Left-leaning bias at National Public Radio (NPR) has been the concern of conservatives for a very long time. After all, NPR is partially funded by American taxpayers. Using the money of all taxpayers to help financially prop up a singular viewpoint is best described by I word I can’t use here.
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Way back in the 20th century (Google it, young’uns), liberal media bias was far less “in your face” than it is now. It became a lot bolder when His High Holiness the Lightbringer Barack Obama was elected president. The Democrats’ flying monkeys in the mainstream media simply could not contain their schoolgirl glee over what they perceived as Obama’s dreaminess. To this day I’m surprised that The New York Times and other Coastal Media Bubble™ outlets didn’t allow for font changes so their writers could dot their i’s with hearts when writing about Obama.
Donald Trump’s political ascendance made the MSM hacks abandon all pretense of being objective journalists. They stopped trying to hide their bias even a little. Their reaction to Trump ruining Hillary Clinton’s coronation was overwhelming, visceral, and continues to this day.
Last week, longtime NPR editor Uri Berliner penned an essay that detailed NPR’s not-so-subtle transition from “predictably Dem-friendly media outlet” to “Trump Derangement Syndrome activist mob,” which Victoria covered for us. The NPR hierarchy was not amused.
NPR has suspended Uri Berliner, the senior business editor who broke ranks and published an essay arguing that the nonprofit radio network had allowed liberal bias to affect its coverage.
Mr. Berliner was suspended by the network for five days, starting last Friday, for violating the network’s policy against doing work outside the organization without first getting permission.
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I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Berliner wouldn’t have been suspended if his “outside the organization” article had been about Donald Trump being the greatest evil visited upon the world since, well, ever. This is a vindictive move by NPR brass because Berliner dared wander from the hive mind and express an opinion that disrupted the narrative.
Berliner’s essay led to outsiders taking a closer look at NPR’s inner workings and, more importantly, CEO Katherine Maher’s particular biases. Over at HotAir, my friend Ed Morrissey provides a synopsis of how that’s gone so far:
Ever since the Free Press published Berliner’s essay, Maher and NPR have engaged in a substance-free meltdown that failed to address any of Berliner’s specific and obvious examples of NPR’s bias. On Friday, all Maher could manage was to complain that Berliner’s criticisms were “profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning,” as though this were a kindergarten class. Berliner wrote professionally about a multitude of stories that NPR got wrong because it was blinded by its ideological and/or partisan bias, such as:
The list that follows is Greatest Hits of liberal media prevarication from the last four years.
Given the insidious nature of the TDS activist media, this brief suspension of Berliner may very well be paving the way for his exit from NPR. After watching Maher’s public diaper-filling, there’s little doubt that she would like him gone.
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Ed wrote another post about defunding NPR. The headline was classic Ed Morrissey, using the title of NPR’s flagship program: “All Things Considered, It’s Long Past Time to Defund NPR.”
NPR executives and leftist supporters are always quick to point out that only a small amount of its funding comes from the taxpayers. My response to that has always been, “So you won’t miss it, then.”
Let’s find out if they will.
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