio pieces with birds singing in the Amazon. Millions came to us for conversations that exposed us to voices around the country and the world radically different from our own—engaging precisely because they were unguarded and unpredictable. No image generated more pride within NPR than the farmer listening to Morning Edition from his or her tractor at sunrise.
Back in 2011, although NPR’s audience tilted a bit to the left, it still bore a resemblance to America at large. 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.
An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America.
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 podcast also referenced an interview that Berliner did with Bari Weiss, who had resigned from the editorial board of The New York Times and started The Free Press.
Berliner and Weiss discussed how Berliner warned that NPR went from having a “bent” to a bias. Although Berliner said it was “cumulative” rather than “one event” that brought on the change, he did make clear how hard NPR took Donald Trump being elected in 2016, especially when they assumed Hillary Clinton would win.
He admitted that “I think, after a while, we started covering Trump in a way that like a lot of legacy news organizations, we were trying to damage his presidency, to even find anything we could do to harm him,” which is where the Russia collusion narrative came into play.
Berliner called it “sort of catnip” to go with the narrative, even though he it admitted “it was just rumors, and a lot of it based on pretty shoddy documents or evidence, it wasn’t really solid, but I think it was compelling.” He referred to Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) as their “muse to the Trump collusion story,” who Berliner emphasized they had on “constantly.”
Schiff was censured by the House last June for pushing the Russia collusion hoax.
When discussing that excerpt, Cruz and Ferguson repeatedly emphasized their shock and dismay over how NPR, which again is taxpayer funded, was “trying to damage [Trump’s] presidency, to even find anything we could do to harm him.” The senator referred to it as “a damning admission.” He also pointed out that the change was “was obvious to any conservative, but it says something for it for a senior editor to go and blow the whistle like this.”
Advertisement
The focus once more returned to the need for NPR to have to exist on its own. While Ferguson said he’s “fine with NPR existing,” he added “they should figure out how to do it the same way that everybody else does in media, which is to you know, make money instead of us giving them our tax dollars to then as [Berliner] described it, try to hurt Trump every time they could.” This is especially, as Ferguson further warned “it won’t just be Trump in the future, it will be any other conservative based on what he’s saying. It’s not like they just went against Trump and that was it. They’re going in against every conservative on every story out there.”
Berliner’s op-ed and interview with Weiss also addressed how there were 87 registered Democrats “working in editorial positions,” with zero Republicans,” something Cruz pointed out is “not vague or ambiguous,” adding “that’s not equivocal, that is explicit.”
On the Hunter Biden laptop story, Berliner addressed more chilling bias:
In October 2020, the New York Post published the explosive report about the laptop Hunter Biden abandoned at a Delaware computer shop containing emails about his sordid business dealings. With the election only weeks away, NPR turned a blind eye. Here’s how NPR’s managing editor for news at the time explained the thinking: “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.”
But it wasn’t a pure distraction, or a product of Russian disinformation, as dozens of former and current intelligence officials suggested. The laptop did belong to Hunter Biden. Its contents revealed his connection to the corrupt world of multimillion-dollar influence peddling and its possible implications for his father.
The laptop was newsworthy. But the timeless journalistic instinct of following a hot story lead was being squelched. During a meeting with colleagues, I listened as one of NPR’s best and most fair-minded journalists said it was good we weren’t following the laptop story because it could help Trump.
When the essential facts of the Post’s reporting were confirmed and the emails verified independently about a year and a half later, we could have fessed up to our misjudgment. But, like Russia collusion, we didn’t make the hard choice of transparency.
With such examples, Ferguson again brought up the incredulousness of how they’re receiving funding, something. “How on earth are they getting this type of government funding,” he asked, “especially now if we know this from someone that worked there for 25 years? Is there any way to say the NPR, that’s fine, if this is what your mission is? Go and do it, but you’re not going to do it subsidized by taxpayers.”
Cruz wasted no time in offering “I would eliminate the funding for NPR tomorrow,” calling it “the right thing to do” and adding “we shouldn’t be in the business of funding NPR.”
It doesn’t look to be that easy, however. As Cruz explained, “the problem is every Democrat wants to spend your taxpayer dollars funding NPR because why wouldn’t you? If you’re a leftist, why wouldn’t you be willing to use U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund a propaganda outlet for your view?” It’s not just Democrats, though. The senator revealed that “in the budget battles, too many Republicans are scared of taking on NPR and so between the two, it keeps going.”
Cruz also shared what he saw as key similarities between Berliner and Weiss, referring to the letter Weiss wrote about resigning as something that “should be taught in every journalism class in America.”
“Bari’s resignation letter reads very much like Uri Berliners article,” Cruz offered. “They’re both people left of center who actually believe in some modicum of free speech, some modicum of fairness, and they look at the corruption of institutions they respected.” Despite their differences of opinions on politics, Cruz spoke to a sense of appreciation. “Uri Berliner and I may disagree on a lot of things, but I’m proud to stand with Uri Berliner for daring to speak the truth, because free speech matters, and I actually think it matters.”
Cruz highlighted a real life example in which he met with an unnamed CEO “of a major journalistic enterprise.” He explained that he told him “‘listen, I actually believe in a free press, I defend you even when you kick the crap out of me, even when you attack me, because I think it’s important to democracy and free speech to have a real and vibrant press. But when you guys are just corrupt ideologues, when you’re just propagandist, it hurts the entire country.'” Thus, Cruz gave “a big shout out” to Berliner and Weiss.
To whatever liberal listeners that “The Verdict” may have, Cruz offered “if you’re a fair minded liberal working in the media and you don’t like the bias and propaganda and I’m not saying you’re suddenly conservative and a right winger, that’s okay, that’s okay. We can have reasonable discussions. But when people speak out, like Uri Berliner and Bari Weiss, it makes a difference, and we need more people to do that.”
Iain's Blog 