As you may be aware National Public Radio (NPR) has been put on the defensive lately after long time employee Uri Berliner, who currently is a senior editor at the business desk, went public about his issues with the public radio outlets hiring practices when it comes to ideological diversity. NPR's CEO Katherine Mahar (who has quite the fascinating history of her own) put out a statement denouncing Berliner's depiction of the organization and quickly various NPR journalists began to rush in to offer support for her statement.
One such offer of support was put up by NPR's Mexico City correspondent Eydar Peralta, who called Mahar's rebuttal 'smart' and 'nuanced':
A smart, nuanced rebuttal from @npr’s CEO that stands in sharp contrast to the myopic essay that provoked it. https://t.co/C75ic1mTja
— Eyder Peralta (@eyderp) April 12, 2024
But when he received pushback on his framing of the issues, Peralta showed that he has perhaps never actually listened to NPR... because apparently he thinks that the place isn't 'completely rotten by political ideology'.
I’d also add that this is not “minimal scrutiny.” This accuses NPR’s newsroom of being completely rotten by political ideology, which is simply not true. Listen to our coverage. Not one story. Listen to the breadth of our journalism. I bet you’d be surprised.
— Eyder Peralta (@eyderp) April 14, 2024
Now if you've taken a moment to listen to NPR in the past decade or so you might think 'wait a minute, NPR's 'breadth of journalism' sounds exactly like it's completely rotten by political ideology', and if you think that you're not alone.
You’re trolling us, right? Do you listen to any of your NPR these past half dozen years?
— castoff13 🇵🇹⚽️🏈🎼📚 (@XSartorResartus) April 14, 2024
Tell us that story again about Hunter Biden’s laptop grandpa. That was good one. You were so brave!
— Kent Moore (@kentrmoore) April 14, 2024
The only “diversity” NPR cares about is diversity of look. There is no diversity of thought. You are in a giant echo chamber and you either don’t realize it or you don’t care.
— Rebecca Tucker (@RebeccaTucker85) April 14, 2024
Probably because, again, NPR's current CEO Katherine Mahar considers anyone to the right of Mao to be literally Hitler. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but you get the point.
— MrMikeD (@Mrmiked42) April 14, 2024
NPR has long been deeply bias in favor of the Democrats. You can lie about that, you can cry about that, hell you can throw a temper tantrum, but it is absolutely true.
— Cave Beater, PhD (@cavebeater) April 14, 2024
I have a large number of examples of NPR news stories that are “completely rotten by political ideology.”
— Pudge (@pudgenet) April 14, 2024
The proof is that most of them went uncorrected.
A serious newsroom would have long ago corrected the lie that Rogan said he took animal meds, for example.
We live in the age where what's important is that an 'important conversation was started' or whatever, retractions aren't necessary anymore as long as that important conversation was had apparently.
I listened. I even was a donating member for years.
— Paul Hoagland (@PaulHoagland11) April 14, 2024
NPR's newsroom is completely rotten by ideology. That is true.
You can ignore it or consider why support of the public continues to collapse.
Whatever. You do you. But keep a resume fresh.
I listened to NPR for years and you couldn't be more blind to your own bias if you tried
— 100% Ping Wing (@PingWingery) April 15, 2024
I do listen to your coverage. And its bias and framing and prejudices are so obvious and over the top in story after story. I keep hoping to catch a day where it’s objective and even-handed, but I’m probably deluding myself.
— Tim Hamilton (@TSHamiltonAstro) April 15, 2024
You probably don’t see this because you’re IN it.
And that's the thing, Peralta and Mahar probably think that there is intellectual diversity at NPR because they live in a very leftist world so anyone who's even vaguely tilted towards the center-left seems to them like a fine stand-in for 'honest conservativism'. These are presumably the types of people who think that Bill Kristol and Tom Nichols are still reasonable and respectable 'conservatives', despite all evidence to the contrary.
I recommend you listen to an NPR station for a few hours.
— 𝓐𝓵𝓵𝓮𝓷 𝓡𝓪𝔂 42 (@2CynicAl65) April 15, 2024
It's much worse than you can imagine.
Almost laughable at times.
They don't even realize how bad they've become.
That's why I call it National Propaganda Radio. https://t.co/M87wTvCjLu
I’ve listened to your coverage before, it’s pure liberal drivel https://t.co/NyQ8avRy8a
— (((Aaron Walker))) (@AaronWorthing) April 14, 2024
I go on a business trip every year with a female resistance warrior colleague and we switch off driving duties. When she drives it’s always NPR on the radio and it’s like hearing dispatches from another planet.
— George MF Washington (@GMFWashington) April 15, 2024
Having some degree of self-knowledge is important, and an important part of that is understanding your own biases and the biases of the place you work for and trying to correct for them, especially if the place you work for is a journalistic outfit that (in theory) is supposed to be concerned about objectivity. So many of the people in journalism today have completely lost sight of what was traditionally considered to be the 'mission' of their profession in favor of trying to put their thumb in the scale, to not just impart the news but to try to shape how the news is perceived by the public.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member