Sen. Marsha Blackburn wants to end federal funding for National Public Radio after the resignation of a veteran editor following his suspension for publicly accused the outlet of espousing liberal bias.
“The mainstream media has become obsessed with doing the Left’s bidding and taking down strong conservatives — and NPR has led the pack,” Blackburn (R-Tenn.) told Fox News Digital in an interview published Wednesday.
“It makes no sense that the American people are forced to fund a propagandist left-wing outlet that refuses to represent the voices of half the country. NPR should not receive our tax dollars.”
Uri Berliner announced on social media Wednesday morning that he was leaving NPR, where he had worked for 25 years covering business news.
“I don’t support calls to defund NPR,” Berliner’s resignation statement read. “I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism.
“But,” Berliner added, “I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay.”
Everything you need to know about the NPR political bias scandal
- Veteran NPR editor Uri Berliner wrote a bombshell essay that claimed the broadcaster allowed liberal bias to affect its coverage. The senior business editor also said the internal culture at NPR had made race and identity ”paramount in nearly every aspect of the workplace.”
- Berliner slammed NPR for ignoring the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, and claimed a co-worker said he was happy the network wasn’t pursuing the story because it could help Donald Trump get re-elected.
- Berliner was suspended without pay following the essay and announced his resignation Wednesday.
- Berliner blasted NPR’s controversial new CEO, Katherine Maher, who previously posted hyper-partisan tweets, saying that she is the “opposite” of what the embattled radio outlet needs.
- After the essay was published, Berliner said, he received “a lot of support from colleagues, and many of them unexpected, who say they agree with me.”
- Berliner’s essay prompted new calls from Republican lawmakers to strip NPR of government funding.
- COLUMN: NPR, New York Times are in immense turmoil with the world on the verge of global conflict
In his piece, published April 9, Berliner claimed: “An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America.”
“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.”
Berliner claimed that he attempted to bring his concerns to the top brass at the network, but they largely fell upon deaf ears and led to little to no action.
In The Free Press, Berliner specifically called out NPR’s credulous coverage of allegations that Trump colluded with the Russians in 2016 and the network’s decision to largely ignore The Post’s bombshell 2020 reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop and the first family’s foreign business interests.
“With the election only weeks away, NPR turned a blind eye. Here’s how NPR’s managing editor for news at the time explained the thinking: ‘We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions,'” Berliner recalled about the laptop debacle.
“But it wasn’t a pure distraction, or a product of Russian disinformation, as dozens of former and current intelligence officials suggested.”
Berliner’s suspension was made public by NPR Tuesday, but began officially last Friday, according to the outlet’s own reporting.
Since then, NPR CEO Katherine Maher has faced scrutiny over past social media posts championing progressive causes and labeling Trump as a “racist” while calling Berliner’s critique “profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning” in a letter to staffers.
NPR claims that on average roughly 1% of its budget comes from government grants, including from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. CPB’s fiscal year 2024/2026 request sought $127.94 million for public radio station grants.
During fiscal year 2022, NPR reported total revenue of $309 million, according to its financial statements.
Some of the grant money from CPB is used to bolster NPR’s international coverage, according to the CPB’s website. The corporation also funds the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
Conservatives have long railed against NPR, accusing its news coverage of skewing left, and have periodically mused about slashing government funding for the outlet.
While a member of the House of Representatives, Blackburn herself backed legislation in 2011 to reduce CPB’s budget by roughly $50 million.
Blackburn’s office and NPR did not immediately respond to a request for comment form The Post.
