NPR defends reporting after veteran editor slams anti-Trump bias
‘Outnumbered’ co-hosts react to an NPR senior editor calling out the outlet’s alleged bias during an interview with Bari Weiss.
The NPR bombshell essay spotlighted things worse than liberal bias, the Chicago Tribune claimed. It exposed a refusal to be wrong.
On Tuesday, NPR editor Uri Berliner issued a lengthy rebuke of NPR's media coverage of major news stories over the last few years, such as the Hunter Biden laptop and the COVID lab leak theory, and called out the outlet's "efforts to damage" Trump's presidency.
The article caused a scandal at NPR, as several people claimed this exposed the outlet as a den of liberal bias despite presenting itself as a neutral source for years.
The Chicago Tribune agreed that the "nuanced and thoughtful" essay by Berliner presented evidence of NPR’s liberal bias but went further to decry its journalists’ "reluctance" to even admit it was wrong in those above stories.
An NPR editor spoke out against his own outlet about their past media 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))
NPR EDITOR'S BOMBSHELL ESSAY CAUSING 'TURMOIL' AT LIBERAL OUTLET: REPORT
"We suspect few of our readers would be surprised to hear evidence that NPR has a liberal bias, both nationally and within its local affiliates. And we’ll point out that in all three of the cases cited above, the issue perhaps wasn’t so much political bias so much as a reluctance to admit mistakes had been made in past coverage or follow up sufficiently when there’s new evidence," the editorial read. "We journalists hate to fess up as a breed; only the best of us do so in a timely and complete way. In all three cases, those same charges also have been credibly leveled against The New York Times and others. Even many progressive journalists in many newsrooms quietly acknowledge those errors. The pendulum swung too far, and it’s swung back only a little."
Part of the reason, the publication argued, included the "chicken-and-egg segmentation of the audience" where progressive journalists are increasingly targeting an equally progressive audience. Another included a rejection of open-minded thinking, particularly for issues involving race or Donald Trump.
"Part of the answer has to be the rise of critical race theory and the George Floyd-induced reckoning, wherein old-line centrism came to be seen by many on the left as unhelpful at best or a continuance of historical racism at worst," the publication wrote.
It added, "And a big part of the blame goes to Donald J. Trump, who convinced plenty of young journalists he was such a threat to democracy that refusing to write a story which might help him win the presidency was a patriotic act. Of course, that only backfired, as we all now can see. But plenty of smart, leftist journalists still openly decry ‘bothsidesism,’ once a defining ethos of journalists in a free society."
NPR BOSS REBUKES EDITOR'S BOMBSHELL ESSAY: QUESTIONING OUR INTEGRITY IS 'PROFOUNDLY DISRESPECTFUL'
Reached for comment, an NPR spokesperson directed Fox News Digital to a memo to staff by editor-in-chief Edith Chapin, where she said she and her team "strongly disagree" with Berliner's assessment of the quality of NPR's journalism and integrity.
NPR defended its reporting in a statement to Fox News Digital. (Getty Images)
"We’re proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories. We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world," she wrote.
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Fox News' Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.