NPR, a far-left propaganda organ masquerading as a news organization, is reeling from a damning exposé written by a brave whistleblower, leading to renewed calls for ending the waste of millions of our tax dollars that go to the public radio network every year.
Uri Berliner, a senior business editor at NPR who has worked there for 25 years, wrote in his exposé, published Tuesday by The Free Press website, that leftist politics have repeatedly distorted NPR’s reporting. He wrote that “people at every level of NPR have comfortably coalesced around the progressive worldview” and seek to turn public opinion against former President Donald Trump.
While NPR says it gets less than 1% of its budget directly from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcast (CPB), the CPB has given the more than 1,000 local public radio stations around the country $126 million in the 2024 fiscal year. Those stations have paid much of that money to NPR for the right to air the network’s programs, accounting for an estimated 17% or more of NPR’s budget.
You may be thinking, left-wing media bias is well-known and widely practiced. But at least MSNBC, CNN, and other leftist mouthpieces don’t gobble up millions of our hard-earned tax dollars. Think about it: Almost none of us will pay anywhere near $126 million in taxes in our entire lives. But NPR affiliate stations collect this much from us in a year, a good chunk of which goes to NPR.
Responding to the Berliner piece, Trump posted in all caps on his Truth Social site Wednesday: “NO MORE FUNDING FOR NPR, A TOTAL SCAM! EDITOR SAID THEY HAVE NO REPUBLICANS, AND IS ONLY USED TO ‘DAMAGE TRUMP.’ THEY ARE A LIBERAL DISINFORMATION MACHINE. NOT ONE DOLLAR!!!”
Trump is right. NPR was created in 1970 to better inform the public, long before the advent of websites, cable news networks, social media, podcasts, and satellite radio. With hundreds more news sources now available through these platforms, there’s no need to give NPR a competitive edge over commercial broadcasters, or our newly emerging cadre of citizen journalists. Berliner, the NPR whistleblower, did not go to a legacy media outlet with his expose but was published instead by Bari Weiss and her team at The Free Press, one of our new independent sources of reporting and journalism.
Government funding of a news organization is anathema to the very concept of a free press. Dictatorships throughout history have coupled funding for the media with government control and censorship.
In his essay, Berliner cites several examples of NPR’s left-wing bias, including:
- NPR’s hyped and gullible coverage of false claims that former President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russia.
- The network’s refusal to report on the scandal uncovered by the New York Post regarding millions of dollars paid to President Biden’s son Hunter by foreign businesses in an apparent influence-buying scheme.
- NPR’s dismissal of the credible theory that the deadly COVID-19 virus originated from a leak at a Chinese lab.
Berliner wrote: “An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR…for NPR, which purports to consider all things, it’s devastating both for its journalism and its business model.”
Berliner, who said he voted against Trump in 2016 and 2020 but still believes it is his job to treat Trump fairly, wrote that Trump’s “election in 2016 was greeted at NPR with a mixture of disbelief, anger, and despair,” leading many NPR journalists to engage in “efforts to damage or topple Trump’s presidency.”
The essay Berliner wrote for the Free Press goes on to skewer NPR for its dedication to far-left orthodoxy, such as: absurdly requiring politically correct language like Latinx to be used on-air; embracing the view that NPR’s mission is to change “America’s infestation with systemic racism;” and using a central tracking system to record the race, gender, ethnicity and other demographic characteristics of everyone interviewed in news reports.
Berliner also wrote that rather than relating to each other as individuals, NPR employees were divided into a growing number of affinity groups based on identity, including “Marginalized Genders and Intersex People of Color” and “Women, Gender-Expansive, and Transgender People in Technology Throughout Public Media.”
Concerned about the lack of viewpoint diversity among NPR staffers, Berliner said he looked up voter registration records for his colleagues living in Washington, D.C., and “found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans.” Hmm…you think that just might have something to do with NPR’s leftward tilt?
The New York Times reported Thursday: “Some journalists have defended Mr. Berliner’s essay. Jeffrey A. Dvorkin, NPR’s former ombudsman, said Mr. Berliner was ‘not wrong’ on social media. Chuck Holmes, a former managing editor at NPR, called Mr. Berliner’s essay ‘brave’ on Facebook.” In contrast, NPR’s current managing editor of standards and practices, Tony Cavin, told the Times “he rejected all of Mr. Berliner’s claims of unfairness.”
As former NPR CEO Ken Stern wrote in a candid op-ed in the New York Post in 2017: “Most reporters and editors are liberal…When you are liberal, and everyone else around you is as well, it is easy to fall into groupthink on what stories are important, what sources are legitimate, and what the narrative of the day will be.” This has clearly happened at NPR.
Republicans in Congress and the White House — including Presidents Nixon, Reagan, and Trump — have tried to defund NPR over the decades but could never get Congress to go along. It’s time to revive that effort, which could succeed if Trump is reelected in November with Republican majorities in the House and Senate.
Berliner wrote in part, “An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America.” Not surprisingly, when bias and political agendas consumed many legacy media outlets, they also suddenly began losing their audiences. Trust in media is so low a in 2023 Gallup and the Knight Foundation reported, “Half of Americans in a recent survey indicated they believe national news organizations intend to mislead, misinform or persuade the public to adopt a particular point of view through their reporting.” Berliner’s expose gives that finding a striking legitimacy.
Like all other failing legacy media outlets, NPR has every right to continue broadcasting and publishing its left-wing take on the world. But it should get its hands out of our pockets and purses and stop collecting our hard-earned tax dollars to fund its propaganda.
Tammy Bruce, an Independent Conservative, has traversed a unique political journey that reflects her commitment to principles rather than party affiliations. She joined Fox News in 2005 as a Political Contributor, hosting her show “Get Tammy Bruce” on Fox Nation and providing insightful commentary on various issues for the Association for Mature Americans (AMAC).
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.