Uril Berliner quit NPR after alleging it was biased in favor of liberals, but the saga continues.
Uri Berliner, the NPR senior business editor who was suspended after publicly accusing the non-profit media outlet of a pervasive left-wing bias, said Wednesday he has resigned due to the « divisive views » of CEO Katherine Maher.
But as the Berliner saga comes to a close, conservative attacks on Maher persist and calls for defunding NPR are only growing louder.
In his scathing essay published April 9 at The Free Press, Berliner wrote that NPR lacked viewpoint diversity, noting that at its headquarters in Washington, D.C., there were 87 Democrats in editorial positions and zero Republicans.
« An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America, » he wrote about the outlet, which is partially funded by government grants.
The lengthy essay in Free Press that claimed that NPR was biased against Donald Trump and favored President Joe Biden in a variety of ways, resulted in a five-day suspension of Berliner handed down on Friday.
But instead of returning to work, Berliner posted on social media: « I am resigning from NPR, a great American institution where I have worked for 25 years. I don’t support calls to defund NPR. I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism. But I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay. »
But while Berliner’s tenure may have come to an end, the issues he raised are expected to reverberate as conservatives like Trump, Senator Ted Cruz and others have cited Berliner’s story on social media along with calls to defund the NPR.
