We’ve shown how the Media Research Center played hypocritical concern troll over NPR staff Uri Berliner feeding into one of its favorite narratives by running to a right-wing website and complaining about NPR’s alleged bias. When Berliner faced the consequences of his actions, Tim Graham pounced on it in an April 16 post:
In his latest company-man report, NPR media reporter David Folkenflik revealed that NPR senior editor Uri Berliner was suspended without pay for five days (beginning Friday) for deciding his years of internal advocacy for more fairness and balance in NPR’s coverage had been fruitless, so he went public.
Folkenflik disclosed that Berliner, as a senior editor for Business, had edited many of his stories, and shared with him the formal rebuke from management:
[…]So that means the article for The Free Press and his interview on their podcast is what’s being punished, and specifically for reporting the fact that 67 percent of NPR’s current audience identifies as liberal or very liberal.
Graham refused to admit the right-wing bias of The Free Press, founded by ex-New York Times writer Bari Weiss. He also laughably referred to Christopher Rufo, whom Folkenflik referenced in his article, as a “conservative scholar”; in fact, he’s a right-wing activist who works for a right-wing think tank, not an educational institution. When Folkenflik cited other NPR employees criticizing Berliner, Graham huffed: “Google these critics and NewsBusters and you’ll see they are firmly on the Left on the job.” But NewsBusters promotes narratives over facts, and that’s the narrative it wants to spread about NPR.
Graham spent his April 17 column nitpicking an NPR host who caught Berliner in a error:
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 are conservative (I don’t ask).” That rebuts Berliner how?
That was information that Berliner deliberately chose to exclude in his article because he wanted to feed the right-wing (and MRC) narrative that NPR is a bunch of Democratic partisans. Graham concluded by huffing:
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.
That’s another bit of hypocrisy from Graham. He would never ask a non-right-wing media observer to be a guest on his thrice-weekly podcast, and the TV hits by him and his fellow MRC employees these days happen only on right-wing channels were there is no risk of anyone with a differing view taking part — which ramped up when John Avlon wiped the floor with Graham during a 2016 CNN appearance.
Berliner resigned from NPR later that day, apparently choosing to make himself a martyr instead of working things out with his employer. And Graham was quickly on that as well:
Shortly before 11 am on Wednesday, NPR senior business editor Uri Berliner resigned at about the time his suspension without pay was going to end.
The most important part was where he took on woke new NPR CEO Katherine Maher: “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 essay at The Free Press.”
Maher’s pom-pom memo to NPR staff (posted publicly on NPR.org) claimed Berliner (who wasn’t named) was attacking NPR staff not for what they report, but “who they are.”
[…]While many of us thought Berliner’s days were numbered when his essay was posted, it would be a test of NPR’s intolerance to see if Berliner could remain. He could not.
Of course, nobody forced Berliner to resign — he did that of his own volition. Graham leaned into calling Berliner a “martyr” and blamed NPR for somehow forcing him to resign (though he offered no evidence this was the case):
“Martyr” is too strong a word, but it is an exhibit of their complete unwillingness to listen to a critique on fairness and balance and groupthink and wokeness. It begs for a congressional hearing with Berliner and with Maher, maybe shoulder to shoulder.
[…]Berliner voted against Trump twice. But voting for Democrats isn’t enough in this taxpayer-funded sandbox for leftists. You have to be in sync with all the leftist lingo and the interest groups that push it, from GLAAD to CAIR.
There’ more hypocrisy here too. Graham was silent when Fox News fired politics editor Chris Stirewalt after the 2020 election because he led the team that made the call that Donald Trump had lost in Arizona — a view Fox News management opposed because it infuriated Trump and disappointed viewers invested in pro-Trump narratives, even though the call was proven correct. (Still, the MRC’s Curtis Houck made sure to cite Stirewalt’s Fox News pedigree in trying to bolster the supposed viewpoint diversity of his new employer, NewsNation.)
Graham rehashed all this in his April 17 podcast:
After stirring up a hornet’s nest at NPR about a leftist tilt, senior editor Uri Berliner resigned Wednesday, but that doesn’t mean NPR types can refute his argument on their seemingly inevitable insularity and intolerance. New CEO Katherine Maher insulted Berliner as attacking staffers for “who they are,” when he was criticizing them for engaging in identity politics first, not journalism.
Berliner announced “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 essay at the Free Press.” Maher’s tweets show she supports race-based reparations, rioting, and the Black Lives Matter movement. She believes “America is addicted to white supremacy.” She talks about “cis white mobility privilege” without smirking. She won’t have children because “the planet is literally burning.”
At NPR, these tweets are not disqualifying — they’re qualifying. Berliner warns against journalists identifying with a “tribe” — race, gender, religion, or sexual preference. Maher embraces racial tribalism, beginning with a pledge to overcome her own white privilege.
Graham made no mention of Stirewalt, who was fired for putting the truth ahead of a political narrative.