National Public Radio (NPR) editor Uri Berliner has confessed the outlet spread fake news about President Donald Trump while covering up Democrat scandals in a desperate attempt to damage the Trump presidency.
Berliner, a 25-year veteran at NPR, admits in an essay published Tuesday that the outlet developed a laser-like focus on taking down President Trump, and this unhealthy obsession drove serious journalists to spread debunked claims and fake news including the Russian collusion allegations.
“Persistent rumors that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia over the election became the catnip that drove reporting,” Berliner wrote in the The Free Press. “At NPR, we hitched our wagon to Trump’s most visible antagonist, Representative Adam Schiff.”
“But what began as tough, straightforward coverage of a belligerent, truth-impaired president veered toward efforts to damage or topple Trump’s presidency,” he added.
How NPR Lost the Trust of America
In an exclusive interview, senior business editor at @NPR @UBerliner speaks to @bariweiss about NPR’s shift from a liberal-leaning news organization to its present “knee-jerk,” “activist,” and “scolding” liberal bias.
“It was Trump’s election…… pic.twitter.com/hx1eDeJi1K
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Berliner also criticized NPR’s managing editor for covering up Democrat scandals including the legitimate Hunter Biden laptop story during the 2020 presidential election. Managing editor Terence Samuels said at the time: “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.”
Why haven't you seen any stories from NPR about the NY Post's Hunter Biden story? Read more in this week's newsletter➡️ https://t.co/CJesPgmGvo pic.twitter.com/jAi7PnpbZf
— NPR Public Editor (@NPRpubliceditor) October 22, 2020
NPR also took people including Dr. Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates on face value, publishing their statements as though they were unimpeachable fact. Since then, however, many of their statements have been widely debunked as false.
For example, NPR based reporting on Dr. Fauci’s statements on the COVID-19 pandemic originating naturally, according to Berliner.
“We became fervent members of Team Natural Origin, even declaring that the lab leak had been debunked by scientists,” he wrote. “But that wasn’t the case.”
Berliner apologized for the fake news, admitting that it has hurt the outlet’s credibility with Americans who have grown tired of mainstream media deception.
“An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America,” Berliner wrote.
“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.”
Daily Caller report: The editor also noted the outlet’s audience has moved dramatically to the left, based on polling. “Back in 2011, although NPR’s audience tilted a bit to the left, it still bore a resemblance to America at large,” he wrote. “Twenty-six percent of listeners described themselves as conservative, 23 percent as middle of the road, and 37 percent as liberal.”
“By 2023, the picture was completely different: only 11 percent described themselves as very or somewhat conservative, 21 percent as middle of the road, and 67 percent of listeners said they were very or somewhat liberal. We weren’t just losing conservatives; we were also losing moderates and traditional liberals,” Berliner added.
“Race and identity became paramount” at the outlet after the death of George Floyd in 2020, Berliner wrote. He asserts all levels of the organization were aligned on the prioritization of race and identity, leading to a lack of “viewpoint diversity” and increase in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
“We were given unconscious bias training sessions,” Berliner wrote. “A growing DEI staff offered regular meetings imploring us to ‘start talking about race.’ Monthly dialogues were offered for ‘women of color’ and ‘men of color.’ Nonbinary people of color were included, too. These initiatives, bolstered by a $1 million grant from the NPR Foundation, came from management, from the top down.”
“Crucially, they were in sync culturally with what was happening at the grassroots—among producers, reporters, and other staffers. Most visible was a burgeoning number of employee resource (or affinity) groups based on identity,” he added.
The groups consisted of racial, ethnic and sexual minorities, according to Berliner. “The role and standing of affinity groups, including those outside NPR, were more than that,” Berliner wrote. “They became a priority for NPR’s union, SAG-AFTRA—an item in collective bargaining.”
NPR CEO John Lansing announced in a February 2023 memo that the outlet will lay off 10% of its employees and freeze vacant positions. The cuts were a result of the “erosion” of advertising revenue, particularly for podcasts, NPR reported.