Well, it's official. Uri has brass balls, is correct and if you want the "truth" NPR, joins most of the major media, whether right or left-leaning in being completely full of sheet.
There are a few folks, like John Kass who aren't shoveling fiction nowadays, but not many.
NPR Editor Resigns After Publicly Criticizing Coverage, Calls New CEO ‘Divisive’
Uri Berliner’s departure from the public radio network comes after he mounted the latest test of a media outlet’s tolerance for dissent
By Alexandra Bruell, WSJ
Updated April 17, 2024
‘It’s better to be public about this than to be quietly bringing this up in the halls of the newsroom,’ editor Uri Berliner said of his decision to write an essay critical of his employer, NPR.
National Public Radio prohibits staff from publishing work for other media outlets without permission. Senior editor Uri Berliner broke that rule when he published a searing, 3,000-word critique of his own storied news organization in the Free Press, a media upstart.
His actions led to a five-day suspension without pay. Then on Wednesday, he posted his resignation letter on X, in which he accused the public radio network’s new chief executive of having divisive views that “confirm the very problems” he cited in his Free Press piece.
A spokeswoman for NPR declined to comment on personnel matters.
Berliner’s essay, which said NPR had lost its way by letting liberal bias skew its coverage, is the latest sign of a management challenge several major newsrooms are dealing with: how to handle staffers who are willing to go public with concerns about their own employer.
Weeks earlier at MSNBC, a coterie of high-profile anchors used their respective shows to publicly call out a controversial hiring decision by the network’s parent. And the New York Times’s newsroom has been divided over its Gaza war coverage, culminating with a recent investigation into whether staffers leaked confidential information to another outlet.
“You see a lot of the editors and publishers just saying, ‘enough,’ ” said Brian McGrory, chair of the journalism department of Boston University and former editor of the Boston Globe. He said it is important for newsroom leaders to listen to staff, “but ultimately a news organization can’t be run by a committee of one thousand.”
The outcome in each case was different. While NPR chose to discipline Berliner, NBC News cut ties with Ronna McDaniel, the former Republican National Committee head whom the network had hired as a contributor just days earlier, after her appointment sparked an uproar among employees.
As for the Times, its executive editor said earlier this week that it ended its leak investigation without any conclusive finding. In a separate Wall Street Journal interview, he said traditional journalistic values such as independence aren’t ingrained in all corners of the Times’s newsroom.
In November, the Washington Post removed a cartoon depicting a Hamas spokesman putting civilians in the line of fire after several employees and readers complained that it was racist.
“Journalists have more ways to express themselves publicly—via social media or unaffiliated websites—so the grumbling that used to be confined to the company cafeteria now goes public and viral,” said Bill Grueskin, a professor at Columbia Journalism School and a former Journal editor.
Free Press founder Bari Weiss resigned from the New York Times in 2020, describing it as a place where the free exchange of ideas was no longer welcome.
Newsroom managers have faced all kinds of criticism—that their journalism is too skeptical of Donald Trump and his allies or not skeptical enough; too pro-Israel or too pro-Palestinian; and gives too much or too little ink to sensitive social issues.
To some extent, newsrooms reflect a broader rise in employee activism in U.S. corporations over the past few years, which was partly inspired by the social reckoning over the killing of George Floyd in May 2020.
But newsrooms have certain qualities that make them an ideal crucible for these sorts of tensions between managers and employees: The staffers, or “talent” in television parlance, have big megaphones and often have brands that surpass those of their bosses; meanwhile, the product they are producing—journalism—lends itself to polarizing debate.
In his essay in the Free Press, a media company founded by Bari Weiss, a former New York Times opinion editor, Berliner wrote that NPR’s newsroom had lost its culture of open-mindedness and no longer offered a diversity of viewpoints. The piece, titled “I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust,” also said the network had erred in its coverage of high-profile events, from the origins of Covid to Hunter Biden’s laptop to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
In a note to staff days after the piece was published, NPR Chief Executive Katherine Maher wrote that while asking whether the public radio network was living up to its mission was fair game, “Questioning whether our people are serving our mission with integrity, based on little more than the recognition of their identity, is profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning.”
On Wednesday, Berliner made public the resignation letter he had sent to Maher. “I don’t support calls to defund NPR. I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism,” he wrote. “But I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems that I cite in my Free Press essay.”
Last week, Berliner had discussed his decision to write the piece with Weiss on her podcast, which he said “wasn’t easy.”
He told Weiss he had made his views well-known within NPR and with top news managers. “I’ve been hammering away at these things for years … and nothing has changed. I felt like maybe, it’s better to be public about this than to be quietly bringing this up in the halls of the newsroom. Let’s try being open about this.”
“I’m proud that someone like Uri Berliner thought of the Free Press as a home for such an important piece,” said Weiss, who had resigned from the Times in 2020, describing it at the time as a place where the free exchange of ideas was no longer welcome. She later launched the Free Press. Weiss previously worked at the Journal, where she was an op-ed and book review editor.
What do you think about the suspension of Uri Berliner? Join the conversation below.
Maher, a former Wikimedia Foundation CEO who joined NPR last month, became part of the story when critics including writer Christopher Rufo—of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank—resurfaced her past posts on X that indicate liberal leanings. In one post from 2020, she is describing a dream where she is on a road trip with Kamala, referring to Kamala Harris, who is now vice president. In 2018, she called Donald Trump a racist in a post that has since been deleted.
“This is a bad-faith attack that follows an established playbook, as online actors with explicit agendas work to discredit independent news organizations,” the NPR spokeswoman said.
NPR “Morning Edition” host Steve Inskeep was critical of Berliner’s piece. “My colleague’s article was filled with errors and omissions,” he wrote on Substack (after getting approval from NPR, the company said).
“Leadership should be open to their staffers airing concerns internally,” said McGrory, the former Boston Globe editor. But when staffers, like Berliner, make their complaints public, “you’re actually harming the organization you’re pretending to try to save.”
Write to Alexandra Bruell at alexandra.bruell@wsj.com