After Being Completely Exposed by Its Own Editor, NPR Responds in the Worst Possible Fashion

AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File

On Tuesday, a 25-year veteran of NPR who still serves as an editor at the outlet thoroughly exposed the left-wing network's bias and its attempt to quash stories inconvenient to the Democratic Party. In a self-written article, Uri Berliner laid out multiple examples of how NPR has heavily skewed its news coverage while allowing essentially no viewpoint diversity in the newsroom. 

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READ: NPR Insider Tells All About News Outlets Incredible Bias, Various Story Cover-Ups


Some examples Berliner gave included the "news" organization's coverage of the COVID-19 origins, the Russian collusion hoax involving Donald Trump, and the Hunter Biden laptop story.

The lab leak theory came in for rough treatment almost immediately, dismissed as racist or a right-wing conspiracy theory. Anthony Fauci and former NIH head Francis Collins, representing the public health establishment, were its most notable critics. And that was enough for NPR. We became fervent members of Team Natural Origin, even declaring that the lab leak had been debunked by scientists. 

But that wasn’t the case.

No worries, though. I'm happy to inform you that NPR has told NPR that NPR is doing just fine. That includes a doubling down on the DEI regiment that has led the network to reduced viewership and a cratering of its credibility.

NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday afternoon that she and the news leadership team strongly reject Berliner's assessment. 

"We're proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories," she wrote. "We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world."

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Without realizing it, Chapin has just admitted the primary problem with forcing "inclusion" by way of racially-based diversity quotas. Doing so does not lead to an increased range of viewpoints. Instead, because DEI is exclusively a left-wing pursuit, it leads to an overabundance of the same viewpoints in the newsroom. Far from being "critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world," it has led to NPR having no nuance in its reporting, instead parroting whatever its far-left staffers agree on.

One of Berliner's colleagues provided a heated response on the matter. 

"As a person of color who has often worked in newsrooms with little to no people who look like me, the efforts NPR has made to diversify its workforce and its sources are unique and appropriate given the news industry's long-standing lack of diversity," Alfonso says. "These efforts should be celebrated and not denigrated as Uri has done."

Again, the problem is demonstrated by the misplaced priorities being displayed. The goal of NPR's newsroom shouldn't be for this person to walk in and see people "who look like me." It should be to report the news honestly and fairly, without the bias that left-wing groupthink creates. 

As Berliner noted, his critique was about the lack of viewpoint diversity, not about the number of minorities on staff. It would be conceivable to increase the number of black reporters in the newsroom, for example, without creating a left-wing echo chamber. That would require hiring black reporters who are not died-in-the-wool Democrats, though, and NPR does not have a single Republican on its editorial staff.

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The NPR article responding to Berliner goes on to miss the point yet again by bragging about how four out of 10 staffers are "people of color."

In recent years, NPR has greatly enhanced the percentage of people of color in its workforce and its executive ranks. Four out of 10 staffers are people of color; nearly half of NPR's leadership team identifies as Black, Asian or Latino.

It's like talking to a wall. They just can't grasp how stocking the newsroom with DEI hires instead of hires based on actual viewpoint diversity could possibly lead to the outcome Berliner exposed in his piece. 

Former NPR CEO John Lansing, who resigned a month prior to this writing, defended his tenure this way.

"The philosophy is: Do you want to serve all of America and make sure it sounds like all of America, or not?" Lansing, who stepped down last month, says in response to Berliner's piece. "I'd welcome the argument against that."

Sure, I'll provide the argument against that. DEI does not "make sure it sounds like all of America" because left-wing ideologies are naturally self-selective. In practice, diversity quotas as produced by organizations like NPR create bubbles where only those who agree with DEI in the first place have their opinions heard and published. Thus, you get the insane bias and censorship demonstrated by NPR. 

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Naturally, no lessons will be learned and Berliner, who is himself a left-wing Democrat, will be cast into the abyss for speaking the truth. Meanwhile, NPR's ratings will continue to flatline all while looking to the federal government for hand-outs. The cycle repeats.

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