Longtime NPR editor rips own employer over alleged political bias
Fox News Howard Kurtz reacts to the media organization coming under fire for its liberal leanings in its coverage on Special Report.
A veteran National Public Radio journalist caused a scandal for his employer on Tuesday with a scathing piece accusing NPR of liberal groupthink, renewing interest in how much cash American taxpayers pay for The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), and NPR more broadly.
Uri Berliner, the senior business editor and a 25-year NPR veteran, went viral for blowing the whistle on his employer for a variety of issues in a bombshell Free Press piece, including its faulty coverage of major topics like Russiagate, Hunter Biden's laptop and the COVID-19 lab leak theory, as well as an embrace of progressive views about systemic racism.
CPB, a private, nonprofit body which distributes federal funding to NPR and PBS, was granted $525 million in advanced funding for 2024. It was created out of the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act to disburse federal grants to public broadcasters around the country. NPR has insisted it receives "less than 1 percent of its $300 million annual budget" from the federally funded CPB, but a deep dive into the data shows CPB funds smaller stations that funnel cash to NPR.
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Uri Berliner, the senior business editor at NPR, accused his employer of liberal groupthink. (Getty Images)
Last year, X owner Elon Musk briefly slapped a "US state-affiliated media" label on NPR’s account, prompting critical pushback from staffers. Musk eventually removed the label, but talking points used by NPR to push back against the tech mogul prompted criticism from an Obama-appointed former member of the CPB board of directors.
"It is misleading for NPR to assert, in rebutting Musk, that it receives but 1 percent of its funding from the federal government. The reality is more complex," Howard Husock, who served on the CPB board from 2013 to 2018, wrote for The Hill last year.
NPR is authorized to produce radio programs for its members – a group of separately licensed and operated local public radio stations across the United States.
"Here’s where things get tricky," Husock wrote.
"Local stations, if they want to broadcast ‘All Things Considered,’ ‘Fresh Air’ and other programming produced by NPR or competitors such as American Public Radio, must pay for it. Indeed, in its consolidated financial statement for 2021, NPR reported $90 million in revenue from ‘contracts from customers,’ a significant portion of its $279 million and much more than 1 percent," Husock continued. "Such revenue was exceeded only by corporate sponsorships, which totaled $121 million. One can think of these funds as federal grants that have been sent from Washington — but returned to it."
In fiscal year 2022, according to its consolidated financial statement, it reported $93 million in revenue from "contracts with customers," as well as $135 million in corporate sponsorships.
Husock explained that "local stations are actually required by law to do so" because of the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act that specifies 23% of funds received from CPB "shall be available for distribution among the licensees and permittees of public radio stations solely to be used for acquiring or producing programming that is to be distributed nationally and is designed to serve the needs of a national audience."
"In other words, if a local public radio station decided it no longer wanted to carry ‘Morning Edition,’ it would not have the discretion to use some portion of its federal grant to support, for example, local newsgathering," Husock wrote.
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An NPR editor spoke out against his own outlet about its past coverage of Trump and Russia, the Hunter Biden laptop story and more. (Left: (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Center: (Photo by Brooks Kraft LLC/Corbis via Getty Images), Right: (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images))
According to NPR, 38% of revenue comes from corporate sponsorships, 31% comes from "core and other programming fees," 13% comes from "contributions of cash and financial assets," 7% comes from "other revenues," 5% comes from "PRSS contract, satellite interconnection and distribution," another 5% comes from endowments and NPR foundation board-designed support and 1% comes from net return on investments.
NPR’s own site goes on to admit that "station programming fees comprise a significant portion of NPR's largest source of revenue. The loss of federal funding would undermine the stations' ability to pay NPR for programming, thereby weakening the institution."
NPR’s finance page also insists the elimination of federal funding would result in less journalism.
So, while NPR publicly downplays its government funding, smaller stations that are funded by the government give cash to NPR. All of this occurs as NPR claims "federal funding is essential" while also pushing back on the notion that it is funded by the government.
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NPR provided a lengthy statement to Fox News Digital when asked about its funding.
"Millions of Americans depend on their local public radio station for the fact-based, unbiased, public service journalism they need to stay informed about the world and about the news in their own communities. Federal funding is essential to making that happen. For almost fifty years, the federal government has provided financial support to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), who distributes these funds in grants directly to eligible public radio and television stations – to serve the public interest with essential news and cultural programming not found anywhere else, and vital information and alerts during local and regional emergencies," an NPR spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
"The federal investment ensures that public media remains commercial free and universally accessible to all Americans, with public media stations serving nearly 99% of the United States. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded there is no viable private substitute for the federal funding that ensures universal access to public media’s programming and services. A 2012 report said that ‘the loss of federal support for public broadcasting risks the collapse of the system itself,’" the spokesperson continued. "Congressional support for public radio stations has been long-standing and bipartisan."
In recent years, NPR has often been accused of catering to liberals with content that regularly parrots Democratic talking points. NPR famously refused to cover the Hunter Biden laptop scandal leading up to the 2020 election, which underscored the organization’s liberal reputation. The scandalous laptop is one of the issues that Berliner scolded his employer about, along with NPR’s coverage of the COVID-19 lab leak theory and many other issues.
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Fox News Digital’s Jeffrey Clark, Hanna Panreck, Joseph A. Wulfsohn and Landon Mion contributed to this report.