OAN’s Brooke Mallory
11:18 AM – Thursday, April 11, 2024
Former President Donald Trump demanded that the public stop funding news outlet NPR after an insider at the network exposed its disproportionate liberal bias, which included hostility against the former GOP president.
Expert NPR senior business editor Uri Berliner wrote an eye-opening editorial that appeared in The Free Press, claiming that the election of Donald Trump in 2016 inspired NPR reporters to look for ways to “damage or topple” his administration. He also said that the narrative that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the White House “became the catnip that drove reporting” and that “we [NPR] hitched our wagon to Trump’s most visible antagonist, Representative Adam Schiff.”
After learning of the exposé, Trump posted on Truth Social, paraphrasing Berliner’s claims that NPR reporters were trying to “damage” his campaign and presidency.
“NO MORE FUNDING FOR NPR, A TOTAL SCAM! EDITOR SAID THEY HAVE NO REPUBLICANS, AND IS ONLY USED TO ‘DAMAGE TRUMP.’ THEY ARE A LIBERAL DISINFORMATION MACHINE. NOT ONE DOLLAR!!!” Trump posted.
In the article, Berliner asserted that Trump’s election to the presidency had a significant impact on NPR.
“Like many unfortunate things, the rise of advocacy took off with 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,)” he wrote. “But what began as tough, straightforward coverage of a belligerent, truth-impaired president veered toward efforts to damage or topple Trump’s presidency.”
Additionally, he cited NPR‘s eager repetition of claims regarding Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia up until the Mueller investigation’s conclusion that the evidence was insufficient, as well as the network’s repeated interviews with Schiff, who for years had promoted the false idea of Russian collusion. Berliner also mentioned how the network handled the Hunter Biden laptop story.
“During a meeting, one of NPR’s best journalists said it was good we weren’t following the [Hunter] laptop story because it could help Trump,” he stated.
According to Fox News Digital, Schiff spoke with Schiff about Russia in at least 32 interviews between 2016 and 2019.
“Schiff, who was the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, became NPR’s guiding hand, its ever-present muse,” Berliner said. “The Schiff talking points became the drumbeat of NPR news reports.”
“An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America,” Berliner added.
Meanwhile, liberal outlets like New York Magazine still continue to spout the false Russian collusion narrative, even after Mueller’s investigation findings.
“But when the Robert Mueller report found no credible evidence of collusion, NPR’s coverage was notably sparse. Russiagate quietly faded from our programming,” the NPR editor added.
In his article, Berliner seemed to anticipate cries from critics to cut off funding for NPR. Although it also receives funding from nationally supported partner stations, NPR claims that the outlet receives “less than 1 percent of its $300 million annual budget” from the government-sponsored Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
“Despite our missteps at NPR, defunding isn’t the answer. As the country becomes more fractured, there’s still a need for a public institution where stories are told and viewpoints exchanged in good faith,” he wrote. “Defunding, as a rebuke from Congress, wouldn’t change the journalism at NPR. That needs to come from within.”
UPDATE: Top date corrected – 2023 date was changed to 2024.
Stay informed! Receive breaking news blasts directly to your inbox for free. Subscribe here. https://www.oann.com/alerts