VICIOUS LEFT HOOK
NPR suspends editor
NPR suspended a top editor who ripped the network over its leftleaning bias — but the journalist doubled down Tuesday, saying its new, controversial CEO is the “opposite” of what the embattled radio outlet needs.
Uri Berliner, who published the bombshell essay last week claiming NPR has “lost America’s trust” by reporting the news with a leftwing slant, was sidelined for five days without pay beginning last Friday after his article ignited a firestorm.
Still, Berliner in a Tuesday interview ripped NPR CEO Katherine Maher over a trove of past posts unearthed on X. Those included calling Donald Trump “racist” in 2018 and blasting Hillary Clinton for using the terms “boy” and “girl,” saying she was “erasing language for non-binary people.”
“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 media scribe David Folkenflik Tuesday. “And this seems to be the opposite of that.”
Folkenflik, who reviewed the suspension letter, said NPR told Berliner he had failed to secure the approval needed for outside news work — before writing his essay.
NPR called the letter a “final warning,” saying Berliner would be fired if he violated its policy again.
News ‘blind spots’
Berliner, a Peabody Award-winning journalist who has worked at NPR for 25 years, called out journalistic blind spots around major news events, including the origins of COVID-19, the war in Gaza and the Hunter Biden laptop, in an essay published April 9 on Bari Weiss’ online news site the Free Press.
Last week, Maher, 42, defended NPR’s journalism, calling Berliner’s article “profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning,” The exec added that the essay amounted to “a criticism of our people on the basis of who we are.”
Berliner, however, said “I love NPR and feel it’s a national trust.” He added, “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.”
An NPR spokeswoman, Isabel Lara, defended Maher’s prior posts noting she “was not working in journalism at the time and was exercising her First Amendment right to express herself like any other American citizen.”