NPR suspended its veteran senior business editor, Uri Berliner, for five days without pay after he wrote a critical essay detailing how the public radio network succumbed to liberal groupthink.
Working at NPR for 25 years, Berliner criticized his employer for no longer being open-minded in its approach to reporting the news. Because of this progressive bent, he declared that the radio network “lost America’s trust” in a scathing exposé published by the Free Press on April 9.
Berliner began his temporary suspension on Friday, NPR reported Tuesday morning, and was warned that he would be fired if he failed to get approval for work at other news outlets, which is outlined in company policy.
In the essay, Berliner took issue with NPR’s biased coverage of stories involving the transgender movement, the Israel-Hamas war, Republican policies, and Covid-19 origins. He also noted how the organization formed affinity groups based on a given employee’s racial and sexual identity, while ignoring viewpoint diversity. When Berliner looked into the partisan affiliations of NPR’s Washington, D.C., based editorial employees, he couldn’t find a single registered Republican.
The media outlet has since taken flak over its new CEO’s resurfaced social-media posts. In 2020, Katherine Maher tweeted that former president Donald Trump is a racist and tried to minimize the rioting and looting during the George Floyd protests that summer. Conservatives, most notably journalist Christopher Rufo, circulated her past posts on X in the last week.
“In America everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen,” Maher said Monday in response to her progressive social-media posts. “What matters is NPR’s work and my commitment as its CEO: public service, editorial independence, and the mission to serve all of the American public. NPR is independent, beholden to no party, and without commercial interests.”
Meanwhile, NPR defended its leader amid the public backlash.
“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,” a spokesperson said. “The CEO is not involved in editorial decisions.”
Without any prior journalistic experience, Maher became CEO of NPR late last month.
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 statement added.
In response to the statements, Berliner said Maher is not the best person for the job due to her divisive comments online and should not get a free pass just because she wasn’t working in the journalism industry four years ago.
“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 News media correspondent David Folkenflik later Monday. “And this seems to be the opposite of that.”
The longtime editor noted he approached his bosses and the preceding CEO with his concerns about the organization’s news coverage before going public.
“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.”