Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, April 22, 2024
National Public Radio (NPR) seems to be gunning for the train wreck hall of fame.
In the span of about two weeks, NPR was exposed in an essay by one of its own top editors as a haven for leftists that had “lost America’s trust,” while its new CEO was revealed to be an enemy of the First Amendment whom Elon Musk referred to as “one of the worst human beings in America.”
Indiana Republican Rep. Jim Banks introduced legislation Friday to defund NPR.
“NPR’s new CEO is a radical, left-wing activist who doesn’t believe in free speech or objective journalism. Hoosiers shouldn’t be writing her paychecks. Katherine Maher isn’t qualified to teach an introductory journalism class, much less capable of responsibly spending millions of American tax dollars,” Banks told The Daily Caller.
Uri Berliner, an NPR editor with 25 years experience, published a piece in The Free Press alleging NPR has deep political leftist biases and that the Washington, D.C. bureau employs 87 registered Democrats and zero registered Republicans.
Berliner resigned after NPR suspended him for publishing the piece.
NPR’s new CEO, Katherine Maher, meanwhile, has been exposed as a supporter of Joe Biden and opponent of the First Amendment.
Old tweets and clips of her show that Maher, who was hired by NPR in March, previously expressed support for Biden’s campaign in 2020 and called former President Donald Trump a “racist” in 2018. She has also described the First Amendment as “the number one challenge” to combating “misinformation.”
Also resurfacing was a 2021 interview Maher did with Trevor Noah, former host of “The Daily Show” in which the then-CEO of Wikipedia said “most written knowledge today has been written by white, colonial, European, North American men,” and that Wikipedia was focused on “correcting the record.”
“Katherine Maher is blatantly racist and sexist — one of the worst human beings in America,” Musk posted on X on Thursday.
This keeps getting crazier! The head of NPR hates the Constitution of the USA. https://t.co/1Xp8Pi12fs
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 17, 2024
In one post, Musk called Maher “certifiably insane” after Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, posted a TedTalk speech from her, where she had said, “Our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that’s getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done.”
Musk on Thursday indicated that he’ll start an initiative to promote freedom of speech.
“Given the relentless attacks on free speech, I am going to fund a national signature campaign in support of the First Amendment,” he posted.
NPR last year said it would no longer post fresh content to its X feeds, becoming the first major news organization to go silent on the platform, after the site labeled the news service as “state-affiliated media,”
“NPR was a liberal looney bin under the last CEO John Lansing, and it’s about to get even nuttier. It’s time to pull the plug on this national embarrassment. Congress must stop spending other people’s hard-earned money on low grade propaganda,” Banks added.
It is not surprising that many conservatives are taking delight in the NPR train wreck. Some call it schadenfreude.
Others simply say:
Taxpayer-funded NPR reeling after high profile expose, Elon Musk broadside added by Editor Two on
View all posts by Editor Two →