NPR has often faced charges of political bias in its coverage, especially since and during the rise of former President Donald Trump. One of its senior editors now admits that he views the outlet as a biased one.
In an op-ed for The Free Press, NPR Senior Business Editor Uri Berliner — who has been at the network for 25 years — shared his belief that the outlet has now shifted to a much more left-leaning perspective than it ever featured before.
“It’s true NPR has always had a liberal bent, but during most of my tenure here, an open-minded, curious culture prevailed. We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding,” Berliner wrote. “In recent years, however, that has changed. Today, those who listen to NPR or read its coverage online find something different: the distilled worldview of a very small segment of the U.S. population.”
“An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America,” he added.
Berliner pointed to three separate stories that, in his view, the network got wrong: the idea that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia in 2016, the genesis of the COVID-19 virus, and the Hunter Biden laptop story.
He added that the tone of the network changed under the direction of former CEO John Lansing after the death of George Floyd in 2020.
“The message from the top was very different. America’s infestation with systemic racism was declared loud and clear: it was a given. Our mission was to change it,” he alleged.
He shared that he still has faith the outlet can be an objective source of news for everyday Americans.
“For nearly all my career, working at NPR has been a source of great pride. It’s a privilege to work in the newsroom at a crown jewel of American journalism. My colleagues are congenial and hardworking,” he wrote. “For years, I have been persistent. When I believe our coverage has gone off the rails, I have written regular emails to top news leaders, sometimes even having one-on-one sessions with them.
“No one has ever trashed me. That’s not the NPR way. People are polite. But nothing changes. So I’ve become a visible wrong-thinker at a place I love. It’s uncomfortable, sometimes heartbreaking…Despite our missteps at NPR, defunding isn’t the answer. As the country becomes more fractured, there’s still a need for a public institution where stories are told and viewpoints exchanged in good faith. Defunding, as a rebuke from Congress, wouldn’t change the journalism at NPR. That needs to come from within.”
