If you don&#8217;t remember &#8220;Car Talk,&#8221; it was a radio show that lasted more than three decades on NPR, until it ended in 2012. The idea was that people called in with practical questions and dilemmas relating to their cars, and then the hosts dispensed advice — whether it was about car maintenance or repair or whatever. The show no longer exists, though, because the NPR that broadcast that show for 35 years no longer exists. The idea of a show that actually addresses people&#8217;s problems in real life, based on knowledge of how markets and automobiles or anything else actually works, has been unthinkable to the management of NPR for some time. Shows that cover the news from an objective factual perspective, to the extent possible, are also out of style. Instead, for the past decade, NPR has been controlled by activists who have devoted themselves to two primary pursuits. 
The first pursuit is blanketing the airwaves with identity politics at every conceivable opportunity. That&#8217;s why they run segments on diverse gender representation in <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/10/1104266396/lgbtq-communitys-battle-for-the-dinosaur-emoji-key-moments-from-jan-6-hearing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dinosaur emojis</a> for example. 
The second pursuit has been shutting down stories that are inconvenient for the politicians who are voting to spend your money to finance NPR&#8217;s operation. Infamously, NPR&#8217;s executive editor, Terence Samuel, claimed that the Hunter Biden laptop scandal wasn&#8217;t a &#8220;<a href="https://twitter.com/NPRpubliceditor/status/1319281101223940096" target="_blank" rel="noopener">real story</a>.&#8221; He said it was a &#8220;distraction.&#8221; And instead of firing Samuel, NPR promoted him. American University even invited Samuel to deliver a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFvV24PWfF4&amp;lc=Ugz7bLd9ECugl009UZF4AaABAg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lecture</a> entitled, &#8220;How Journalism Can Save Itself and Democracy.&#8221;
It&#8217;s harder to think of a better way to summarize what NPR has become. They aren&#8217;t simply bumbling propagandists. They&#8217;re also incredibly self-satisfied and narcissistic. They believe that they alone can save American democracy. And they think that, in order to do that, they need to control what kinds of information you can see. It&#8217;s not that they thought the Hunter Biden laptop story was &#8220;unvetted&#8221; or &#8220;Russian disinformation&#8221; or whatever the excuse was. They always knew it was factually accurate. But just because something is factually accurate, in NPR&#8217;s eyes, doesn&#8217;t make it true. According to NPR, truth is subjective; whatever&#8217;s most expedient politically for them is what&#8217;s true.
For a long time now, this position — which really amounts to nihilism — was unstated at NPR, at least publicly. But now it&#8217;s explicit, thanks to a new CEO and president by the name of Katherine Maher who recently took over at NPR. Maher very clearly does not believe that the truth is objective. She also doesn&#8217;t believe it&#8217;s worth trying to find out what the truth may be. This is an extraordinary position for the chief executive of a publicly funded news organization to have, but it&#8217;s what Katherine Maher believes. 
This is a speech of hers that&#8217;s been making the rounds this week. It&#8217;s from back when she was running Wikimedia, which is mainly known for Wikipedia. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="002 Truth" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WWEiwvNwsGM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
This is what passes for good public speaking these days. But she speaks in a robotic, sing-songy voice that makes it sound like she’s a kindergarten teacher lecturing a bunch of 5-year-olds. She has the tone of someone who believes firmly in the superiority of her own intellect, even though what she’s saying is so abjectly stupid. 
She says truth is subjective, and that everyone in the room has his or her own &#8220;truth.&#8221; But here&#8217;s the problem. Truth exists because reality exists. Either something is a part of reality or it isn&#8217;t. To deny objective truth is to deny reality. And you can&#8217;t even deny reality without asserting a reality — the reality that there is no reality. So the relativistic view is not only false, but so false as to be incomprehensible if you think about it for more than two seconds.
Maher&#8217;s remarks are the same idiot relativism that you can hear from any freshman philosophy student, but she goes to great pains to make her take seem nuanced and innovative. She talks in circles and ends back at &#8220;there are many different truths.&#8221; She says this even after acknowledging that the truth exists. Again, those are two contradictory ideas, but that doesn&#8217;t bother Maher for a second. Like most of our overeducated elite class, she&#8217;s incapable of speaking without a parade of cliches while making tedious and absurd ideas sound far more complex than they really are. 
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1350-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h4>
Also according to Maher, we have &#8220;glorious chronicles to the human experience in many different cultures&#8221; because we have &#8220;many different truths.&#8221; But that&#8217;s not what these &#8220;glorious chronicles&#8221; show us. Instead, they show us that the truth is objective and eternal. Different cultures and people across time have had different ways of perceiving the truth — talking about it, accessing it, embracing it, or rejecting it, yes. But the truth remains the same. That is what makes the study of history, and different cultures through history, so fascinating. It is precisely because all of these different people across time and space lived in the same reality, and yet had wildly different ways of existing in it, and responding to it. 
Katherine Maher doesn&#8217;t seem to understand this, or at least she pretends not to. She repeats her theory of truth at every possible opportunity. Here&#8217;s some more footage from a conference two years ago. Maher begins by explaining that Galileo was prosecuted for saying that the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun, which is a basically accurate if wildly oversimplified retelling of that historical episode — although it doesn&#8217;t prove what Maher seems to think it does. Then she makes an incredible statement. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="003 Truth is Changing" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dP5g369_nvs?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&#8220;The truth, by definition, is malleable,&#8221; says Maher. Really? By whose definition exactly? You can make the case that postmodernists thinkers and their precursors — like Machiavelli, Nietzsche, and Rousseau — might agree with that statement. But you won&#8217;t hear many traditional thinkers (prior to, say, Heidegger) saying that the truth is &#8220;malleable.&#8221; So why should we adopt the postmodern belief and not the traditional one? There has to be some reason to side with one school of thought and not another.
In any event, if truth is merely &#8220;malleable&#8221; — if there&#8217;s no knowable, essential structure to it — then definitions themselves are just language games. There&#8217;s no significance to any of it. It&#8217;s just a power struggle. When you get down to it, that&#8217;s really what Maher is saying. She&#8217;s asserting that &#8220;the truth&#8221; is &#8220;malleable&#8221; as an act of political will because she doesn&#8217;t believe in any objectively true definitions. She keeps saying, over and over again, the words &#8220;the truth,&#8221; only to make it clear that she has no idea what that is.
And from that very shaky foundation, Maher starts to derive some very shaky corollaries. At one point, Maher implies that people don&#8217;t trust the media anymore not because the media lied to them, but because people have different mistaken &#8220;truths&#8221; that they&#8217;re clinging to. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="004 Misinformation" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IqICz5BBR5A?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
It&#8217;s another revealing statement that Maher makes without any justification. She&#8217;s implying that democracies aren&#8217;t (or can&#8217;t be) xenophobic or nationalist. But the Greeks were both. Greek democracies were very much “xenophobic” — if that’s how you want to put it — and nationalist in nature. There&#8217;s no doubt about that. So why is democracy the goal here? Is that even her goal?
Really, her only given justification for thinking our traditional conception of truth is inadequate, and needs to be reworked, is that the &#8220;truth&#8221; we have now is the product of a history which is also political. &#8220;History is written by victors&#8221; is one of the many cliches she invokes throughout her speeches. And she says that excludes various potential sources of knowledge like &#8220;indigenous&#8221; perspectives and practices, or women with their &#8220;emotional intelligence.&#8221;
But that&#8217;s not incompatible with the reality that &#8220;the truth&#8221; is real, is universal, and many aspects of it have been uniquely uncovered by Western thought, science, and technology. Even if you bought into Maher&#8217;s talking points about a “plurality of perspectives” being better than &#8220;one alone&#8221; for getting at &#8220;the truth,&#8221; the fact remains that it took 2,000 years of Western, Eurocentric, supposedly white supremacist, heteronormative, misogynist history for us to reach the point at which these minor tail-end improvements she&#8217;s suggesting could be made. 
It took 2,000 years of history to create the civilization that Maher is now critiquing. And if she thinks this new approach will cause some kind of &#8220;scientific revolution,&#8221; it won&#8217;t. The more likely outcome is that it will destroy the civilization that was built over thousands of years. That is the point after all. And this is the essence of what we call wokeness. The Left likes to put conservatives on the spot by demanding a definition of “woke.” Well, here it is — the rejection of truth as a category. That’s what wokeness is, when boiled down to its most fundamental parts.
As for Maher, it&#8217;s tempting to dismiss all of this footage as the ramblings of a single woman who has no idea what she&#8217;s talking about. But it&#8217;s a bit more significant than that. Maher was selected to lead NPR, after an allegedly careful vetting process. There&#8217;s no way that NPR didn&#8217;t scrutinize her beliefs, which Maher has expressed many times over the last few years in public social media posts and numerous speeches.
On Twitter, Chris Rufo has exposed some of the more deranged posts from this woman. There are really too many to mention, but suffice it to say, she&#8217;s like a woke AI bot that churns out the least original woke liberal woman talking points you can possibly imagine. She uses the word &#8220;folx,&#8221; with the &#8220;x&#8221; at the end. She says &#8220;Latinx.&#8221; She called Donald Trump a racist and cried with joy when Biden took office, of course. She wrote that she once dreamed of going on a road trip with Kamala Harris eating &#8220;nuts and baklava.&#8221; She expresses her happiness when she logs into the public WiFi at a COVID clinic and the password is &#8220;HeSheThey,&#8221; recognizing the lived experience of nonbinary patients. She calls the Internet &#8220;sexist.&#8221; 
At one point, she apologized for using the phrase “people who identify as women,” because it&#8217;s a form of “trans-erasure.&#8221; She writes about the importance of &#8220;transit justice&#8221; and vegetarian Thanksgiving, and rants about the &#8220;male gaze&#8221; and &#8220;late-stage capitalism,&#8221; even as she drew a salary of $800,000 a year. There are many more examples; Chris Rufo&#8217;s feed has categorized many of them.
To burnish her intellectual credentials even further, Maher even <a href="https://x.com/njhochman/status/1780638504097022442">sat on a panel</a> with Lizzo at a Ted conference where tickets cost more than $10,000. The name of Lizzos&#8217; talk was, &#8220;The Black history of twerking — and how it taught me self-love.&#8221; 
But Maher doesn&#8217;t need lessons on self-love, she has that covered. What she&#8217;s looking for now is power. 
In a video posted by the Atlantic Council and unearthed by Rufo, Maher explains that the First Amendment — which you&#8217;d think journalists would support, since it&#8217;s the one thing keeping journalists out of prison — is not a sacred constitutional principle. Instead, she says, it&#8217;s a &#8220;challenge&#8221; to be overcome. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="005 Katherine Maher Vs First Free Speech" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MGpZJt5uU2s?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The only people who view the First Amendment as a &#8220;challenge&#8221; are government censors who want to shut down any dissent by force. And now that she&#8217;s running a state-funded media outlet, that&#8217;s exactly what Maher is. She&#8217;s a state-funded censor.
To that end, she no longer believes in transparency. The irony is that, when she was running Wikimedia, Maher kept talking about the importance of showing people everything that&#8217;s going on inside the company. Every edit on Wikipedia, she said, is public for a reason. Disclosure is sometimes &#8220;painful,&#8221; she said, but it&#8217;s necessary. 
Transparency is key, she said at the time. But apparently this is one of the malleable &#8220;truths&#8221; that Katherine Maher has decided to discard. As you&#8217;ve probably heard, she just forced out an NPR whistleblower who <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/04/17/media/npr-editor-uri-berliner-resigns-after-bombshell-expose-reveals-networks-pervasive-left-wing-bias/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> a damning <a href="https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust" target="_blank" rel="noopener">column</a> in the Free Press about the organization&#8217;s corruption and overwhelming bias. She <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/npr-suspends-editor-who-accused-network-of-bias-issues-final-warning" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suspended</a> this 25-year veteran of NPR without pay because he pointed out that the organization is now completely one-sided. 
For example, the whistleblower wrote:
<blockquote>Concerned by the lack of viewpoint diversity, I looked at voter registration for our newsroom. In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans. None.</blockquote>
That&#8217;s not the kind of transparency that the new NPR CEO appreciates, apparently. She&#8217;s happy to talk about how NPR employs too many white men. But she definitely doesn&#8217;t want to talk about political bias, or how useless NPR has become. It used to be that NPR at least pretended to be embarrassed about this. In 2011, NPR&#8217;s CEO at the time, Vivian Schiller, resigned after a Project Veritas sting exposed what she thought about conservatives in the Tea Party movement. To summarize: she didn’t like them. Schiller had to resign once her views came to light. Back then, NPR believed that the appearance of fairness was at least a little important.
But that was the &#8220;Car Talk&#8221; era of NPR. Now they believe their CEO can categorically reject the idea that there&#8217;s any truth to report on. This is a belief system that&#8217;s now in vogue in newsrooms all over the country. It&#8217;s a big reason for the rise of transgenderism, COVID hysteria, and all the media&#8217;s lying we had to endure under the previous administration. 
This is the belief system that insists that men can become women, because the meaning of the words &#8220;men&#8221; and &#8220;women&#8221; are subjective. And it will spell the end of Western civilization unless we reject it. That is, of course, the point of everything Katherine Maher is saying. In the absence of truth, there is only a struggle for power. And right now — and hopefully not for much longer — it&#8217;s people like Katherine Maher who have that power.

Day 2 – Web Summit 2019 Lisbon

New CEO Of NPR Is Everything Wrong With The News Media

Activists

Leftism

Legacy Media

National Public Radio (NPR)

Progressivism

Readers Pass

Woke Culture

NPR&#8217;s president and CEO said she abandoned the idea of a &#8220;free and open&#8221; internet as the mission of Wikipedia, which she used to lead, because it is a &#8220;white, male, Westernized construct.&#8221;
In a newly resurfaced video clip, Katherine Maher, who took over as NPR&#8217;s chief executive in January says she found Wikpedia&#8217;s &#8220;free and open&#8221; ethos &#8220;inherently limited.&#8221; The clip was posted to X by Christopher Rufo, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Maher served as chief executive at the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia, from 2019 to 2021.
&#8220;I have come to the opinion and the perspective that &#8216;free and open&#8217; was a way of looking at the world that was inherently limited relative to what we were trying to achieve,&#8221; Maher says in the clip.
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EXCLUSIVE: Katherine Maher says that she abandoned a &quot;free and open&quot; internet as the mission of Wikipedia, because those principles recapitulated a &quot;white male Westernized construct&quot; and &quot;did not end up living into the intentionality of what openness can be.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/Ved9mgGvJH">pic.twitter.com/Ved9mgGvJH</a>
&mdash; Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) <a href="https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1780929268949614848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 18, 2024</a></blockquote>
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EXCLUSIVE: Katherine Maher doesn&#39;t just want to &quot;stamp out bad information&quot; on the internet. She wants to replace it with &quot;good information&quot;—i.e., left-wing narratives—and force the public to &quot;sit within that good information&quot; as &quot;a collective.&quot;
Big Sister has arrived. <a href="https://t.co/7kfq8VYHfj">pic.twitter.com/7kfq8VYHfj</a>
&mdash; Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) <a href="https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1781009614584381486?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 18, 2024</a></blockquote>
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EXCLUSIVE: Katherine Maher says the &quot;the number one challenge&quot; in her fight against disinformation is &quot;the First Amendment in the United States,&quot; which makes it &quot;a little bit tricky&quot; to censor &quot;bad information&quot; and &quot;the influence peddlers&quot; who spread it.
NPR&#39;s censor-in-chief. <a href="https://t.co/0vY6hIpbmO">pic.twitter.com/0vY6hIpbmO</a>
&mdash; Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) <a href="https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1780597079439446250?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 17, 2024</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;&#8216;Free and open&#8217; has the best of intentionality, but in the end what &#8216;free and open&#8217; often ended up doing, and particularly in the case of Wikipedia, was recapitulating many of the same power structures and dynamics that exist offline, prior to the advent of the internet,&#8221; Maher said.
One of the problems with Wikipedia is the way it relies on a &#8220;written tradition&#8221; and &#8220;reliable sources,&#8221; Maher said.
&#8220;You see the exclusion of communities, of languages because of the ways in which Wikipedia is based on reliable sources. The idea of a written tradition, which is particular to some cultures and not to others,&#8221; the former Wikimedia CEO said.
&#8220;The ways in which we ascribe notability often really comes from sort of this white, male, Westernized construct around who matters in societies and who is elevated and whose voices. And so some of these ideas of sort of this radical openness really did not end up living into the intentionality of what openness can be,&#8221; she said.
X owner Elon Musk responded to the clip, <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1780962477011796287" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posting</a>, &#8220;That’s literally the point of Wikipedia.&#8221;
Maher has recently come under fire from conservatives after a former NPR editor blew the whistle on the outlet&#8217;s liberal bias. Former editor Uri Berliner resigned Wednesday after NPR suspended him.
In the wake of the NPR editor&#8217;s accusations, a slew of since-deleted tweets and previous statements from Maher have surfaced, adding fuel to the outrage.
In another clip posted by Rufo, Maher says she is interested in how we can &#8220;immerse ourself in good information,&#8221; not just &#8220;stamp out bad information.&#8221;
In yet another clip, Maher says the &#8220;number one challenge&#8221; for her in fighting disinformation is the First Amendment, which she calls a &#8220;fairly robust protection of rights.&#8221;
&#8220;It also means that it is a little bit tricky to really address some of the real challenges of where does bad information come from,&#8221; she said.
She has been accused of expressing explicitly biased views in her previous tweets.
In 2018, Maher <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/04/13/us-news/nprs-new-ceo-katherine-mahers-woke-tweets-arise-as-editor-claims-bias/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a>, “Donald Trump is a racist.”
In 2020 she wrote, &#8220;I mean, sure, looting is counterproductive. But it’s hard to be mad about protests not prioritizing the private property of a system of oppression founded on treating people’s ancestors as private property.&#8221;

Web Summit Lisbon 2023

‘White, Male, Westernized’: NPR President Said She Opposed Wikipedia’s ‘Free And Open’ Mission

'White, Male, Westernized': NPR President Said She Opposed Wikipedia's 'Free And Open' Mission

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

First Amendment

Free Speech

Wikipedia

Wokeness

Dozens of National Public Radio (NPR) employees signed on to a letter suggesting that their now-former senior business editor <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/we-lost-americas-trust-npr-veteran-says-network-has-lost-its-way" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Uri Berliner</a> was spot on in his assessment of the liberal bias that has taken over the network.
New York Times media reporter Ben Mullin shared screenshots of the letter, addressed to CEO <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nprs-new-ceo-scolds-25-year-veteran-for-expose-outing-networks-bias" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Katherine Maher</a> and Editor in Chief <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/npr-chief-hits-back-at-whistleblower-who-says-colleagues-secretly-agree" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Edith Chapin</a>, which claimed that Berliner&#8217;s essay in The Free Press had left many of them feeling as though they&#8217;d been personally attacked.
&#8220;About 50 NPR employees sign a letter to CEO Katherine Maher and top editor Edith Chapin calling for, among other things, a public rebuke of the &#8216;factual inaccuracies and elisions&#8217; in Uri Berliner’s Free Press essay,&#8221; Mullin&#8217;s caption read.
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new: About 50 NPR employees sign a letter to CEO Katherine Maher and top editor Edith Chapin calling for, among other things, a public rebuke of the “factual inaccuracies and elisions” in Uri Berliner’s Free Press essay. <a href="https://t.co/jXc1R4J0G3">pic.twitter.com/jXc1R4J0G3</a>
&mdash; Ben Mullin (@BenMullin) <a href="https://twitter.com/BenMullin/status/1780635242170028359?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 17, 2024</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;We&#8217;re writing to urge stronger support for staff who have had their journalistic expertise called into question by one of their own in a public forum,&#8221; the letter read. &#8220;We also urge more transparency regarding the consequences of making unauthorized public comments that seek to change NPR&#8217;s editorial direction.&#8221;
The letter went on to say that while both Chapin and Maher had shared their objections to Berliner&#8217;s claims — namely that the outlet been wholly disinterested in presenting stories that might hurt President Joe Biden or help former President Donald Trump — the employees were concerned that their efforts to spur policy changes through Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives were being undermined by Berliner&#8217;s public comments.
&#8220;Staff, many from marginalized backgrounds, have pushed for internal policy changes through mechanisms like the DEI accountability committee, sharing of affinity group guidelines, and an ad-hoc content review group,&#8221; they wrote, complaining that Berliner was getting more attention and apparent change from a short essay than they had after years of work.
<a href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-9096" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://onelink.to/dwapp&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1700760801843000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2PQrVSrJfhxNb4LcARqniG">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP</a>
Their concern on that point, they said, was that others within the network might get the idea that a pointed editorial was more effective at forcing change than going through proper channels.
They also complained that Berliner&#8217;s essay had &#8220;made their jobs harder&#8221; and called on Maher and Chapin to clearly &#8220;offer public support and defense of those individuals whose work was directly undermined by the opinion piece.&#8221;

US-BUSINESS-NPR

Dozens Of NPR Employees Write Letter Proving Uri Berliner Was Right About Everything

Censorship

Media

Media Bias

U.S.

Senior Business Editor Uri Berliner is resigning from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/national-public-radio-npr" target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Public Radio (NPR)</a> a little more than a week after he publicly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/we-lost-americas-trust-npr-veteran-says-network-has-lost-its-way" target="_blank" rel="noopener">accused</a> the network of espousing left-wing bias in an essay.
In a post to X on Wednesday, Berliner shared what he said was his resignation letter to NPR CEO Katherine Maher, who <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nprs-new-ceo-scolds-25-year-veteran-for-expose-outing-networks-bias" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lashed out</a> at the editor&#8217;s critique and has faced blowback over old tweets.
&#8220;I am resigning from NPR, a great American institution where I have worked for 25 years,&#8221; Berliner said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t support calls to defund NPR. I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
My resignation letter to NPR CEO <a href="https://twitter.com/krmaher?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@krmaher</a> <a href="https://t.co/0hafVbcZAK">pic.twitter.com/0hafVbcZAK</a>
&mdash; Uri Berliner (@uberliner) <a href="https://twitter.com/uberliner/status/1780610524411048183?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 17, 2024</a></blockquote>
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He added, &#8220;But I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay.&#8221;
The Free Press <a href="https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust?utm_source=direct&amp;utm_campaign=post&amp;utm_medium=web&amp;fbclid=IwAR2BI7aGsLrw5JzADcxw-Ddx9IFpaQzQxVieieHiYiYvBozjQ3W_q8XSMoY_aem_Afb8djuPsGMotINI-8VtH0_ouA2n_5T1rMS3kvz8x_-AGiNOlKuozOh6WEdCnd1xeok&amp;triedRedirect=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">published</a> the essay on Tuesday last week in which Berliner argued NPR &#8220;lost America&#8217;s trust&#8221; with its increasingly liberal bent.
His critique touched on topics related to former President Donald Trump, NPR&#8217;s COVID coverage, reporting on transgender issues, audience figures, the network&#8217;s own level of diversity, and more.
Berliner additionally wrote about how he tried to make some of his concerns known internally. He said no one ever &#8220;trashed&#8221; him, but he was repeatedly brushed off and nothing changed.
On Tuesday of this week, NPR&#8217;s media correspondent David Folkenflik reported that Berliner had received a letter informing him that he had been <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/npr-suspends-editor-who-accused-network-of-bias-issues-final-warning" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suspended</a> without pay for five days starting on Friday.
NPR told Berliner he failed to follow the network&#8217;s rules and get approval for outside work for other news outlets. Berliner was also accused of publicly releasing proprietary information about audience demographics that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/npr" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NPR</a> considered confidential.
The letter, billed as a &#8220;final warning,&#8221; said Berliner would be fired for another policy violation. Berliner conceded he did not get permission to speak with Folkenflik, but said he thought it would be &#8220;extraordinary&#8221; if he were fired for speaking to an NPR journalist.
In the backlash that followed the essay, Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-calls-for-cutting-npr-funds-after-editor-accuses-network-of-bias" target="_blank" rel="noopener">demanded</a> NPR&#8217;s funding be cut. And Maher, who has served as NPR&#8217;s chief executive for less than a month, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nprs-new-ceo-scolds-25-year-veteran-for-expose-outing-networks-bias" target="_blank" rel="noopener">condemned</a> the &#8220;deeply simplistic&#8221; and &#8220;profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning&#8221; assessment.
Old tweets from Maher that displayed her personal views in favor of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/15/business/media/npr-chief-executive-criticized-over-tweets.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">liberal causes</a> began to resurface as the fallout over Berliner&#8217;s essay and follow-up interviews began to grow, fueling more criticism, particularly from the Right.
Maher called Trump a &#8220;racist&#8221; in a <a href="https://archive.is/9Egnx" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2018 post</a> that has since been deleted and shared a <a href="https://twitter.com/krmaher/status/1323094291732815872" target="_blank" rel="noopener">photo</a> of herself wearing a hat touting President Joe Biden&#8217;s campaign in November of 2020.
Journalist Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, posted to X on Wednesday a clip of Maher talking about the First Amendment and platforms dealing with &#8220;bad information.&#8221;
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EXCLUSIVE: Katherine Maher says the &quot;the number one challenge&quot; in her fight against disinformation is &quot;the First Amendment in the United States,&quot; which makes it &quot;a little bit tricky&quot; to censor &quot;bad information&quot; and &quot;the influence peddlers&quot; who spread it.
NPR&#39;s censor-in-chief. <a href="https://t.co/0vY6hIpbmO">pic.twitter.com/0vY6hIpbmO</a>
&mdash; Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) <a href="https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1780597079439446250?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 17, 2024</a></blockquote>
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Berliner told Folkenflik the posts indicate Maher is the &#8220;opposite&#8221; of the kind of leader NPR needs to be &#8220;unifying and bring more people into the tent and have a broader perspective on, sort of, what America is all about.&#8221;
Maher released a statement that said &#8220;everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen&#8221; in America.
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&#8220;What matters is NPR&#8217;s work and my commitment as its CEO: public service, editorial independence, and the mission to serve all of the American public,&#8221; she added. &#8220;NPR is independent, beholden to no party, and without commercial interests.&#8221;
The report from Folkenflik noted that NPR emphasized that &#8220;the CEO is not involved in editorial decisions.&#8221;
Folkenflik wrote that some in the newsroom acknowledge Berliner&#8217;s critique as valid, while others say they are no longer willing to work with him.
NPR&#8217;s chief news executive, Edith Chapin, reportedly announced that Executive Editor Eva Rodriguez would lead monthly coverage review meetings. Berliner reportedly said he welcomed the announcement but would reserve judgment until those meetings happen.

NPR Editor Who Accused Network Of Liberal Bias Resigns

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/national-public-radio-npr" target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Public Radio (NPR)</a> has suspended Senior Business Editor Uri Berliner after he publicly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/we-lost-americas-trust-npr-veteran-says-network-has-lost-its-way" target="_blank" rel="noopener">accused</a> the network of espousing left-wing bias with an essay that began a media firestorm.
Last week, Berliner received a letter that informed him of a five-day suspension without pay beginning Friday, according to a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/04/16/1244962042/npr-editor-uri-berliner-suspended-essay" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> by NPR&#8217;s media correspondent David Folkenflik.
NPR told Berliner he failed to follow the network&#8217;s rules and get approval for outside work for other news outlets after his <a href="https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust?utm_source=direct&amp;utm_campaign=post&amp;utm_medium=web&amp;fbclid=IwAR2BI7aGsLrw5JzADcxw-Ddx9IFpaQzQxVieieHiYiYvBozjQ3W_q8XSMoY_aem_Afb8djuPsGMotINI-8VtH0_ouA2n_5T1rMS3kvz8x_-AGiNOlKuozOh6WEdCnd1xeok&amp;triedRedirect=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">essay</a> for The Free Press and follow-up interviews.
Berliner was also accused of publicly releasing proprietary information about audience demographics that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/npr" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NPR</a> considered confidential, per the report.
The letter, which was called a &#8220;final warning,&#8221; said Berliner would be fired for another policy violation.
Berliner, a dues-paying member of NPR&#8217;s newsroom union, told Folkenflik that he would not appeal the punishment.
He claimed the figures discussed in his essay &#8220;were essentially marketing material. If they had been really good, they probably would have distributed them and sent them out to the world.&#8221;
Berliner conceded that he did not get permission to speak with Folkenflik, but said he thought it would be &#8220;extraordinary&#8221; if he were fired for speaking to an NPR journalist.
The Free Press <a href="https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust?utm_source=direct&amp;utm_campaign=post&amp;utm_medium=web&amp;fbclid=IwAR2BI7aGsLrw5JzADcxw-Ddx9IFpaQzQxVieieHiYiYvBozjQ3W_q8XSMoY_aem_Afb8djuPsGMotINI-8VtH0_ouA2n_5T1rMS3kvz8x_-AGiNOlKuozOh6WEdCnd1xeok&amp;triedRedirect=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">published</a> the essay on Tuesday last week in which Berliner argued NPR &#8220;lost America&#8217;s trust&#8221; with its increasingly liberal bent.
His critique touched on topics related to former President Donald Trump, NPR&#8217;s COVID coverage, reporting on transgender issues, audience figures, the network&#8217;s own level of diversity, and more.
Berliner additionally wrote about how he tried to make some of his concerns known internally. He said no one ever &#8220;trashed&#8221; him, but he was repeatedly brushed off and nothing changed.
In the public backlash that followed the essay, Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-calls-for-cutting-npr-funds-after-editor-accuses-network-of-bias" target="_blank" rel="noopener">demanded</a> that NPR&#8217;s funding be cut. Despite his critique, Berliner said &#8220;defunding&#8221; was not the way to address the &#8220;missteps&#8221; he outlined.
NPR&#8217;s chief executive of less than a month, Katherine Maher, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nprs-new-ceo-scolds-25-year-veteran-for-expose-outing-networks-bias" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lashed out</a> at the &#8220;deeply simplistic&#8221; and &#8220;profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning&#8221; essay without mentioning Berliner&#8217;s name.
After Berliner&#8217;s essay was published, old tweets from Maher resurfaced that displayed her personal views in favor of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/15/business/media/npr-chief-executive-criticized-over-tweets.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">liberal causes,</a> fueling more criticism, particularly from the Right.
Maher called Trump a &#8220;racist&#8221; in a <a href="https://archive.is/9Egnx" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2018 post</a> that has since been deleted and shared a <a href="https://twitter.com/krmaher/status/1323094291732815872" target="_blank" rel="noopener">photo</a> of herself wearing a hat touting President Joe Biden&#8217;s campaign in November of 2020.
Berliner said the posts indicate Maher is the &#8220;opposite&#8221; of the kind of leader NPR needs to be &#8220;unifying and bring more people into the tent and have a broader perspective on, sort of, what America is all about.&#8221;
Maher released a statement that said &#8220;everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen&#8221; in America.
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&#8220;What matters is NPR&#8217;s work and my commitment as its CEO: public service, editorial independence, and the mission to serve all of the American public,&#8221; she added. &#8220;NPR is independent, beholden to no party, and without commercial interests.&#8221;
The report noted that NPR emphasized that &#8220;the CEO is not involved in editorial decisions.&#8221;
Folkenflik wrote that some in the newsroom acknowledge Berliner&#8217;s critique as valid, while others say they are no longer willing to work with him.
The report said NPR&#8217;s chief news executive, Edith Chapin, announced late Monday that Executive Editor Eva Rodriguez would lead monthly coverage review meetings.
Berliner reportedly said he welcomed the announcement but would reserve judgment until those meetings happen.

NPR HQ

NPR Suspends Editor Who Accused Network Of Bias, Issues ‘Final Warning’

NPR Suspends Editor Who Accused Network Of Bias, Issues 'Final Warning'

Former President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/donald-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a>, who is running another campaign for the White House, demanded this week that funding be cut from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/national-public-radio-npr" target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Public Radio (NPR)</a> after a longtime NPR editor <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/we-lost-americas-trust-npr-veteran-says-network-has-lost-its-way" target="_blank" rel="noopener">accused</a> the network of espousing left-wing bias.
&#8220;NO MORE FUNDING FOR NPR, A TOTAL SCAM! EDITOR SAID THEY HAVE NO REPUBLICANS, AND IS ONLY USED TO &#8216;DAMAGE TRUMP.&#8217; THEY ARE A LIBERAL DISINFORMATION MACHINE. NOT ONE DOLLAR!!!&#8221; Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/112248653824267212" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in a post to Truth Social on Wednesday.
The Free Press published an <a href="https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust" target="_blank" rel="noopener">op-ed</a> on Tuesday in which NPR Senior Business Editor Uri Berliner argued NPR &#8220;lost America&#8217;s trust&#8221; with its increasingly liberal bent. Despite his critique, Berliner said &#8220;defunding&#8221; was not the way to address the &#8220;missteps&#8221; he outlined.
&#8220;As the country becomes more fractured, there’s still a need for a public institution where stories are told and viewpoints exchanged in good faith. Defunding, as a rebuke from Congress, wouldn’t change the journalism at NPR. That needs to come from within,&#8221; he said.
Multiple times during his presidency, Trump <a href="https://deadline.com/2020/02/donald-trump-public-media-pbs-npr-1202856498/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">proposed</a> reining in funding for public media, but Congress did not take him up on the cuts. If he is re-elected this year, that could change. As noted in a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/11/trump-tightens-stranglehold-on-congressional-gop-00151629" target="_blank" rel="noopener">POLITICO report</a> after the House <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/house-blocks-fisa-spy-bill-opponents-demand-warrant-requirement" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blocked the advancement of a FISA bill</a> that Trump opposed, the former president is &#8220;tightening his stranglehold on the congressional GOP’s policy agenda.&#8221;
When NPR <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/npr-ditches-twitter-over-actions-that-undermine-our-credibility" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ditched</a> Twitter (now X) last year after being slapped with labels linking it to the U.S. government, the network <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/12/1169269161/npr-leaves-twitter-government-funded-media-label" target="_blank" rel="noopener">insisted</a> it &#8220;receives less than 1 percent of its $300 million annual budget from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting.&#8221; Still, on its website, NPR says federal funding is <a href="https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8220;essential&#8221;</a> and that ending it &#8220;would result in fewer programs, less journalism — especially local journalism—and eventually the loss of public radio stations, particularly in rural and economically distressed communities.&#8221;
In his op-ed, Berliner talked about how the &#8220;rise of advocacy took off&#8221; when Trump got elected to the White House in the 2016 election when he defeated Hillary Clinton.
&#8220;As in many newsrooms, his election in 2016 was greeted at NPR with a mixture of disbelief, anger, and despair. (Just to note, I eagerly voted against Trump twice but felt we were obliged to cover him fairly),&#8221; Berliner said. &#8220;But what began as tough, straightforward coverage of a belligerent, truth-impaired president veered toward efforts to damage or topple Trump’s presidency.&#8221;
Berliner discussed how NPR interviewed Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) dozens of times, during which he often spoke about there being evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia, but the network offered up &#8220;notably sparse&#8221; coverage when Robert Mueller&#8217;s special counsel report released in 2019 found &#8220;no credible evidence of collusion&#8221; and let Russiagate &#8220;fade&#8221; from its programming.
&#8220;It is one thing to swing and miss on a major story. Unfortunately, it happens,&#8221; Berliner said. &#8220;You follow the wrong leads, you get misled by sources you trusted, you’re emotionally invested in a narrative, and bits of circumstantial evidence never add up. It’s bad to blow a big story.&#8221;
The editor shared an anecdote about the Hunter Biden laptop story, which emerged prior to the 2020 election, saying it was &#8220;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.&#8221;
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Berliner also said he found 87 registered Democrats and zero Republicans working editorial positions in D.C., where NPR is headquartered, but when he shared the data in a staff meeting and suggested there was a diversity problem, &#8220;the response wasn’t hostile. It was worse. It was met with profound indifference.&#8221;
NPR Editor-in-Chief Edith Chapin <a href="https://twitter.com/BenMullin/status/1777773343267062201" target="_blank" rel="noopener">released</a> a statement saying that she and her colleagues on the leadership team &#8220;strongly disagree with Uri’s assessment of the quality of our journalism and the integrity of our newsroom processes.&#8221; She also said, &#8220;We&#8217;re proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories.&#8221;

Former President Donald Trump

Trump Calls For Cutting NPR Funds After Editor Accuses Network Of Bias

Donald Trump

Politics

Trump Administration

The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/biden-administration">Biden administration</a>&#8216;s efforts to promote electric vehicles hit a roadblock during Energy Secretary <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/jennifer-granholm">Jennifer Granholm</a>&#8216;s summer trip through the southeast United States.
Granholm and her entourage used a fleet of electric vehicles to journey from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Memphis, Tennessee, with town hall events along the way, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/09/10/1187224861/electric-vehicles-evs-cars-chargers-charging-energy-secretary-jennifer-granholm">NPR&#8217;s Camila Domonoske</a> wrote in a report published on Sunday.
The purpose of the trip was to &#8220;draw attention to the billions of dollars the White House is pouring into green energy and clean cars,&#8221; but Domonoske, who joined the caravan for the ride, shared how the four-day venture was not a smooth ride all the way through.
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Energy Secretary Granholm recently took 4-day EV caravan trip across the southeast to &quot;draw attention to the billions of dollars the White House is pouring into green energy and clean cars.&quot;
What happened next is like a scene out of VEEP: <a href="https://t.co/D0uuGJjJIl">pic.twitter.com/D0uuGJjJIl</a>
&mdash; Scott Lincicome (@scottlincicome) <a href="https://twitter.com/scottlincicome/status/1700911024017133707?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 10, 2023</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;[B]etween stops, Granholm&#8217;s entourage at times had to grapple with the limitations of the present. Like when her caravan of EVs — including a luxury Cadillac Lyriq, a hefty Ford F-150 and an affordable Bolt electric utility vehicle — was planning to fast-charge in Grovetown, a suburb of Augusta, Georgia,&#8221; the report said.
&#8220;Her advance team realized there weren&#8217;t going to be enough plugs to go around. One of the station&#8217;s four chargers was broken, and others were occupied. So an Energy Department staffer tried parking a nonelectric vehicle by one of those working chargers to reserve a spot for the approaching secretary of energy,&#8221; the report continued. &#8220;That did not go down well: a regular gas-powered car blocking the only free spot for a charger?&#8221;
&#8220;In fact, a family that was boxed out — on a sweltering day, with a baby in the vehicle — was so upset they decided to get the authorities involved: They called the police,&#8221; the report added. &#8220;The sheriff&#8217;s office couldn&#8217;t do anything. It&#8217;s not illegal for a non-EV to claim a charging spot in Georgia. Energy Department staff scrambled to smooth over the situation, including sending other vehicles to slower chargers, until both the frustrated family and the secretary had room to charge.&#8221;
The story drew some mockery on social media, highlighted as being a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/electric-vehicles-catch-fire-after-hurricane-idalia-flooding">encapsulation of the hardships</a> that complicate the federal government&#8217;s push for a transition away from gasoline-burning vehicles.
Scott Lincicome, the vice president of general economics at the libertarian Cato Institute, <a href="https://twitter.com/scottlincicome/status/1700911024017133707">shared</a> a screenshot of the passage about the struggles experienced by Granholm&#8217;s crew and said it was &#8220;like a scene out of VEEP,&#8221; referring to HBO&#8217;s political satire series starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus that ran from 2012 to 2019.
&#8220;Secretary of Energy boots family with baby so she can use their EV charger. For reference, Article I, Section 9 states &#8216;No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States,'&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/profstonge/status/1700927096183304406">added</a> Heritage Foundation <a href="https://www.heritage.org/staff/peter-st-onge">research fellow</a> Peter St Onge.
Domonoske noted in her report that drivers may face more issues with there not being enough chargers as the number of electric vehicles increases. She emphasized how this is particularly a problem for non-Tesla electric vehicles, as Elon Musk&#8217;s company still <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/07/ev-sales-hyundai-overtakes-gm-but-teslas-us-dominance-continues.html">dominates</a> the market in the United States, though some other automakers are embracing Tesla&#8217;s technology and its <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/electric-vehicle-charging-network-tesla-mercedes-benz/">charging network</a> is being opened to more vehicles.
Granholm, at the end of her trip, conceded, &#8220;Clearly, we need more high-speed chargers, particularly in the South.&#8221;

Jennifer Granholm

Energy Secretary’s Electric Vehicle Roadtrip Devolves Into ‘Scene Out Of VEEP’

Energy Secretary's Electric Vehicle Roadtrip Devolves Into 'Scene Out Of VEEP'

Department of Energy

Electric cars

Energy

Transportation

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/national-public-radio-npr" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NPR</a> said on Wednesday that <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/elon-musk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Elon Musk</a> threatened to take away the <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/twitter" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Twitter</a> handle belonging to the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/legacy-media" target="_blank" rel="noopener">news</a> outlet unless the firm continues to post on the <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/social-media" target="_blank" rel="noopener">platform</a>.
The outlet, which ceased using Twitter last month after Musk temporarily affixed a label to the account noting that NPR receives funds from government entities, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/02/1173422311/elon-musk-npr-twitter-reassign" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revealed</a> that Musk sent a “series of emails” to business reporter Bobby Allyn on Tuesday: &#8220;So is NPR going to start posting on Twitter again, or should we reassign @NPR to another company?&#8221;
Allyn wrote that the idea shocked “even longtime observers of Musk&#8217;s spur-of-the-moment and erratic leadership style” and asserted that an effort to reassign companies’ handles on the site “poses a serious risk of impersonation and could imperil a company&#8217;s reputation.”
The reporter noted to Musk that the current Twitter terms of service <a href="https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/inactive-twitter-accounts#:~:text=What%20is%20Twitter's%20inactive%20account,removed%20due%20to%20prolonged%20inactivity." target="_blank" rel="noopener">define</a> inactive accounts as those which do not log into the platform at least once every 30 days. &#8220;Our policy is to recycle handles that are definitively dormant,&#8221; Musk replied in another email. &#8220;Same policy applies to all accounts. No special treatment for NPR.&#8221;
NPR expressed outrage over the decision from Twitter to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/twitter-changes-nprs-state-sponsored-media-label" target="_blank" rel="noopener">add</a> a “state-affiliated media” tag to the company’s profile, a label that placed NPR in the company of foreign state-run media outlets such as TASS in Russia and Xinhua News in China. Although NPR was created with an act of Congress, Twitter previously listed NPR as an exception in the United States because of the “editorial independence” maintained by the company.
“NPR’s organizational accounts will no longer be active on Twitter because the platform is taking actions that undermine our credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorially independent,” a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/npr-ditches-twitter-over-actions-that-undermine-our-credibility" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> from NPR said last month. “We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility and the public’s understanding of our editorial independence.”
Musk <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/06/1168455846/elon-musk-says-nprs-state-affiliated-media-label-might-not-have-been-accurate" target="_blank" rel="noopener">removed</a> the “state-affiliated media” label from the NPR account nearly one month ago after Allyn told him that the outlet receives only 1% of its operating budget from government funds. The account has 8.8 million followers and has remained inactive since early April.
The complaints from NPR come after the outlet reduced headcount by 10% and shuttered production on four seasonal podcasts as a result of a sponsorship shortfall. Dismissed employees <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/npr-employees-cry-racism-amid-ceo-discussing-mass-layoffs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">accused</a> NPR CEO John Lansing of racism in one virtual meeting about the layoffs.
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Musk, who also serves as chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, said he bought Twitter at the end of last year for $44 billion in order to reserve a corner of the public square for open dialogue. The billionaire entrepreneur <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/elon-musk-takes-away-blue-check-verification-from-celebrities-and-news-outlets-confusion-and-hilarity-ensue" target="_blank" rel="noopener">introduced</a> a new revenue structure based on subscriptions rather than advertisements after he noted that a number of advertisers have ended their relationships with the company at the behest of leftist organizations, dealing a significant blow to the business.
“Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists,” Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1588538640401018880" target="_blank" rel="noopener">remarked</a> on the platform. “Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.”

Elon Musk

‘No Special Treatment’: Elon Musk Says He Will Give NPR’s Twitter Handle To Another Company Unless They Return To The Platform

Elon Musk Says He Will Give NPR's Twitter Handle To Another Company Unless They Return To The Platform

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<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/national-public-radio-npr" target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Public Radio (NPR)</a> said on Wednesday it would no longer use <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/twitter" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Twitter</a> after being slapped with labels linking the media organization to the U.S. government.
The decision, roughly six months after <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/elon-musk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Elon Musk</a> became CEO of Twitter, means NPR will cease posting content to its <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/12/1169269161/npr-leaves-twitter-government-funded-media-label" target="_blank" rel="noopener">52 &#8220;official&#8221;</a> Twitter feeds.
“NPR’s organizational accounts will no longer be active on Twitter because the platform is taking actions that undermine our credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorially independent,&#8221; an NPR spokesperson said in a statement.
&#8220;We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility and the public’s understanding of our editorial independence,” the statement added.
NPR expressed outrage and has not tweeted links to its reporting since last week when Twitter added a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/twitter-changes-nprs-state-sponsored-media-label" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8220;state-affiliated media&#8221;</a> tag to NPR&#8217;s profile, a label that put NPR in the company of foreign state-run media outlets such as Russia&#8217;s TASS and China Xinhua News. Although NPR was created <a href="https://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/caseconsortium/casestudies/54/casestudy/www/layout/case_id_54_id_544.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">thanks to an act by Congress</a>, Twitter previously listed NPR <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20230331001817/https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affiliated" target="_blank" rel="noopener">as an exception</a> in the United States due to its &#8220;editorial independence.&#8221;
Among those who rallied to the defense of NPR was the White House. President Joe Biden&#8217;s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/npr-criticizes-twitter-for-labeling-its-account-as-state-affiliated-media-d871aa90?mod=article_inline" target="_blank" rel="noopener">touted NPR&#8217;s &#8220;independence&#8221;</a> and said its journalists &#8220;work diligently to hold public officials accountable and inform the American people.&#8221;
Critics of NPR, including Fox News host Tucker Carlson, voiced support for the change.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Tucker hilariously SNAPS on Regime-funded NPR after Elon Musk literally exposes them to world as &quot;State media&quot; on Twitter 🔥
&quot;NPR is not that much different to the Tehran Times, except, of course being less accurate and more anti-American.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/UHg7PKjujs">pic.twitter.com/UHg7PKjujs</a>
&mdash; Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) <a href="https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1644386116521394178?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2023</a></blockquote>
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&nbsp;
When an NPR reporter pointed out to Musk that NPR receives about 1% of its annual operating budget from government financial support, the CEO conceded the new label might not be correct. &#8220;The operating principle at new Twitter is simply fair and equal treatment, so if we label non-US accounts as govt, then we should do the same for US, but it sounds like that might not be accurate here,&#8221; <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/06/1168455846/elon-musk-says-nprs-state-affiliated-media-label-might-not-have-been-accurate" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Musk wrote in an email</a>.
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Twitter then changed NPR&#8217;s label to &#8220;Government-funded Media.&#8221; <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/09/media/bbc-twitter-row-intl-gbr/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BBC also now has the same tag</a>.
NPR&#8217;s main Twitter account with 8.8 million followers became active on Wednesday, <a href="https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1646138100035272704" target="_blank" rel="noopener">but only to insist</a> that it &#8220;produces consequential, independent journalism every day in service to the public,&#8221; and to share other platforms upon which it will continue to post.
John Lansing, the CEO of NPR, reportedly said individual NPR staffers would be allowed to continue tweeting but stressed that NPR would not immediately return to Twitter if it drops the label. &#8220;At this point I have lost my faith in the decision-making at Twitter,&#8221; <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/12/1169269161/npr-leaves-twitter-government-funded-media-label" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lansing said</a>. &#8220;I would need some time to understand whether Twitter can be trusted again.&#8221;

NPR building

NPR Ditches Twitter Over ‘Actions That Undermine Our Credibility’

NPR Ditches Twitter Over 'Actions That Undermine Our Credibility'

Twitter is no longer branding National Public Radio (NPR) “state-sponsored media.”
Elon Musk&#8217;s Twitter changed the “state-sponsored media” label on NPR&#8217;s Twitter account to “government-funded media” on Saturday.
The social media giant initially slapped the “state-sponsored media” label on the radio news outlet on Tuesday, at which point NPR&#8217;s account stopped tweeting. NPR&#8217;s last tweet was a link to one of its own articles on Tuesday.
After Twitter&#8217;s move, NPR changed its Twitter bio to state that it is “an independent news organization committed to informing the public about the world around us.”
On Wednesday, NPR President and CEO John Lansing <a href="https://twitter.com/johnlansing/status/1643632082780913665" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> he was &#8220;disturbed&#8221; by Twitter&#8217;s initial decision to label the outlet &#8220;state-sponsored media&#8221; and called the move &#8220;unacceptable.&#8221;
&#8220;NPR and our Member stations are supported by millions of listeners who depend on us for the independent, fact-based journalism we provide. NPR stands for freedom of speech and holding the powerful accountable,&#8221; Lansing tweeted.
&#8220;It is unacceptable for Twitter to label us this way. A vigorous, vibrant free press is essential to the health of our democracy,&#8221; he added.
Twitter defines &#8220;state-affiliated media&#8221; as &#8220;outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution.&#8221;
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NPR&#8217;s radio stations are partially <a href="https://www.cpb.org/aboutcpb" target="_blank" rel="noopener">funded</a> by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a nonprofit funded by the federal government. The CPB also funds Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) television stations.
However, CPB says NPR is &#8220;principally funded by member stations, distribution services, underwriting and institutional grants and individual contributions,&#8221; <a href="https://cpb.org/faq#1-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to the CPB website.
&#8220;On average, less than 1% of NPR&#8217;s annual operating budget comes in the form of grants from CPB and federal agencies and departments,&#8221; NPR <a href="https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances" target="_blank" rel="noopener">says</a>.
NPR correspondent David Gura pointed out that Twitter apparently edited its policy to remove a reference to NPR as a media outlet that has “editorial independence.”
“Yesterday, @elonmusk’s Twitter labeled NPR ‘state-affiliated media,’ even though the company’s own policy stated the organization shouldn’t be labeled as such because it has editorial independence,” Gura <a href="https://twitter.com/davidgura/status/1643607181395197959" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tweeted</a> on Wednesday.
The original &#8220;state-sponsored media&#8221; label given to NPR prompted comparisons to the &#8220;Russian state-affiliated media&#8221; label given to Russia Today&#8217;s Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/RT_com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">account</a> and the &#8220;China state-affiliated media&#8221; one <a href="https://twitter.com/XHNews" target="_blank" rel="noopener">given</a> China&#8217;s Xinhua News.
By law, it is illegal for the U.S. government to exercise “any direction, supervision, or control over the content or distribution of public telecommunications programs and services,” <a href="https://www.cpb.org/aboutpb/act">according</a> to the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.
Twitter has <a href="https://twitter.com/BBC" target="_blank" rel="noopener">put</a> the same “government-funded media” label on the British Broadcasting Corporation&#8217;s (BBC) Twitter account.
The BBC quickly objected to the move.
“We are speaking to Twitter to resolve this issue as soon as possible. The BBC is, and always has been, independent. We are funded by the British public through the licence fee.”
&#8220;What does BBC stand for again? I keep forgetting,&#8221; Twitter owner Elon Musk quipped in a tweet.
On Wednesday, the White House chimed in defending NPR as independent from government influence.
&#8220;There&#8217;s no doubt of the independence of NPR&#8217;s journalists,&#8221; White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. &#8220;If you&#8217;ve ever been on the receiving end of their questions you know that they have their independence in journalism.&#8221;

Twitter Changes NPR’s ‘State-Sponsored Media’ Label

National Public Radio&#8217;s official Twitter account received the designation of being state-sponsored media this week, angering left-wing journalists at the company while eliciting mockery from conservatives online.
Under the account&#8217;s verification badge, the words &#8220;US state-affiliated media&#8221; now appear. The organization does receive U.S. taxpayer funding.
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Twitter has now correctly branded NPR as US state-affiliated media. It is an accurate description. <a href="https://t.co/ewg35r4xIL">pic.twitter.com/ewg35r4xIL</a>
&mdash; Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) <a href="https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1643482527234154497?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 5, 2023</a></blockquote>
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In response to an account posting a screenshot of the NPR&#8217;s label on the platform,  Twitter CEO Elon Musk shared the company’s policy on labeling state-affiliated media.
&#8220;State-affiliated media is defined as outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution,&#8221; the Twitter policy says.
NPR President John Lansing lashed out at the designation, claiming that the organization provides &#8220;independent, fact-based journalism.&#8221;
&#8220;We were disturbed to see last night that Twitter has labeled NPR as &#8216;state-affiliated media,&#8217; a description that, per Twitter&#8217;s own guidelines, does not apply to NPR,&#8221; he said. &#8220;NPR and our Member stations are supported by millions of listeners who depend on us for the independent, fact-based journalism we provide.&#8221;
&#8220;NPR stands for freedom of speech and holding the powerful accountable,&#8221; he claimed. &#8220;It is unacceptable for Twitter to label us this way. A vigorous, vibrant free press is essential to the health of our democracy.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
NPR stands for freedom of speech &amp; holding the powerful accountable. A vigorous, vibrant free press is essential to the health of our democracy. My full statement on the recent inaccurate Twitter label below: <a href="https://t.co/kdusUNtNUo">pic.twitter.com/kdusUNtNUo</a>
&mdash; John Lansing (@johnlansing) <a href="https://twitter.com/johnlansing/status/1643632082780913665?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 5, 2023</a></blockquote>
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NPR infamously refused to cover the Hunter Biden laptop scandal in the weeks before the 2020 presidential election.
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&#8220;We don&#8217;t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don&#8217;t want to waste the listeners&#8217; and readers&#8217; time on stories that are just pure distractions,&#8221; NPR Managing Editor Terence Samuels said at the time in explaining why the publication would not cover the story.
Actor Dean Cain responded, &#8220;Taxpayer money should NOT fund NPR.&#8221;
Daily Caller editor Vince Coglianese tweeted: &#8220;Notice that he doesn’t even bother to acknowledge the role government funding does play in subsidizing NPR. This is written like a statement from a political campaign.&#8221;
&#8220;&#8216;[H]olding the powerful accountable&#8217; — @NPR unquestioningly carried water for the nation&#8217;s establishment &amp; elite during COVID and submits to the same political narrative that is uniformly espoused by the fed. government, academia, Hollywood, medicine, science, and media,&#8221; said Bryan Griffin, press secretary for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

NPR Gets Slapped With Warning Label On Twitter, Lashes Out In Statement

National Public Radio (NPR) employees accused the network&#8217;s CEO of racism during a virtual all-staff presentation last week detailing financial metrics and diversity level updates following the organization slashing approximately 10% of its workforce. 
NPR officials laid off 84 employees last week and halted production on four seasonal podcasts, including Invisibilia, Louder Than a Riot, and Rough Translation. <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-03-30/tensions-flare-inside-npr-after-staff-layoffs-and-town-halls">The Wall Street Journal</a> reported network officials would cut another 13 employees from the digital team.
Following the exodus from ex-staffers, Lansing and other executives reportedly tuned into a Zoom meeting to address the news department and the programming team, taking questions from employees that included how many employees of different races and identities were laid off compared to those who retained their job. 
&#8220;We&#8217;re here today to take your questions and see if we can move together through this,&#8221; Lansing said, according to a recording of the meeting that Bloomberg obtained, adding that the network would have run out of money in approximately three years if the company kept its entire staff. 
At one point during the meeting, The Wall Street Journal reported a laid-off black employee grilled Lansing about why some podcasts lacked marketing support, called out by name the executives for repeating statements they made in the past concerning more accountability, and questioned how the network would make diversity essential.
Lansing pointed to the network&#8217;s mission statement and told the group to &#8220;turn down the rhetoric&#8221; and refrain from naming the executives.
&#8220;I would never, ever, on your worst day, call you out by name in a meeting with 827 people,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Let&#8217;s please keep in mind nobody is happy about this. Nobody is more unhappy about it than those affected, but certainly, everybody in the company, beginning with me, this is the last thing we wanted to do.&#8221;
Despite Lansing&#8217;s remarks about making such decisions, a group of employees reportedly accused him of &#8220;tone-policing,&#8221; causing them to feel offended and uncomfortable with the conversation, which he said should have been more civil.
Employees began calling Lansing&#8217;s response &#8220;racist&#8221; during the Zoom meeting. 
One employee referenced a segment from NPR&#8217;s Code Switch titled &#8220;When Civility Is Used As A Cudgel Against People Of Color.&#8221; 
&#8220;Civility is a weapon wielded by the powerful,&#8221; one person wrote, according to screenshots of the chat viewed by Bloomberg.
&#8220;This meeting has made me more afraid for the future of public media than any conversation I have had in a very long time,&#8221; wrote another.
In an email, NPR Chief Communications Officer Isabel Lara told Bloomberg that the organization creates &#8220;forums for internal staff conversations and respects the hard questions that come from our staff.&#8221; 
&#8220;We value the feedback we receive and acknowledge that this is an incredibly difficult time for everyone in our organization,&#8221; Lara said. &#8220;Our staff has the right and duty to hold NPR leadership accountable,&#8221; adding the organization has committed to creating and maintaining an environment where &#8220;we treat our colleagues with the utmost compassion, respect and dignity, and we will continue to provide opportunities for everyone in the organization to provide feedback on this process and support continuing dialogue.&#8221;
In a February <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/npr-sees-sharp-decline-in-ad-revenue-announces-10-of-staff-face-layoffs">memo</a> distributed to NPR staff, CEO John Lansing broke the news that the network would have to cut most vacant positions and lay off around 10% of its current staff — approximately 100 employees — amid a &#8220;sharp decline&#8221; in advertisement revenues. 
Lansing broke the news nearly three months after pledging the nonprofit media organization would attempt to avoid layoffs as the network said it would lose approximately $10 million from the current fiscal year budget.
&#8220;Our financial outlook has darkened considerably over recent weeks,&#8221; Lansing wrote in the memo published by The Hollywood Reporter. &#8220;At a time when we are doing some of our most ambitious and essential work, the global economy remains uncertain. As a result, the ad industry has weakened and we are grappling with a sharp decline in our revenues from corporate sponsors.&#8221;
According to the outlet, the company employs over 700 individuals, with about 490 people filling the newsroom and 230 staff members in the programming division. Lansing told NPR staffers that officials had created a plan to address a $20 million sponsorship revenue fall-off for the current fiscal year, but new projections show at least a $30 million shortfall.

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