Far-left National Public Radio (NPR) employs 87 registered Democrats in editorial positions, but zero Republicans in the same positions at its headquarters in Washington, D.C., said NPR senior editor Uri. Berlina wrote on Tuesday.
Mr. Berliner, who identifies as a leftist, wrote a scathing article about NPR’s illiberal newsroom, saying the taxpayer-funded station was addressing “diversity issues” within the company. accused of refusing to do so.
In an article published in the Free Press, Berliner said he disagrees with many of the left-wing and possibly false theories advanced by NPR about the coronavirus “lab leak theory” and that House Adam Schiff Rep. (D-Calif.) said, “Don’t say that.” “Gay” bill, Hunter Biden’s laptop, former President Donald Trump, and the 2016 Russia hoax.
“[P]”Politicians were erasing the curiosity and independence that should have driven our work,” he explained. His concerns came to a head when he told management that NPR, which presents news stories as unbiased in 2021, had a problem with bias within its network.
Berliner report:
Therefore, on May 3, 2021, I presented the results of the survey at a meeting of the entire editorial department. When I suggested there was a diversity problem with 87 Democrats and 0 Republicans, the reaction was not hostile. It was even worse. It was met with deep indifference. I received several messages from surprised and curious colleagues. But the message was of the “Wow, that’s weird” kind of way, as if the aggregation bias was a random anomaly rather than a major failure in our diversity north star.
In a subsequent email exchange, an NPR News executive told me that he had been “skewered” for bringing up diversity of thought. When she arrived at NPR. Therefore, she said, “I want to be careful how I discuss this matter in public.”
Over the years, I have persevered. When it seemed like our reporting was off track, we wrote regular emails to top news leaders and sometimes held one-on-one sessions. On March 10, 2022, I spoke to a top news organization about how I repeatedly described Florida’s controversial education bill as a “don’t say gay” bill, even though it didn’t even use that word. I wrote a letter about it. gay. I wrote another time to try to set this fact straight and ask why we continue to use this word, which many Hispanics hate.Latin. On March 31, 2022, I was invited to a managers’ meeting to present my findings.
Berliner wrote that over the years, NPR’s newsroom has drifted to the left. In 2011, he said the network’s “audience has shifted a little to the left” but “still looks like America overall.” He said NPR’s audience is 26% conservative, 23% “centrist” and 37% far left.
By 2023, the picture had changed, with 11 percent describing themselves as conservative, 21 percent as “centrists” and 67 percent on the left.
“That wouldn’t be a problem for an openly controversial news organization serving a niche audience, but for NPR, which purports to take everything into account, this is devastating to both its journalism and its business model.” he wrote.
NPR’s business model appears to be in decline. The taxpayer-funded organization said in 2023 that the left-wing media company had laid off 10 percent of its employees, going from about 1,200 to about 1,050 employees. Announced.
taxpayer funds Subsidy available NPR’s budget has decreased by nearly 11%.
NPR’s far-left stance was reflected in Breitbart News senior editor Joel B. Pollack’s appearance on the station’s coverage. morning paper As Breitbart News reported, during the interview, Pollack criticized NPR’s “racist programming” while defending then-Breitbart News executive chairman Stephen K. Bannon.
Elizabeth Jensen, National Public Radio’s Ombudsman and Public Editor, said in a Nov. 16 interview with Breitbart News’ Joel B. Pollack that the taxpayer-funded radio news service recommended banning future live interviews with conservatives that could be controversial.
(Update for November 21st: NPR has clarified its policy and said it will continue to conduct live interviews with conservatives. See here. )
Pollack, Breitbart’s senior editor and in-house general counsel, defended the magazine’s executive chairman, Stephen K. Bannon, against false and defamatory claims of anti-Semitism and “white nationalism.” He also turned the tables and told NPR that the 2016 election results were “Nostalgia for a Whiter America”
“We were able to look straight at what went wrong. News organizations don’t make that kind of calculation. But there’s a good reason NPR was first. It’s in the name. We are the ones that have the word “public” in them. ” @uriberlinerexpectations for U.S. media institutions. https://t.co/EclQJO838a pic.twitter.com/CvFfSoL3xx
— Free Press (@TheFP) April 9, 2024
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter for Breitbart News and a former Republican war room analyst.he is the author of politics of slave morality.Follow Wendell “X” @WendellHusebø or society of truth @WendellHusebo.
