The Republican-led House Energy and Commerce Committee has called on National Public Radio (NPR) President and CEO Katherine Maher to appear before Congress and address questions about the broadcaster’s alleged ideological bias and slanted coverage.
The invitation comes in the weeks after now-former senior NPR editor Uri Berliner published an op-ed in The Free Press on April 9, alleging an increasingly leftward political tilt has emerged at NPR in recent years. Mr. Berliner—a 25-year employee of NPR, who until recently worked as a senior business editor for the radio broadcaster—said while there had once been an “open-minded spirit” in NPR’s radio and online coverage, the broadcaster now serves the “distilled worldview of a very small segment of the U.S. population,” namely the progressive political left.
Mr. Berliner’s essay has prompted renewed scrutiny from Republicans and conservatives, who have previously been wary of NPR’s alleged political slant.
“NPR is entrusted with Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars. Serious allegations from a then-senior editor who spent decades at NPR reveal NPR engages in viewpoint discrimination and ideological bias that caters to a narrow, leftwing audience,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Committee Investigations Chair Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) wrote in a hearing announcement on May 1.
The House Committee plans to hold a hearing on Wednesday, May 8, to further discuss NPR’s ideological position and coverage. The committee has invited Ms. Maher to testify but it remains to be seen if she will attend.
NTD News reached out to NPR for comment but did not receive a response by press time.
The hearing invitation comes after Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) and six other Republican U.S. Senators organized a letter urging Ms. Maher to begin a “course correction” at NPR.
Berliner’s Bias Claims
In his essay for The Free Press, Mr. Berliner said one of the major signs of NPR’s bias he saw has been in its coverage of President Donald Trump.
“As in many newsrooms, his election in 2016 was greeted at NPR with a mixture of disbelief, anger, and despair. (Just to note, I eagerly voted against Trump twice but felt we were obliged to cover him fairly.)” Mr. Berliner wrote. “But what began as tough, straightforward coverage of a belligerent, truth-impaired president veered toward efforts to damage or topple Trump’s presidency.”
The former NPR editor said allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government became a “catnip” for various news media outlets, including NPR. “But when the Mueller report found no credible evidence of collusion, NPR’s coverage was notably sparse. Russiagate quietly faded from our programming.”
After the New York Post first reported weeks before the 2020 election about the contents of a laptop then-candidate Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, allegedly abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop, Mr. Berliner further said NPR “turned a blind eye” to the “sordid business dealings” the laptop’s contents revealed.
“The laptop did belong to Hunter Biden. Its contents revealed his connection to the corrupt world of multimillion-dollar influence peddling and its possible implications for his father,” Mr. Berliner’s April 9 essay continues. “The laptop was newsworthy. But the timeless journalistic instinct of following a hot story lead was being squelched. During a meeting with colleagues, I listened as one of NPR’s best and most fair-minded journalists said it was good we weren’t following the laptop story because it could help Trump.”
The former NPR editor alleged politics also swayed the broadcaster’s early coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading it to initially dismiss the possibility that the outbreak originated with a leak from a laboratory in China.
“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,” he wrote. “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.”
NPR’s Response
Following the publication of his critical essay, NPR announced it had given Mr. Berliner a five-day suspension, beginning on April 12, stating his opinion piece for The Free Press violated his contractual obligation to obtain permission before publishing content with another news publication. By April 17, Mr. Berliner had officially resigned from the publication.
“Questioning whether our people are serving our mission with integrity, based on little more than the recognition of their identity, is profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning,” Ms. Maher said in an April 12 statement without directly naming Mr. Berliner.
In an NPR article addressing Mr. Berliner’s criticisms, NPR investigative reporter Chiara Eisner said: “Minorities do not all think the same and do not report the same. Good reporters and editors should know that by now. It’s embarrassing to me as a reporter at NPR that a senior editor here missed that point in 2024.”
Ms. Eisner’s comments may have been in response to concerns Mr. Berliner raised about the lack of viewpoint-based diversity at NPR.
He also said, “Race and identity became paramount in nearly every aspect of the workplace” at NPR, with journalists asking everyone they interviewed their race, gender, and ethnicity and entering those details in a centralized database. He said NPR has also given its employees unconscious bias training sessions and implored employees to “start talking about race.” He said an NPR internal website also promoted internal company affinity groups based on racial and ethnic characteristics, with NPR officials describing these groups as a “great way to meet like-minded colleagues.”
While Mr. Berliner noted NPR’s focus on race, gender, and ethnicity, he said NPR leadership had not offered much response to numerous concerns he had raised about the diversity of viewpoints within the company. He noted that he looked at a sample of voter registrations at NPR’s Washington D.C. headquarters, finding 87 Democrats and zero Republicans working at that office.