Source: LifeSiteNews.com
A longtime senior editor at National Public Radio (NPR) published a blistering critique of the government-funded “news” outlet’s extreme liberal bias, citing how NPR willfully “turned a blind eye” to the truth concerning alleged Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, Hunter Biden’s laptop, and the origin of COVID-19.
The Free Press’ explosive 3,500-word op-ed “I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.” by Uri Berliner confirms what many heartland Americans have known for decades: “An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America.”
“Our news audience doesn’t come close to reflecting America,” wrote Berliner, who has worked at NPR for 25 years. “It’s overwhelmingly white and progressive, and clustered around coastal cities and college towns.”
Berliner paints a picture of an organization driven by DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) that almost always “defaulted to ideological story lines,” and is damaged by “the absence 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,” Berliner wrote. “None.”
When he presented his findings at an all-hands editorial staff meeting, suggesting “we had a diversity problem with a score of 87 Democrats and zero Republicans, the response wasn’t hostile. It was worse. It was met with profound indifference.”
Berliner draws attention to three enormous examples of NPR’s blindness regarding enormously important stories, a blindness that likely produced real-world consequences concerning the two most recent U.S. presidential elections and COVID-19 policies.
Russia collusion hoax
“Persistent rumors that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia over the election became the catnip that drove reporting,” Berliner said. “At NPR, we hitched our wagon to Trump’s most visible antagonist, Representative Adam Schiff.”
“Schiff, who was the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, became NPR’s guiding hand, its ever-present muse,” he explained. “By my count, NPR hosts interviewed Schiff 25 times about Trump and Russia. During many of those conversations, Schiff alluded to purported evidence of collusion. The Schiff talking points became the drumbeat of NPR news reports.”
“But when the Mueller report found no credible evidence of collusion, NPR’s coverage was notably sparse,” Berliner confessed. “Russiagate quietly faded from our programming.”
“It is one thing to swing and miss on a major story,” Berliner allowed. “What’s worse is to pretend it never happened, to move on with no mea culpas, no self-reflection. Especially when you expect high standards of transparency from public figures and institutions but don’t practice those standards yourself. That’s what shatters trust and engenders cynicism about the media.”
Hunter Biden’s laptop ignored ‘because it could help Trump’
After the New York Post published a shocking report about the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop just weeks before the 2020 election, “NPR turned a blind eye.”
NPR’s managing editor dismissed the important story, saying “we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.”
“But it wasn’t a pure distraction, or a product of Russian disinformation, as dozens of former and current intelligence officials suggested,” Berliner wrote. “The laptop did belong to Hunter Biden. Its contents revealed his connection to the corrupt world of multimillion-dollar influence peddling and its possible implications for his father.”
“The laptop was newsworthy. But the timeless journalistic instinct of following a hot story lead was being squelched,” he continued. “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.”…