NPR Editor Delivers Scathing Critique of His Employer

NPR is often accused of a left-wing bias by conservative critics, but the latest such broadside comes from within. Uri Berliner, a senior business editor who has been at NPR for 25 years, has written a scathing critique at the Free Press website. "People at every level of NPR have comfortably coalesced around the progressive worldview," he writes. As a result, coverage is skewed, and NPR's once-diverse audience is "cramped into a smaller, progressive silo," he argues.

• Big stories: Berliner goes into detail on how NPR covered allegations that Donald Trump colluded with Russia, the discovery of Hunter Biden's laptop, and disagreement over the origins of the COVID virus, and asserts that NPR made serious missteps it has yet to acknowledge.
• Big stories, II: He also faults coverage of the Israel-Hamas war as "highlighting the suffering of Palestinians at almost every turn while downplaying the atrocities of October 7," and he asserts that DEI "advocacy groups are given a seat at the table in determining the terms and vocabulary of our news coverage."

• A 'wrong-thinker:' Berliner writes that he has raised these critiques internally only to be met with indifference. "Throughout these exchanges, no one has ever trashed me," he writes. "That's not the NPR way. People are polite. But nothing changes. So I've become a visible wrong-thinker at a place I love. It's uncomfortable, sometimes heartbreaking."
• A counter: NPR editor-in-chief Edith Chapin wrote a memo to staffers rejecting Berliner's criticism. "I and my colleagues on the leadership team strongly disagree with Uri's assessment of the quality of our journalism and the integrity of our newsroom processes," wrote Chapin, per the Daily Beast. "We believe that inclusion—among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage—is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world."
• Read Berliner's essay in full here.

(More NPR stories.)