Embattled NPR CEO Katherine Maher derided the controversy about her past, partisan statements as a distraction from her work.
In a bombshell essay published in The Free Press, veteran NPR senior business editor Uri Berliner called out his own organization for liberal bias and a lack of diversity of thought. Since then, Maher's past controversial comments have been uncovered and criticized. In a 2021 interview, Maher spoke about the fight against disinformation, where she claimed the biggest obstacle was the First Amendment.
"The No. 1 challenge here that we see is, of course, the First Amendment in the United States. [It] is a fairly robust protection of rights and that is a protection of rights both for platforms, which I actually think is very important that platforms have those rights to be able to regulate what kind of content they want on their sites," she said.
Maher told the Wall Street Journal that her comments were taken out of context and that she has a "robust belief" in the First Amendment." She claimed that she was referring to the "landscape of constitutional protections and why that limits options of policymakers taking on certain issues," and that "it is by no means a personal perspective; it’s a very bad faith distortion of a nuanced perspective on a policy landscape issue."
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She went on to argue that she is focused on NPR’s future, rather than "a news cycle that asks about statements as a private citizen from many years ago."
"All of this frankly is a bit of a distraction relative to the transformation our organization needs to undergo in order to best serve our mandate," Maher said, referring to past comments she made like openly endorsing Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden over Donald Trump.
"We have robust conversations across the organization, including in response to the article," she said, rejecting Berliner’s claims.
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She also argued that "clear and well-reasoned pieces" from reviewers, like one from NPR’s public editor and Poynter executive Kelly McBride that analyzed Israel and Gaza reporting, have "found that our journalism is really solid."
After NPR reporters demanded that Maher take a harder stance against Berliner’s criticism, Maher thanked staffers for doing so, agreeing that there were ""unwarranted, unacceptable, directed personal attacks at many of our colleagues."
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Berliner, by contrast, argued that this is the wrong response to a whistleblower, arguing that "I wish that the company would have addressed and taken seriously some of the points I made," adding that "suspending and then rebuking a staffer is not the best way to go about it."
NPR suspended Berliner shortly after he published his essay. During the suspension, Berliner announced his resignation from NPR.
