National Public Radio senior editor Uri Berliner has been suspended for his unauthorized critique of the insular liberal bias of his network. NPR star and “Morning Edition” host Steve Inskeep took to his Substack blog to slam Berliner’s article as “filled with errors and omissions.”
“His colleagues have had a rich dialogue about his mistakes,” Inskeep crowed, and dropped the bomb that it was “an article that discredited itself.”
For example, Inskeep declared an error in that Berliner found in D.C. voter records that NPR had 87 registered Democrats and no registered Republicans. When he was asked about Berliner at the San Antonio Book Festival, he says he told them, “I am a prominent member of the newsroom in Washington. If Uri told the truth, then I could only be a registered Democrat. I held up my voter registration showing I am registered with ‘no party.’ Some in the crowd gasped. Uri had misled them.”
Berliner didn’t address if anyone was registered as “no party.” He did write there were zero Republicans. Did Inskeep refute that? No. Several NPR veterans harrumphed they registered as “no party,” just as left-wing journalists will tell pollsters they are “independents.”
Inskeep wrote, “While it’s widely believed that most mainstream journalists are Democrats, I’ve had colleagues that I was pretty sure were conservative (I don’t ask).” That rebuts Berliner how?
When Inskeep challenged Berliner personally on his claim that the editing process was “frictionless,” he said Berliner acknowledged they have newsroom debates, but “the real test is what we broadcast or publish.” Inskeep leaves out what Berliner wrote about — that they put out a lot of stories on “supposed racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad, and the dire threat of Republican policies.” Anyone who listens to NPR programs gets an earful of those.
You have to laugh when Inskeep’s best defense is “everybody else did it, too.” He admits NPR did not report on the Hunter Biden laptop, but Berliner “leaves out the context: Other organizations also held off on the story because of doubts about the laptop’s authenticity. It wasn’t confirmed until much later.”
Now who’s engaged in “omissions”? NPR not only refused to report on the laptop but their top news executive Terence Samuel openly boasted, “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.”
That implies they weren’t going to touch this story, like it was a decaying rat corpse in the gutter.
Samuel signaled the same contempt on the horribly named evening newscast “All Things Considered” in June 2021, suggesting to anchor Mary Louise Kelly they should seek the “whole truth,” but exclude the liars: “It’s not a matter of representing just opposite voices, but more voices and excluding the voices that are just pure disinformation.”
After those “other organizations” confirmed the laptop contents were real, nothing changed. Kelly brought on Samuel in 2023 to proclaim former President Donald Trump would not be allowed to speak on NPR live as he was indicted because he was such a liar, but Kelly (as in 2021) didn’t bring up Hunter’s laptop.
But the most ridiculous line in Inskeep’s critique is claiming Berliner advocates “viewpoint diversity,” but he didn’t embrace it in his article, which spurred all his “errors and omissions.” If NPR is so committed to viewpoint diversity, would Inskeep agree to debate Berliner on air at NPR for an hour or two? Probably not. NPR hasn’t said one word on air about Berliner’s complaint.
Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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“For example, Inskeep declared an error in that Berliner found in D.C. voter records that NPR had 87 registered Democrats and no registered Republicans.” “Berliner didn’t address if anyone was registered as “no party.” He did write there were zero Republicans.” ” “While it’s widely believed that most mainstream journalists are Democrats”
To this treasonous self-righteous, woke Democrat Party and their supporters and their news/political propaganda media journalists. Our U.S. Constitution, Laws, Gender, Truth, Facts, Reality and History are all irrelevant, if the Democrats or their journalists do not WANT to believe them or they disagree with them. Democrats and their journalists will just make up their own, laws, Gender, Truth, Facts, Reality and History to fit what they WANT to believe or fits into the Con or Deception that they are running at the time.
I still find it strange, even now he’s been canned, that this Wuss STILL THINKS NPR shouldn’t be defunded..
Years ago I listened to NPR regularly on my commute. They were left-leaning, but I wanted to hear a range of viewpoints. Now, Inskeep charges that Berliner’s article was filled with omissions. It was the constant omissions NPR made in their reporting that swung them to the far-left. I noticed that they failed to report on many big-deal stories, because it didn’t fit the left’s narrative. And even within stories, they’d leave out lots of pertinent facts that entirely changed the substance and meaning of the story. One time, even though I knew I was preaching to deaf ears, I wrote them a letter complaining about a story’s omissions, I made four or five bullet points describing omissions that would have changed everything about the reality of the story. I castigated them for failing to inform their listeners by leaving out some of the most important elements of the story. I hope Congress defunds NPR. We shouldn’t have to pay for their shoddy and misleading “journalism”.
I’d rather drive in silence, or listen to music thanks.
Omission is the most insidious for of deception, because the listeners don’t have a clue that they are being duped. They are victims. NPR, stop victimizing America using taxpayer dollars.
Go onto opensecrets.org, and do a donor search (advanced) by Employer. Search for “National Public Radio”, “NPR”, and “Corporation for Public Broadcasting.” (you will need to filter out the obvious non-NPR donations from the NPR search as there are companies like “NPR Group” listed also. There’s one for $1000 to Lauren Boubert but that looks like a recording error) What you are left with is an overwhelming picture of donations to leftists – not just Democrats – hard left politicians and causes. There is one guy who donated regularly to John McCain, but guess what his job was? “Government Relations.”