Uri Berliner, a veteran journalist with National Public Radio, criticized his bosses on Tuesday.NPR
Published April 9, 2024
- Veteran business editor Uri Berliner wrote an essay for The Free Press on NPR
- He believes the newsroom changed for the worse after the 2016 election
- The killing of George Floyd also reinforced a leftist editorial line, Berliner writes
A veteran NPR editor has blown the whistle on how the publicly-funded broadcaster has become an activist organization obsessed with pushing progressive ideals.
Uri Berliner, a business editor at NPR for 25 years, has offered a glimpse into his belief that NPR has gone from a respected information source to one that can’t be trusted to honestly cover the news.
In an essay for The Free Press, Berliner notes that while NPR has always had a liberal bent, the publication was not ‘not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding’ – something he says changed when Donald Trump entered the political arena.
Berliner uncovers how NPR knowingly kept information from its audience during the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.
He says NPR editors were quick to jump on claims that Donald Trump was a Russian asset – but far more reticent to cover their subsequent debunking.
It was a similar story with the Covid lab leak theory, which NPR continues to discredit, as well as the Hunter Biden laptop, which bosses declined to cover, Berliner says.
‘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,’ Berliner writes.
Berliner tracks the last days of the old NPR to 2011, when he says it still had a leftist tilt, but ‘still bore bore a resemblance to America at large,’ and an audience that described themselves as 26 percent conservative, 23 percent moderate and 37 percent liberal.
But by 2023, only 11 percent of listeners described themselves as very or somewhat conservative, while 21 percent said they were ‘middle of the road,’ and 67 percent reported they were very or somewhat liberal.
‘That wouldn’t be a problem for an openly polemical news outlet serving a niche audience. But for NPR, which purports to consider all things, it’s devastating both for its journalism and its business model,’ the veteran editor says in his essay.
Berliner explains that Trump’s 2016 candidacy for presidency changed how NPR covered politics, writing: ‘what began as tough, straightforward coverage of a belligerent, truth-impaired president veered toward efforts to damage or topple Trump’s presidency.’
NPR, Berliner writes, became obsessed with rumors about Trump colluding with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton, repeatedly covering Representative Adam Schiff as he led the fight against Trump.
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SOURCE: www.dailymail.com
RELATED: NPR editor says network ‘turned a blind eye’ to Hunter Biden laptop story because ‘it could help Trump’
Berliner wrote that NPR has become an “openly polemical news outlet serving a niche audience.”
Published April 9, 2024
A veteran National Public Radio journalist slammed the left-leaning broadcaster for ignoring the Hunter Biden laptop scandal because it could have helped Donald Trump get re-elected.
Uri Berliner, an award-winning business editor and reporter at NPR, penned a lengthy essay in Bari Weiss’ online news site The Free Press in which he called out his bosses for turning the public radio broadcaster into “an openly polemical news outlet serving a niche audience.”
“The laptop was newsworthy,” Berliner wrote. “But the timeless journalistic instinct of following a hot story lead was being squelched.”
Weeks before the 2020 presidential election, The Post was the first to reveal the existence of the laptop that Hunter Biden left at a Delaware computer shop.
The Post published the contents of emails taken from the laptop, which shed light on Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine and China while his father, Joe Biden, was vice president during the Obama administration.
Initially, national security experts and former intelligence officials declared the laptop a hoax and was the product of a Russian disinformation campaign.
Social media sites like Twitter even barred its users from sharing links to The Post’s reporting.
The authenticity of the emails were later confirmed by independent experts and federal law enforcement officials.
According to Berliner, NPR’s managing editor for news at the time said that the outlet had no interesting in “[wast[ing] our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.”
Berliner wrote in The Free Press that a well-respected colleague at NPR said they were glad the network wasn’t covering the story because it would help Trump win re-election. He did not name the journalist.
After the contents of the laptop proved to be authentic, NPR “could have fessed up to our misjudgment,” Berliner wrote.
“But, like Russia collusion [allegations against Trump that were debunked], we didn’t make the hard choice of transparency.”
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SOURCE: www.nypost.com
RELATED: NPR Editor Reveals Why Station Ignored Hunter Biden Laptop Story – ‘The Laptop Was Newsworthy’
Published April 9, 2024
Anti-Trump bias was the reason NPR refused to report on the Hunter Biden laptop when its contents were first revealed, according to a top editor.
After former President Donald Trump was elected in 2016, NPR’s coverage “veered toward efforts to damage or topple Trump’s presidency,” Uri Berliner, a senior business editor at NPR, wrote in a Tuesday Op-Ed for The Free Press.
Berliner used the laptop story as one example.
In October 2020, the New York Post reported on the illicit contents of a hard drive from a computer Hunter Biden had left at a Delaware repair shop.
Although the story was suppressed by Big Tech companies and dismissed as Russian disinformation by “dozens of former and current intelligence officials,” as Berliner noted, the contents of the laptop have since been proved authentic.
However, “with the election only weeks away, NPR turned a blind eye,” Berliner wrote.
“Here’s how NPR’s managing editor for news at the time explained the thinking: ‘We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and 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,” 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. 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.”
That was not the only time NPR strayed, according to Berliner.
During the Russian collusion hoax, he said the station “hitched our wagon to Trump’s most visible antagonist, Representative Adam Schiff.”
Berliner called Schiff “NPR’s guiding hand, its ever-present muse,” noting that he was interviewed about Russiagate 25 times and that “Schiff talking points became the drumbeat of NPR news reports.”
