I think most members on this forum who follow a broader cross-section of news media in this country have always known NPR as being left-leaning however, its lurch to far-left has been much more acute over the last five years. Now, NPR has their Bari Weiss/James Bennett moment (NY Times), he questioned the convention and exposed their vitriolic bias.

I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.

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Uri Berliner, a veteran at the public radio institution, says the network lost its way when it started telling listeners how to think.

You know the stereotype of the NPR listener: an EV-driving, Wordle-playing, tote bag–carrying coastal elite. It doesn’t precisely describe me, but it’s not far off. I’m Sarah Lawrence–educated, was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother, I drive a Subaru, and Spotify says my listening habits are most similar to people in Berkeley.

I fit the NPR mold. I’ll cop to that.

So when I got a job here 25 years ago, I never looked back. As a senior editor on the business desk where news is always breaking, we’ve covered upheavals in the workplace, supermarket prices, social media, and AI.

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.

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.

If you are conservative, you will read this and say, duh, it’s always been this way.

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This message has been edited. Last edited by: corsair,

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It’s true NPR has always had a liberal bent, but during most of my tenure here, an open-minded, curious culture prevailed..

No it didn't, you just THOUGHT it did, based on where you stand. The fact that you did notice it got worse though says a lot.

Duh, it’s always been this way.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/...ce-truth-distraction

NPR boss once called the First Amendment a 'challenge' and 'reverence for the truth' a distraction

Controversial videos of Katherine Maher discussing her views on "the truth" and the First Amendment have resurfaced as the new NPR CEO continues to face online backlash and scrutiny.

At the Atlantic Council's 360/Open Summit in June 2021, Maher, then the CEO of Wikimedia which oversees Wikipedia, discussed efforts to push back against disinformation and the "challenge" of the First Amendment. She took over at NPR last month.

"The number one challenge here that we see is, of course, the First Amendment in the United States. [It] is a fairly robust protection of rights and that is a protection of rights both for platforms, which I actually think is very important that platforms have those rights to be able to regulate what kind of content they want on their sites," Maher said.

She added, "But it also means that it is a little bit tricky to really address some of the real challenges of where does bad information come from, and sort of the influence peddlers who have made a real market economy around it."

She remarked how Wikipedia took an "active approach to disinformation and misinformation" in response to the coronavirus pandemic and the 2020 election, though she noted that Wikipedia publishers are "primarily men" with "significant gaps" of knowledge in content about women and marginalized groups.

Another resurfaced video from an August 2021 TED Talk featured Maher discussing how Wikipedia teaches "balancing truth and beliefs." She said trust in the website had increased during a time when public trust in institutions had collapsed. She argued Wikipedia's model worked well, especially in debates over politics or religion.

"In our normal lives, these contentious conversations tend to erupt over a disagreement about what the truth actually is. But the people who write these [Wikipedia] articles, they're not focused on the truth. They're focused on something else, which is the best of what we can know right now," Maher said.

"That perhaps, for our most tricky disagreements, seeking the truth and seeking to convince others of the truth might not be the right place to start. In fact, our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that's getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done," she continued.

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Originally posted by sigmonkey:
Duh, it’s always been this way.

Yeah, but if you read what he wrote, now the culture at NPR is absolutely immersed in every bit of left-wing ideology, and there isn’t a scrap of actual journalism to be found.

They have moved even further to the left with the new CEO Katherine Maher, a far left activists, anti-constitutionalist, DEI white hater.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/s.../1780660716229554184

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Originally posted by TMats:..
Yeah, but if you read what he wrote, now the culture at NPR is absolutely immersed in every bit of left-wing ideology, and there isn’t a scrap of actual journalism to be found.

You assume incorrectly.
I did read it, and it's always smelled like 3 day old fish.

I listened to NPR briefly in 1993, while commuting in the morning and afternoon, about 45 minutes each way, but it did not take long at all to tire of its preachy mantra. Even their "journalism" bits were "flavored" with the same templated style of delivery.

Sigmonkey, I made no assumption as to whether or not you had read the article.

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Yeah, but if you read what he wrote,

I must have assumed incorrectly.

I quit watching them a long time ago because of their obvious towering left wing bias!

if you ever need to throw up, listen to their podcasts.

The NPR podcast 'Embedded' is the most anti-police thing you will ever hear.

"Suppress misinformation on Wikipedia"

Last week at work (a university) they sent out an email about "Edit-a-thon" or some similar name, some organization holding a big event where they in mass go on Wikipedia and "Edit inaccuracies." Now this group is supposed to be related to and focused on STEM related info, but if this groups is doing this, you can guarantee there's organizations doing it for sociopolitical topics. Scary shit.

I used to catch one local NPR radio station here for quite some time on the weekends. Lots of Bluegrass, retro-Country, Western, Car Talk on Saturdays; Gospel on Sunday morning, Scotch-Irish music Sunday afternoon, and old-time radio shows later. Most of those programs are gone; I stopped listening to that station perhaps four years ago as it had become mostly political talk/commentary stuff.

NPR took a lot of programming freedom away from that station; and to me they killed it.

Isn't NPR the people who had a 2A debate? Except the whole panel were anti-2A so one or more of them had to fill in as pretend pro-2A supporters?

This was quite awhile ago so I don't see current NPR being that much different.

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Originally posted by rat2306:
I used to catch one local NPR radio station here for quite some time on the weekends. Lots of Bluegrass, retro-Country, Western, Car Talk on Saturdays; Gospel on Sunday morning, Scotch-Irish music Sunday afternoon, and old-time radio shows later. Most of those programs are gone; I stopped listening to that station perhaps four years ago as it had become mostly political talk/commentary stuff.

NPR took a lot of programming freedom away from that station; and to me they killed it.

And Will Shortz, NPR's puzzle master on Sundays. Actually met him at a convention once. Yep, NPR pretty much ended for me when Tom of Click and Clack passed.

By the way, a good amount of their funding comes from the Gates foundation.

and obviously some from taxpayer money, although they claim that it's a small amount, but I think it's more than they admit to.

I listened to Berliner discussing his Free Press essay in an interview with Bari Weiss on her podcast Honestly.

He had a little tell in there in which he mentioned the "murder" of George Floyd in 2020. His beef is not the leftist slant, it's that the rest of the country has (finally) tuned out.

There's quite a bit of editorials and opinion pieces that have been put out since Berliner's F-U to NPR.

This one I think hits right down the middle.
NPR's Uri Berliner Has Shown That DEI Is About Punishing Heresy

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Uri Berliner, a long-time editor at National Public Radio (NPR), has resigned from the media organization.

His saga began last week after he published an essay for Bari Weiss' The Free Press in which he criticized creeping liberal groupthink at his place of employment. Many NPR employees were furious that he would "torch his workplace," though Berliner's piece carefully noted that he still believes the outlet is important and should continue to receive government funding.

For writing about his own outlet without seeking permission from his bosses, Berliner was suspended for five days without pay. But ultimately, he has chosen to resign.

"I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay," he said, referencing statements made by NPR CEO Katherine Maher—whose considerable history of tweeting woke nonsense is now under public scrutiny as well.

And he is quite correct. Berliner's article for Weiss concludes with this thought: "What's notable is the extent to which people at every level of NPR have comfortably coalesced around the progressive worldview. And this, I believe, is the most damaging development at NPR: the absence of viewpoint diversity."

Berliner cited Russiagate, the Hunter Biden laptop story, and coverage of the lab leak theory of COVID-19's origins as coverage areas where NPR's bias in favor of the progressive, establishment Democratic Party perspective led the outlet astray. A media company that did not completely dismiss non-progressive opinions out of hands might have fared better.

The absence of viewpoint diversity at NPR should be no surprise, however, when its CEO apparently believes that ideological diversity is a "dog whistle for anti-feminist, anti-POC stories." For Maher, diversity involves "race, ethnicity, gender, class, ability, geography"—everything except diversity of thought.

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This one hits just right

Uri Berliner Burned His Bridges at NPR, Then Set the House Ablaze

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And perhaps do something else as well. For I could not help noticing one other thing about the piece as I read it last week, something that immediately leapt out to me and which has made subsequent events feel like they’re playing out entirely predictably: the final paragraph.

A few weeks ago, NPR welcomed a new CEO, Katherine Maher, who’s been a leader in tech. She doesn’t have a news background, which could be an asset given where things stand. I’ll be rooting for her. It’s a tough job. Her first rule could be simple enough: don’t tell people how to think. It could even be the new North Star.

In a profession where journalists and pundits read these sorts of big dishy insider pieces differently than normal folks do — searching for hidden implications, listening for dog whistles, and frankly sometimes wearing tinfoil hats — that paragraph instantly sounded a blaring klaxon. “PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF THIS INCOMING BOSS WHO I WILL MENTION BY NAME AND WHO I MIGHT ADD LACKS ANY JOURNALISTIC BACKGROUND WHATSOEVER.”

And, mother of God, look what turned up once people like Christopher Rufo did just that. You see, it turns out that Katherine Maher is no ordinary ascendant progressive media executive. No, this woman’s social-media history reveals her to be the Kwisatz Haderach of white wokeness, presumably bred through generations of careful genetic selection to be the supernaturally perfect embodiment of Affluent White Female Liberalism. (As many have noted, she not only acts but looks like Titania McGrath.) It’s vaguely unreal: If there was a trendy progressive take floating around on Twitter and popular within media circles, then you can reliably bet she was there to voice it in the most preeningly insulting way possible.

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"Bad information"? What does that have in common with disinformation, misinformation or malinformation? They're all information, the ball is now in your court.