Conservative Twitter having a bill with woke new NPR CEO Katherine Maher’s tweets drew a New York Times story (which isn’t in the paper). The headline was gentle, about criticism over “Tweets Supporting Progressive Causes.“
Benjamin Mullin noticed one showed Maher wearing a “hat with the logo for the Biden presidential campaign.” (He left out the Covid mask). He also noticed this colorful tweet:
“Had a dream where Kamala and I were on a road trip in an unspecified location, sampling and comparing nuts and baklava from roadside stands. Woke up very hungry.”
NPR spokeswoman Isabel Lara rebutted Maher “was not working in journalism at the time and was exercising her First Amendment right to express herself like any other American citizen.” Now she is “fully committed to NPR’s code of ethics and the independence of NPR’s newsroom.” Maher repeated that line: NPR is independent, beholden to no party, and without commercial interests.”
But just like her tweets, our search of Maher’s campaign contributions show she’s a fan of the Democratic Party:
— In 2017, $1,500 to former congressman Tom Perriello in an unsuccessful run for governor of Virginia.
— In 2018, $500 to Matthew Brown in an unsuccessful run for governor of Rhode Island.
— In 2020, it was a year for women of color: $275 (in 11 donations of $25) to Jennifer Carroll Foy in an unsuccessful run for governor of Virginia, $100 to MSNBC pundit Maya Wiley in an unsuccessful run for mayor of New York City, and $500 to the “Fair Fight PAC” of election-denying leftist Stacey Abrams, who still thinks she won the governor’s race in Georgia in 2018.
That’s back when election denial was cool in Democrat media circles.
Mullin’s story ended with Maher at a “town hall-style meeting” with NPR employees, and naturally, she was asked about NBC’s ill-fated decision to give a contributor slot to former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who was too close to election deniers. Maher proclaimed “I think that the most effective way that I have seen this play out is, if you’re bringing somebody into a story that is pushing a deliberate distortion, be extraordinarily well-prepared to push back and very prepared with the information necessary, the irreducible facts.” Take that, Stacey Abrams?
PS: Christopher Rufo appeared on Fox News to underline Maher’s wokeness:
Fox’s Jesse Watters brings on Chris Rufo to describe NPR CEO Katherine Maher’s old tweets: “It is the most vapid left-wing propaganda imaginable….It’s like Mad Libs for Left-Wing women.”
I hope @davidfolkenflik can realize if this sounds one-sided….what is NPR? pic.twitter.com/d9NntyCTR5
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) April 17, 2024