In his latest company-man report, NPR media reporter David Folkenflik revealed that NPR senior editor Uri Berliner was suspended without pay for five days (beginning Friday) for deciding his years of internal advocacy for more fairness and balance in NPR’s coverage had been fruitless, so he went public.
Folkenflik disclosed that Berliner, as a senior editor for Business, had edited many of his stories, and shared with him the formal rebuke from management:
In presenting Berliner’s suspension Thursday afternoon, the organization told the editor he had failed to secure its approval for outside work for other news outlets, as is required of NPR journalists. It called the letter a “final warning,” saying Berliner would be fired if he violated NPR’s policy again. Berliner is a dues-paying member of NPR’s newsroom union but says he is not appealing the punishment….
In the rebuke, NPR did not cite Berliner’s appearance on Chris Cuomo’s NewsNation program last Tuesday night, for which NPR gave him the green light. (NPR’s chief communications officer told Berliner to focus on his own experience and not share proprietary information.) The NPR letter also did not cite his remarks to the New York Times, which ran its article mid-afternoon Thursday, shortly before the reprimand was sent.
So that means the article for The Free Press and his interview on their podcast is what’s being punished, and specifically for reporting the fact that 67 percent of NPR’s current audience identifies as liberal or very liberal.
In rebuking Berliner, NPR said he had also publicly released proprietary information about audience demographics, which it considers confidential. He said those figures “were essentially marketing material. If they had been really good, they probably would have distributed them and sent them out to the world.”
Berliner repeated his message to Folkenflik that a taxpayer-funded news outlet has a special obligation for fairness:
“I love NPR and feel it’s a national trust,” Berliner says. “We have great journalists here. If they shed their opinions and did the great journalism they’re capable of, this would be a much more interesting and fulfilling organization for our listeners.”
Folkenflik then cited CEO Katherine Maher’s pom-pom memo celebrating NPR’s employees and without mentioning Berliner by name, she claimed he offered “a criticism of our people on the basis of who we are” and not the content of their journalism.
Berliner took great exception to that, saying she had denigrated him. He said that he supported diversifying NPR’s workforce to look more like the U.S. population at large. She did not address that in a subsequent private exchange he shared with me for this story. (An NPR spokesperson declined further comment.)
Berliner also criticized the collection of Maher’s woke tweets that surfaced before NPR hired her:
In an interview with me later on Monday, Berliner said the social media posts demonstrated Maher was all but incapable of being the person best poised to direct the organization.
“We’re looking for a leader right now who’s going to be unifying and bring more people into the tent and have a broader perspective on, sort of, what America is all about,” Berliner said. “And this seems to be the opposite of that.”
Folkenflik’s piece was balanced by a mention of conservative scholar Christopher Rufo, and paragraphs of fierce criticism of Berliner from other NPR journalists:
Morning Edition host Michel Martin told me some colleagues at the network share Berliner’s concerns that coverage is frequently presented through an ideological or idealistic prism that can alienate listeners.
“The way to address that is through training and mentorship,” says Martin, herself a veteran of nearly two decades at the network who has also reported for The Wall Street Journal and ABC News. “It’s not by blowing the place up, by trashing your colleagues, in full view of people who don’t really care about it anyway.”
Several NPR journalists told me they are no longer willing to work with Berliner as they no longer have confidence that he will keep private their internal musings about stories as they work through coverage.
“Newsrooms run on trust,” NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben tweeted last week, without mentioning Berliner by name. “If you violate everyone’s trust by going to another outlet and sh–ing on your colleagues (while doing a bad job journalistically, for that matter), I don’t know how you do your job now.”
….NPR Investigative reporter Chiara Eisner wrote in a comment for this story: “Minorities do not all think the same and do not report the same. Good reporters and editors should know that by now. It’s embarrassing to me as a reporter at NPR that a senior editor here missed that point in 2024.”
Google these critics and NewsBusters and you’ll see they are firmly on the Left on the job.