Achi news desk-
NEW YORK –
A National Public Radio editor who wrote an essay criticizing his employer for promoting liberal views resigned Wednesday, attacking NPR’s new CEO on the way out.
Uri Berliner, a senior editor on NPR’s business desk, posted his resignation letter on X, formerly Twitter, a day after it was revealed he had been suspended for five days for violating company rules about outside work done without permission.
“I can’t work in a newsroom where I’m being vilified by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems” written about in his essay, Berliner said in his resignation letter.
Katherine Maher, a former tech executive who was appointed in January as NPR’s chief executive, has been criticized by conservative activists for social media posts that disparaged former President Donald Trump. The messages predated her employment at NPR.
NPR’s head of public relations said the organization does not comment on individual personnel matters.
The suspension and subsequent resignation highlight the delicate balance many US news organizations and their editorial staff face. On the one hand, as journalists strive to produce unbiased news, they are not supposed to comment on controversial public issues; on the other hand, many journalists consider it their duty to criticize their own organisations’ approaches to journalism when necessary.
In his essay, written for the Free Press online website, Berliner said NPR is dominated by liberals and no longer has an open-minded spirit. He traced the change to coverage of the Trump presidency.
“There is an unspoken consensus about the stories we should pursue and how they should be framed,” he wrote. “It’s frictionless – one story after another about cases of alleged racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad and the dire threat of Republican policies. It’s almost like an assembly line.”
He said he had raised his concerns internally and no changes had been made, making him “a visible wrong thinker in a place I love.”
In the wake of the essay, NPR’s chief editorial executive, Edith Chapin, said that the leadership strongly disagreed with Berliner’s assessment of the outlet’s journalism and the way he went about doing his job.
It is not clear what Berliner was referring to when he spoke of contempt from Maher. In a lengthy memo to staff members last week, he wrote: “Asking the question of whether we are fulfilling our mission should always be fair: after all, journalism is nothing if not difficult questions. Questioning whether our people serves. their mission with integrity, which is based on nothing more than the recognition of their identity, is extremely disrespectful, harmful and degrading.”
Conservative activist Christopher Rufo revealed some of Maher’s previous tweets after the essay was published. In one tweet, dated January 2018, Maher wrote that “Donald Trump is a racist.” A post shortly before the 2020 election featured her in a Biden campaign hat.
In response, an NPR spokesperson said that Maher, years before she joined the radio network, was exercising her right to express herself. She is not involved in editorial decisions at NPR, the network said.
The issue is an example of what can happen when business executives, instead of journalists, are appointed to roles overseeing news organizations: they find themselves scrutinized for signs of bias in ways they hadn’t been before. NBC Universal News Group Chairman Cesar Conde has recently been criticized for serving on paid corporate boards.
Maher is the former head of the Wikimedia Foundation. NPR’s own story about the 40-year-old executive’s appointment in January noted that she had “never worked directly in journalism or at a news organization.”
In his resignation letter, Berliner said he did not support any efforts to strip NPR of public funds. “I respect the integrity of my colleagues and want NPR to thrive and do important journalism,” he wrote.
