NPR gives a masterclass on how not to do damage control

National Public Radio’s recent mishandling of a now-former employee raises an obvious question: What, exactly, are we taxpayers paying for here?

Not competence in public relations, that’s for sure.

Uri Berliner, who worked for NPR for 25 years, resigned last week following the fallout from a 3,500-plus-word essay he had authored in which he claimed that the publicly funded network has abandoned its journalistic integrity in favor of left-wing ideology. He also alleged that the network no longer tolerates opposing views and discourages anything that doesn’t align strictly with progressive dogma.

Berliner’s criticisms have not been well received at NPR. At least 50 staffers and their newly anointed CEO — a person indistinguishable from a satirist’s idea of a typical white, affluent liberal woman — have dismissed his concerns outright and attacked his integrity. Prior to his resignation, NPR had also suspended Berliner. 

NPR’s handling of Berliner’s criticism is a textbook case of what not to do in such a situation. Management is only proving his point about its hivemind tendencies and its inability to tolerate contrary viewpoints, all while turning a publicly embarrassing episode into a multi-week event.

Then again, when you depend upon an act of Congress to help keep the lights on, sensible business management probably falls low on the list of general considerations.

“Back in 2011,” Berliner wrote in an April 9 article published by Free Press,“ although NPR’s audience tilted a bit to the Left, it still bore a resemblance to America at large. Twenty-six percent of listeners described themselves as conservative, 23 percent as middle of the road, and 37 percent as liberal.”

He adds: “By 2023, the picture was completely different: only 11 percent described themselves as very or somewhat conservative, 21 percent as middle of the road, and 67 percent of listeners said they were very or somewhat liberal. We weren’t just losing conservatives; we were also losing moderates and traditional liberals.”

In arguing that NPR has sold out its journalistic principles to benefit left-wing interests, Berliner points to three news cycles specifically where he claims the organization got it very wrong: Russiagate, the origins of the COVID-19 virus and the Hunter Biden laptop.

He has a point on each count. 

NPR chased the Russia collusion dud with all the fervor of a faithful religious zealot, only to abandon the story with little explanation following the anticlimactic release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report. 

Regarding the Biden laptop story, which involves a globe-spanning influence-peddling operation implicating Ukrainian business interests, Chinese nationals and the White House, NPR didn’t even attempt to investigate the story when it was first reported by the New York Post. Instead, NPR Public Editor Kelly McBride explained in 2020 that: “We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.” 

Speaking of wastes of readers’ time, NPR would later assign three reporters to byline an 800-plus-word report detailing the alleged racially problematic legacy of the thumbs-up emoji.

Also, in 2021, NPR claimed the “laptop story was discredited by U.S. intelligence and independent investigations by news organizations.” No such thing had ever happened or has happened since. In fact, Hunter Biden confirmed later that the laptop in question was real and belonged to him. 

With regard to the origins of COVID-19, NPR reported in 2020 that “scientists” had “debunked” the theory suggesting the virus resulted from a lab leak. They hadn’t done any such thing. That the lab leak theory was “debunked” was merely the acceptable narrative at the time among journalists eager to score points against Republican legislators. The growing scientific and intelligence consensus today is that the virus was likely the product of a lab accident. This theory was always a serious and legitimate one. NPR dismissed it during the presidential election only because Republican legislators had been among the first to suggest it.

NPR’s response to Berliner’s criticism has not been what one would expect from a major news organization in a similar position. Usually, in cases where journalists openly criticize their employers for betraying journalism’s chief goal of serving the public interest, journalistic outlets at least try to give the appearance of introspection. There is usually some chin-stroking and perhaps a public statement wherein some hitherto unknown media executive vows to “do better” and “listen more.”

Not so at NPR, whose response to Berliner is a lot like its reporting: one-sided, tone-deaf, ill-advised and insanely self-important. The only thing missing from the group’s response is the breathy staccato ubiquitous in its on-air programming. 

NPR’s new CEO, Katherine Maher, who had not worked a day in her life in a newsroom before landing a gig at NPR, met Berliner’s criticism with righteous indignation, praising the organization’s reporting while ignoring Berliner’s detailed criticisms.

On Wednesday, Berliner tendered his resignation, explaining that he could no longer work in a newsroom where he was “disparaged” by a CEO as divisive and partisan as Maher.

Later, roughly 50 NPR employees sent a letter to Maher and editor Edith Chapin, condemning Berliner and calling for a public rebuke of the “factual inaccuracies and elisions” in his essay.

“Berliner’s public comments have made the jobs of our colleagues harder and have attracted harassment for them,” the employees write. “For every person who might tear down their colleagues in public, there are scores of people steadily trying to make change from within.”

Uh-huh.

NPR is entitled to be as far-left as it wants to be. It’s free to hire a CEO as kooky and partisan as Maher, who is recorded as stating, “Our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that’s getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done.” It’s free to believe that it’s a balanced and even-handed news organization. But it is not entitled to taxpayer support. Is it really too much to ask that NPR indulge in its delusions on its own dime? It’s a fair proposition. 

NPR can have Maher and continue down the road that prompted Berliner to speak, but first it ought to remove the “P” from NPR.

Becket Adams is a writer in Washington and program director for the National Journalism Center.