NPR editor who criticized the network is suspended; NPR CEO’s tweets
Uri Berliner, who has worked at NPR for 25 years, wrote an expose of their leftist bias. You can find it here. He seems to be somewhat of an old-fashioned liberal (or maybe an old-fashioned principled leftist), a rarity these days.
Now NPR has struck back; no surprise there. I quote another NPR article on that (my comments follow each excerpt from the piece):
NPR has formally punished Uri Berliner, the senior editor who publicly argued a week ago that the network had “lost America’s trust” by approaching news stories with a rigidly progressive mindset.
Berliner’s five-day suspension without pay, which began last Friday, has not been previously reported.
As I said, no surprise there.
Yet the public radio network is grappling in other ways with the fallout from Berliner’s essay for the online news site The Free Press. It angered many of his colleagues …
Why? Can’t they take criticism? Do they really believe that NPR is objective? If so, I’ve got this bridge …
… led NPR leaders to announce monthly internal reviews of the network’s coverage, and gave fresh ammunition to conservative and partisan Republican critics of NPR, including former President Donald Trump.
Oh no! It gave Republicans ammunition for pouncing. We can’t have that, even if the ammunition consists of the truth.
Conservative activist Christopher Rufo is among those now targeting NPR’s new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the network.
So so long ago. Perhaps she was a mere child? We’ll see in a moment.
Among others, those posts include a 2020 tweet that called Trump racist and another that appeared to minimize rioting during social justice protests that year.
Those were very mild examples, carefully chosen.
Maher took the job at NPR last month — her first at a news organization.
Her first job at a news organization is to direct a huge one.
In a statement Monday about the messages she had posted, Maher praised the integrity of NPR’s journalists and underscored the independence of their reporting.
“In America everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen,” she said. “What matters is NPR’s work and my commitment as its CEO: public service, editorial independence, and the mission to serve all of the American public. NPR is independent, beholden to no party, and without commercial interests.”
Well then, it’s obviously fair and objective in its coverage, and the incredible bias of its director or its reporters – or its actual articles – is irrelevant. Of course Maher’s tweets while a private citizen are protected free speech. But people are merely pointing out the intensity of her leftist bias as expressed in those tweets, and suggesting that her bias might make it just a teeny bit hard to be objective.
If NPR’s mission is “to serve the American public,” please do so for a change because you haven’t in a long long time.
As for Maher’s tweets, that so-called “conservative activist” Chris Rufo is on the case. A lot of it is about that terrible thing, “whiteness” (Maher is white). You can find a sampler here as well as here.
I bet Maher thinks her own opinions are mild, because she’s probably been surrounded for a long time by people who are even more extreme than she is in their woke leftism.
The new Empress (of Truth) has no clothes. She does Only Fans for the Party?
Is there a National Public Podcast she can shill for?
Four years ago, she was already 37. She’d already had responsible positions in a variety of non-profits. A world that goes after people for things they posted in high school shouldn’t let her off for things she posted when she should have known better.
One of her positions was at Wikimedia. As Wikipedia itself informs us: “Maher also made strides in diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI) by increasing women editors by more than 30% in her final year.” Was hiring more people like herself really likely to increase diversity? How likely was it that her new hires were really discriminated against or excluded from anything?
By now it’s probably known that her father was with Goldman, Sachs and her mother is a Connecticut state senator (Democrat, of course) representing very rich towns like Westport, Darien, New Canaan, and Wilton. If Katherine Maher ever heard any opinions different from her own she may never have taken them seriously.
Possibly coincidental, but probably not:
ATC anchor Mary Louise Kelly’s voice is decidedly militaristic.
Matt Taibbi put up a very amusing post (subscription required) today reviewing Maher’s holiday X posts over the years. Thanksgiving, for example: “Made it through dinner. Zero turkeys sacrificed to the racist uncles.” (2017) Further, “Thanksgiving was always my favorite holiday, but knowing what it represents complicates celebration. I spent this morning reading about the #LandBack movement and other forms of solidarity with Native communities.” (2020)
She holds leftist “truths” to be self-evident and has suspended a long-time (liberal) editor for pointing out that NPR has made news coverage decisions based on which political party would be helped or hurt.
Much like the bbc or france 24
im guessing
Yes gigo all the way ‘enemy of the people’
All Things Commie has a militaristic female?
Shocked.
Truly shocking.
Maybe she’s another “trained Marxist” like Patrice Colours of Buy Large Mansions (BLM).
She did paint a brennan type as the villain in her first book
https://marylouisekellybooks.com/
Empowered woke feminists like Katherine Maher are the same womyn in key positions at Disney, Lucasfilm and Marvel these days.
They are not going to loosen their grips on their agenda until bankruptcy pries their cold dead hands away.
It’s coming. Or close enough.
Yes kathleen kennedy was the molina character from raiders but like the lamia of legend one they are done whats left
People online are comparing Maher to the fictional Titania McGrath, but I also see similarities to Taylor Lorenz, who came from a similar background to Maher.
A few years back, social media posts from “Teen Vogue” staffers (and maybe “Vogue” staffers) made the news. The diverse young staffers had a real dislike for old White males and didn’t hide their glee at the OWMs being displaced. I’d be surprised if there were that many old White males (straight or otherwise) working at “Teen Vogue,” but what stood out was the purge mentality.
The Old Bolsheviks were being ousted to make room for the young who had grown up under the new regime. Was much more than tribalism and rank careerism really involved? I think one of the staffers was Black. Another was Asian Indian, and I had the feeling that she was glomming on to somebody else’s uprising, but today’s woke revolution allows even privileged White women like Katherine Maher to feel like tribunes of the oppressed.
__________
Tabletmag has a new article from Michael Lind:
Blue Morning.
Unchecked illegal border crossings, fading churches, disintegrating families, proliferating diversity deans, and worthless degrees will all help ensure that the American future will be largely miserable—and that the people who will inherit that future will be Democrats.
It looks worth reading.
She and others of her ilk are going to drive a stake through the heart of the organizations that have hired them. Justice will be served, as the day will come when it is time for their purging. The Leviathan always eats its own. She’s white and wealthy, which automatically makes her part of the ‘oppressor’ class.
Can’t this stupid woman see the rot of civilization or will take an illegal alien stabbing her to death while stealing her iPhone.
He seems to be somewhat of an old-fashioned liberal (or maybe an old-fashioned principled leftist), a rarity these days.
The “principled leftist” in the link refers to Marc Cooper on Serbia/Yugoslavia/Milosevic. Marc Cooper is perhaps best known for his book, Pinochet and Me: A Chilean Memoir. Marc Cooper worked as a translator for Salvador Allende, so there is a bit 🙂 of bias in the memoir- which Cooper freely admits to. But as Cooper wrote, he is not trying to write an objective history.
To Cooper’s credit, he writes about his Pinochet-supporting Chilean in-laws, which admits to the deep divisions in Chilean society. Just as the author Isabel Allende, whose first cousin first removed (President) Salvador acted as a surrogate father of sorts to her after her father disappeared, wrote in Paula that her father-in-law and maternal grandfather were supporters of the coup against Salvador Allende.
Abraxas
Ah yes, she is one of the CT Gold Coasters. There is an interesting electoral factoid about the CT Gold Coast. From the 2012 to the 2016 Presidential elections, the Democrat share of CT’s vote fell 3.6% (58.1% to 54.5%). The CT Gold Coast Towns, Wilton included, bucked this trend. For example, in Maher’s hometown of Wilton, Hillary’s vote was 13.1% higher than Obama’s. Here are the five CT towns with the highest Hillary vs. Obama percentages.
Here are their ranks in CT per capita income.
Wealth and virtue go hand-in-hand. Wealth and wokeness.
Matt Taibbi on Katherine Maher:
“It’s true Maher was not working in journalism when she posted the controversial messages. In fact, she’s never worked in journalism, which is very obviously the bigger problem when examining someone’s fitness to run a public news network with over 1000 member stations. Maher’s been a WEF global leader, board member at Signal, banking manager at HSBC, a member of the Foreign Affairs Policy Board (FAPB) at the State Department, a fellow at the Truman National Security Project — pretty much everything but a journalist. The closest thing to a journalism job Maher held was chief communications officer at Wikimedia. In newsrooms such people are called flacks.”
I myself, lowly retired railroad employee, am probably better read than this evil witch.
“… a WEF global leader…”
…and that’s ALL ye’ need to know…
“to serve the American public,”
It’s a cookbook.