NPR’s new executive director, Katherine Maher, called the First Amendment the “number one challenge” to American journalism during a roundtable discussion.
Maher, 40, noted that the First Amendment provides a “pretty strong protection of rights,” making it “a little complicated to address some of the real challenges about where bad information comes from.”
These comments were made during an online panel discussion at the 360/Open Summit held by the Atlantic Council in 2021.
The clip went viral after whistleblowing editor Uri Berliner was suspended for speaking out about the outlet’s progressive bias last week.
Berliner announced his resignation on Wednesday, stating: “I cannot work in a newsroom where I am belittled by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the same issues I cite in my Free Press essay.”
NPR’s new executive director, Katherine Maher, called the First Amendment the “number one challenge” to American journalism during a roundtable in 2021.
The clip went viral after whistleblowing editor Uri Berliner (pictured) was suspended for speaking out about the outlet’s progressive bias last week.
“The number one challenge we see here is, of course, the First Amendment in the United States,” Maher said on the panel hosted by the Atlantic Council research lab, where she served as a nonresident senior fellow.
According to the organization releaseShe spoke about fighting censorship, diversity, and building trust based on her experience as the former CEO of Wikimedia, which owns Wikipedia.
The clip has now gone viral on X, and Elon Musk reposts it and says: ‘This is getting crazier and crazier! The director of NPR hates the United States Constitution.’
Maher recently made national headlines after former NPR editor Berliner wrote an open essay for The free presswhere he criticized the outlet for being almost entirely composed of Democrats and, according to him, “lost the trust of the United States.”
Berliner claimed that the publicly funded station became an activist organization obsessed with advancing progressive ideals.
In response to the 25-year NPR veteran’s article, the network suspended him for five days for violating its policy on working or reporting for another media outlet without permission, effective Friday.
He resigned Wednesday, saying, “I am resigning from NPR, a great American institution where I have worked for 25 years.” I do not support calls to defund NPR. “I respect the integrity of my colleagues and want NPR to thrive and do important journalism.”
Maher insisted in a statement that the company remains committed to “serving the entire American public.”
“Questioning whether our people are fulfilling our mission with integrity, based on little more than recognition of their identity, is deeply disrespectful, hurtful and degrading,” he said.
Berliner said in an interview that the emergence of old tweets from Maher undermines his message.
The clip has now gone viral on X, and Elon Musk reposts it and says: ‘This is getting crazier and crazier! The head of NPR hates the US Constitution.
Berliner says in his resignation that he cannot work for the “divisive” new CEO Maher (pictured)
Berlinger argued in his article that NPR has “lost America’s trust” because it was staffed almost entirely by Democrats.
The tweets in question included a Veiled shot at the Trump brand. him a ‘deranged racist sociopath’, and shares his support for President Biden by sharing selfies in his campaign hats.
Berliner confirmed his suspension while sitting down for a follow-up interview with NPRand the network said he would be fired if he overstepped again.
But the business editor argued that Maher’s tweets make her unable to run the taxpayer-funded company in a moderate and fair way.
“We’re looking for a leader right now who will unify and bring more people into the tent and who will have a broader perspective on, sort of, what America means,” he said.
“And this seems to be the opposite of that.”
The tweets also included Maher saying, “I wish Hillary wouldn’t use the ‘boy and girl’ language; she’s erasing the language for non-binary people.”
In November 2020, Maher tweeted: “There are a lot of jokes about leaving America, and I get it. But as someone with cis white mobility privileges, I’m thinking about staying and investing in getting rid of this specter of tyranny.”
Amid the BLM riots, Maher also stated: ‘I mean, of course, looting is counterproductive. But it’s hard to get angry because the protests don’t prioritize private property over a system of oppression based on treating people’s ancestors as private property.’
Before publishing his scathing essay on the state of NPR, Berliner said he tried numerous times to raise concerns about his liberal leanings.
In particular, he said coverage of the issues that dominated recent years had been tainted by NPR’s liberal bias, including the war between Israel and Hamas, transgenderism and Covid-19.
Berliner added that he believes other media outlets have similar problems, but he believes NPR’s public funding and its insistence that it is moderate means it has an obligation to remain impartial.
“I love NPR and feel like it’s a national trust,” he said. ‘We have great journalists here. If they would get rid of their opinions and do the great journalism they are capable of, this would be a much more interesting and satisfying organization for our listeners.’
Writing for The Free Press, a popular Substack site, Berliner said the rise of “advocacy” in journalism emerged especially at the same time as Donald Trump’s political career.
“As in many newsrooms, his election in 2016 was greeted at NPR with a mix of disbelief, anger and despair,” he wrote.
