NPR faces right-wing revolt and calls for defunding after editor claims left-wing bias
Analysis by Oliver Darcy, CNN
New York (CNN) — Editor’s Note: A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.
National Public Radio is being battered by a right-wing storm.
A day after NPR senior business editor Uri Berliner penned a scathing piece for Bari Weiss’ Free Press, pointedly critiquing the publicly funded outlet and portraying it as an institution that has descended into the depths of wokeism, the network finds itself under siege.
Donald Trump, Fox News, and the other organs in the right-wing universe are holding up Berliner’s 3,500-word piece to demonize the outlet. And they are not stopping with a simple verbal assault, openly demanding that lawmakers strip the newsroom of its government funding. Trump on Wednesday, calling NPR a “LIBERAL DISINFORMATION MACHINE,” said that “NOT ONE DOLLAR” of government funds should be sent into its coffers moving forward.
“NO MORE FUNDING FOR NPR, A TOTAL SCAM!” Trump ranted on his Truth Social platform.
While Trump has pushed to defund the outlet before, the rage present in his post reflected the larger backlash in the right-wing media universe, where top figures have lambasted the public radio broadcaster as nothing more than a liberal propaganda mouthpiece and questioned why taxpayer dollars are funding the outlet. The NPR editor’s allegations of network bias has been billed as a top story, with right-wing outlets and personalities portraying Berliner as a “whistleblower” who has shined a bright light on a sinister operation aimed at indoctrinating Americans.
“WOKE NPR EXPOSED,” declared an on-screen banner Wednesday on Fox News’ most-watched program, “The Five.”
“NPR PUMPED OUT AN ASSEMBLY LINE OF PROPAGANDA,” blared a separate banner on Fox News host Jesse Watters’ primetime program.
Berliner, however, did not go nearly that far in his piece. And he stressed in his essay that defunding the broadcaster “isn’t the answer.” In an email on Wednesday, Berliner also told CNN that he rejects the notion that NPR is a “liberal disinformation machine,” as Trump stated.
“I have not seen Trump’s comments, but the quote you cite is not the first time he has attacked the media,” he wrote. “He has done it countless times before and will no doubt do it many times again.”
While Berliner is not entirely on board with how his essay is being interpreted by Trump and his MAGA Media allies, the piece did validate a number of complaints the right has had about NPR and the press at large. Berliner ridiculed the outlet’s coverage of “Russiagate,” the Covid-19 lab-leak theory and the New York Post’s Hunter Biden story. And he used his complaints about how those individual stories were covered by his colleagues to draw a sweeping conclusion. NPR, he asserted, had “lost America’s trust” by embracing a “progressive worldview,” rejecting “viewpoint diversity,” and “telling listeners how to think.”
Berliner, who cited data showing that in 2023 self-identifying conservatives consumed NPR in fewer numbers than they had in 2011, strangely failed to identify the elephant in the room: by 2023, Trump and the MAGA Media machine had spent years waging a brutal war on truth and the media organizations that espouse it. That war, unquestionably, is responsible for many Republicans losing trust in newsrooms, including NPR’s. Additionally, those who identified as a Republican in 2011 may have, after the chaotic Trump presidency, changed how they identify politically.
But when CNN asked Berliner why his essay neglected to mention the impact Trump’s war on the media has had on the public’s trust, he declined to comment.
“That’s all from me now,” Berliner wrote, strangely disinterested in a topic that cuts to the very heart of his essay’s central thesis.
In a follow-up email, Berliner sent a link to a Gallup poll conducted last year showing trust in media had fallen, writing, “Confidence in the media has tanked, including among Democrats. It’s a good time for us to look in the mirror.”
Regardless of the questionable merits of Berliner’s sweeping conclusions, his piece has been nothing short of a massive gift to the right, which has made vilifying the news media its top priority in recent years. If Berliner had hoped that his essay would generate a conversation that would increase trust from conservatives, he was sorely mistaken. Ironically, it is doing the very opposite.
NPR’s response, meanwhile, has been rather muted. Editor-In-Chief Edith Chapin pushed back against Berliner’s characterization of the outlet in a Tuesday memo to staffers. Chapin said that NPR management “strongly disagree with Uri’s assessment of the quality of our journalism and the integrity of our newsroom processes.”
But the outlet remained silent on Wednesday. A spokesperson did not respond to questions about attacks on the outlet or how management could expect its staffers to collaborate with Berliner, given how he openly spurned colleagues in his Free Press essay.
Berliner declined to comment when asked what he would say to colleagues who have concerns that he can no longer be trusted. But the editor said that, for now, he is still employed by NPR.
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