First appearance on FOX: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), ranking member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, pressed NPR CEO Katherine Maher to prove that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals and wealthy, left-leaning donors do not influence the company’s editorial decisions.
“As a recipient of federal funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), NPR is required by law to ‘maintain objectivity and balance in every program or series of programs of a controversial nature.’ The organization has not met that obligation,” he wrote in a letter to Maher.
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Cruz asked NPR CEO Maher for assurances that the company wasn’t taking editorial direction from donors or DEI standards. (Getty Images)
Cruz noted that NPR receives funding in the form of a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which itself receives funding from the federal government.
But NPR also receives donations from wealthy, often left-leaning donors, he noted.
“Ultimately, NPR’s selective reporting may be driven not only by existing political bias within the organization, but also by private donors,” the senators argued. “The timing and content of some of NPR’s stories coincide with millions of dollars in designated donations from left-leaning nonprofits that want to make their own case in their reporting.”
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He gave several examples of specific donors and NPR’s coverage that seemed consistent with each contributor’s beliefs.
“If American taxpayers are going to fund a public broadcaster, they deserve fair and unbiased reporting,” Cruz said.
According to the Texas Republican, NPR has “strayed sharply from its mission of ‘independent journalism in the public interest’ by allowing liberal donors to buy the ‘news’ coverage they want.”
NPR faced criticism from longtime editors for its reporting decisions. (Getty Images)
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An NPR spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement: “NPR’s newsroom is independent and free from outside influence. Our supporters cannot interfere with editorial decisions or contact our journalists. We appreciate all those who support public media’s mission to provide the American people with unbiased, fact-based news and reporting.”
Maher has been criticized in the past for his political posts on social media. (Getty Images)
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NPR came under new scrutiny earlier this year when longtime editor Uri Berliner wrote an essay for the Free Press in which he openly criticized his employer. Berliner expressed concerns about NPR’s coverage of a variety of events, including the allegations of collusion between former President Trump and Russia in the 2016 election, Hunter Biden’s laptop, and the theory that COVID-19 actually originated and was leaked in a Chinese lab. Berliner was suspended from NPR for the essay and later resigned from the media outlet entirely.
The scandal shed new light on CPB’s editorial policies and prompted Republican lawmakers to once again threaten to cut funding to the network, money that has since been funneled to NPR.
