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https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/11/media/npr-uri-berliner-left-bias-right-wing-media/index.html
NPR faces right-wing revolt and calls for defunding after editor claims left-wing bias
Oliver Darcy
Analysis by Oliver Darcy, CNN
4 minute read
Published 6:45 AM EDT, Thu April 11, 2024
NPR (National Public Radio) is facing a backlash from the right wing
media. Raymond Boyd/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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.
New York
CNN
—
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.
Trump is recreating his web of chaos at home and abroad in a preview of
what a second term could look like
“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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