The MRC Cheers An NPR Martyr, Part 2

The Media Research Center's concern-trolling over an NPR employee blowing up his career by going public with claims about purported bias got it what it really wanted: a starring role for Tim Graham to bash NPR in front of House Republicans.

By Terry Krepel
Posted 8/2/2024

Conservative Twitter is having a ball with woke new NPR CEO Katherine Maher’s tweets drew a New York Times story (which isn’t in the paper). The headline was gentle, about criticism over “Tweets Supporting Progressive Causes.”

Benjamin Mullin noticed one showed Maher wearing a “hat with the logo for the Biden presidential campaign.” (He left out the Covid mask). He also noticed this colorful tweet: 

“Had a dream where Kamala and I were on a road trip in an unspecified location, sampling and comparing nuts and baklava from roadside stands. Woke up very hungry.”

NPR spokeswoman Isabel Lara rebutted Maher “was not working in journalism at the time and was exercising her First Amendment right to express herself like any other American citizen.” Now she is “fully committed to NPR’s code of ethics and the independence of NPR’s newsroom.” Maher repeated that line: NPR is independent, beholden to no party, and without commercial interests.”

But just like her tweets, our search of Maher’s campaign contributions show she’s a fan of the Democratic Party: 

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Mullin’s story ended with Maher at a “town hall-style meeting” with NPR employees, and naturally, she was asked about NBC’s ill-fated decision to give a contributor slot to former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who was too close to election deniers. Maher proclaimed “I think that the most effective way that I have seen this play out is, if you’re bringing somebody into a story that is pushing a deliberate distortion, be extraordinarily well-prepared to push back and very prepared with the information necessary, the irreducible facts.” Take that, Stacey Abrams?

We assume that neither Graham nor anyone else at the MRC has bothered to look up the political contributions of Fox News executives, let alone draw a direct line between them and the channel’s highly biased coverage.

Meanwhile, the MRC was continuing to take victory laps over the martyrdom of Uri Berliner, the ex-NPR employee who blew up his career to spread right-wing talking points. Curtis Houck gushed in an April 18 post that National Review writer “Jim Geraghty went postal on taxpayer-funded National Public Radio (NPR) over its handling of now-former senior business editor Uri Berliner’s bombshell essay for The Free Press meticulously dismantling NPR for its decades of liberal media bias.” We don’t recall Geraghty ever complaining about the rampant bias at Fox News. MRC writer Stephanie Hamill ran to a podcast co-hosted by Lara Trump “to discuss the growing scandal at NPR”; no dissenting view was permitted during the podcast, during which Trump declared that NPR’s job was to “carry water for the Democratic Party.” Hamill somehow forgot to mention that Trump had recently been named co-chair of the Republican National Committee, where her job is literally to carry water for the Republican Party, and her appearance on Trump’s podcast was a demonstration of how the MRC is an arm of the RNC.

Graham returned to complain that the Washington Post covered the story without injecting right-wing bias into it:

The Washington Post is covering NPR’s Uri Berliner controversy – now that he’s resigned. The front of Thursday’s Style section ran a story by media reporter Elahe Izadi with the usual framing of “conservative activists” vs. “public radio network.” As if this isn’t “right versus left.” This was the online headline:

Turmoil at NPR after editor rips network for political bias

The public-radio network is being targeted by conservative activists over the essay, which many staffers say is misleading and inaccurate.

Izadi and the Post suggested that your critique is self-discrediting if it can be cited by conservatives.

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Izadi’s story was stuffed with NPR reporters and executives huffing that they’re not putting out a slanted left-wing product. They’re an “independent” outlet doing “fact-based reporting.” Disagree with that? It’s a “bad-faith” argument. The liberal bubble is thick.

Given that Graham has so embraced the Berliner story while spreading worn-out talking points that NPR is a “slanted left-wing product” sorta proves the Post’s suggestion correct. Indeed, he continued to whine that right-wing attacks on NPR aren’t taken seriously by anyone outside his thick right-wing bubble:

But it grew worse: Ayesha Rascoe went for guilt by association, that any conservative critique of NPR is responsible for encouraging anonymous numbskulls on the internet:

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Izadi’s piece read like a long list of internal NPR complaints without any inkling of what all liberals know: NPR is a left-wing sandbox. It’s “public,” but it’s owned by the Left. Berliner betrayed his colleagues by assailing its “legendary” status. 

Graham made no attempt to distance himself from those “anonymous numbskulls on the internet” — indeed, one quoted in the article called a black female NPR host a “DEI hire” who has “never read a book in her life,” a sentiment that pairs well with the MRC’s anti-DEI activism. And with that, Graham continues to prove the Post correct about the unseriousness of right-wing media criticism — made even more so by the MRC’s refusal to criticize the right-wing bias of Fox News.

Jeffrey Lord demonstrated just how much of a gift Berliner's career self-immolation is to right-wing narratives in his April 20 column:

God bless America and free speech. But the decidedly obvious problem is that you are paying the bill – and the money is lifted right out of your wallet automatically, giving you absolutely zero choice in paying for what has morphed into left-wing propaganda radio.

Imagine taxpayer dollars going to subsidize Limbaugh or Levin. You don’t have to wonder whether the Left would find that a horrible expenditure of tax dollars to promote one side of the fence.

Which makes the saga of longtime NPR editor Uri Berliner considerably interesting. A longtime editor at NPR, Berliner penned a lengthy article which not only startlingly admits to the problem but criticizes his bosses and colleagues for producing news every day from the liberal bubble.

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So there you have it. You, the American taxpayer, are paying for NPR and its left-wing bias. And if you are working at NPR and protest that bias, you will be suspended without pay and then made so uncomfortable you are forced to resign.

The real problem? This is but one example of a journalistic outlet pretending to “just the facts” reporting. The fact that taxpayers have to pay for it is particularly insulting to Americans. And that is something that Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn is determined to change, sponsoring legislation to defund NPR. While over in the House the same move is being led by Indiana Congressman Jim Banks.

But make no mistake, there are plenty of so-called journalism outlets out there that pretend to straight-up reporting when, in fact, just like NPR, their newsrooms are under the iron-fisted control of left-wing activists.

And viewpoint diversity, as is true at NPR, is not to be tolerated.

At NPR, thanks to Uri Berliner — at the cost of his job — the mask of journalistic independence and objectivity has finally dropped. It’s about time someone from the inside told the ugly truth about it.

Lord made sure not to mention that Fox News’ slogan is “fair and balanced” — meaning it’s an article that pretends to offer straight-up reporting despite being under the control of right-wing activists. That makes Lord’s purported concern about journalistic balance a pathetic sham.

After new NPR CEO Katherine Maher pointed out the bad-faith nature of partisan critics like, um, the MRC, Graham whined about it in an April 24 post, complaining further that NPR public editor Kelly McBride “McBride went on Brian Stelter’s podcast and divided NPR critics as supporters (liberals) and ‘bad faith’ critics (conservatives). McBride sounds less like a Public Editor (working on behalf of the audience) and more like a Public Cheerleader (working on behalf of company morale).” Graham didn’t explain how the MRC’s relentless criticism of NPR — based on partisan politics, not journalism — should be seen as anything other than bad faith.

Graham then complained: “Maher said their internal research shows people see NPR as ‘accurate and intellectual,’ she said. ‘We want to be able to speak to folks as though they were our neighbors and speak to folks as though they were our friends.’ That’s not the way conservatives hear it on the radio.” But conservatives like Graham aren’t listening to NPR for news — they’re listening for perceived bias (not actual bias) and clips they can exploit for online clicks and for perpetuating the anti-NPR narrative they have invested so many years developing. In other words, the very definition of bad-faith criticism.

Lord spent his April 27 column rehashing a somewhat related controversy:

Uri Berliner’s expose of the ideological unanimity at NPR reminds the Republican half of America that they send their taxpayer dollars to Washington to have their viewpoints excluded or ridiculed as “far right” hate. 

Back there in the Stone Age of 2023, Elon Musk, he of X that is formerly Twitter, antagonized NPR and PBS because – ready? Musk had made some changes to “state-affiliated” media designations, applying the term to both of those outlets. They’re state-funded, but not state-affiliated?

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There was an easy and obvious way for NPR and PBS to answer Musk’s criticism and get out from under his “state-affiliated” designation once and for all.

That would be: Stop taking money from the government. Period. Stop taking any money from any government apparatus. Period. Make the “P” in NPR and PBS stand not for “Public” – aka taking government funds – but rather “P” as in “Private.” As in “National Private Radio” and “Private Broadcasting Service.”

All of which would make NPR and PBS a genuine private sector competitor with the rest of the American private sector free market in the world of television and radio broadcasting.

Would that happen? Of course not. Again, as Uri Berliner documents, the network exists in a liberal bubble. Not even Elon Musk can get through it.

As ConWebWatch documented at the time the MRC was squeeing over Musk doing this, Musk had no reason whatsoever for doing so other than messing with NPR and PBS, and it was unfair and inaccurate for him to place the same label on them as Twitter/X had on explicitly state-run outlets, which is not what NPR and PBS are, which violated its own established labeling standards. And in the end, Musk dropped the label from not only NPR and PBS but also the state-run propaganda outlets, meaning that Twitter/X users lost a tool for evaluating such outlets.

And just to further prove the bad-faith nature of his NPR attacks, Graham cranked out an April 25 post:

Anyone who spends time reading about NPR on NewsBusters is going to roll their eyes when NPR executives blather about how they believe in “viewpoint diversity” and “inclusion” of important voices. It’s readily apparent on a daily basis that NPR is a sandbox for left-wingers, polishing Democrats and punishing Republicans, touting liberal journalists as heroic and conservative journalists as a pox on the First Amendment.

Coming up with a list of ten egregious examples to advocate for separating NPR from the taxpayers is difficult, because there are many more examples than just ten. We decided to limit it to the Trump era, since that’s roughly how long Uri Berliner was complaining inside NPR.

Because nothing says “good-faith serious criticism” like a demand to censor and defund a media outlet you don’t like for not adhering to your preferred partisan narratives.

Graham's NPR-hate at GOP House hearing

Graham kept up the concern-trolling in a May 1 post:

Ex-NPR senior editor Uri Berliner appeared again on Chris Cuomo’s NewsNation show on Tuesday night. “I think that really, NPR has a lot of soul searching to do about representing the country at large. Being a publicly funded news organization and really trying to represent this country in all its great diversity and viewpoints.”

It should seem obvious that NPR is impervious to “soul searching” since they didn’t want Berliner to work there any more after he raised his questions about viewpoint diversity.

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Cuomo expressed amazement that the serious complaints within NPR were about wanting to take it further to the left, not further to the center. 

If only Graham cared about the lack of viewpoint diversity at his employer’s former right-wing “news” division, CNSNews.com.

This all ended up being a prelude to what the MRC wanted all along: A Republican-led House hearing dedicated to attacking NPR, with Graham himself as a prime witness. Curtis Houck gushed over his boss’ testimony in a May 8 post:

On Wednesday, the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters executive editor Tim Graham testified before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations during a hearing on the decades-long liberal boondoggle that is National Public Radio (NPR). Not surprisingly, he came armed with examples of their virulent bias and hate for conservatives.

Joined by Americans for Tax Reform’s James Erwin, the American Enterprise Institute’s Howard Husock, and Free Press co-CEO Craig Aaron, Graham took questions from lawmakers that fell into all-predictable camps of Republicans recognizing the problem and Democrats not only denying reality, but accusing critics of NPR of putting the lives of journalists in danger.

Graham’s opening statement (which was also given its own post) was unsurprisingly filled whit partisan invective and ancient grievances:

Uri Berliner obviously tried to make the point that media bias became a bigger problem when Donald Trump ran for president. We are here to tell you this has been a problem for a very long time. NPR legal reporter Nina Totenberg destroyed the Douglas Ginsburg nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987, then she tried again with Clarence Thomas in 1991. They energetically channeled the accusers of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, and when a man arrived in an Uber on Kavanaugh’s street two years ago with weapons and plans to assassinate Kavanaugh, NPR failed to file a single feature story on it. Nina Totenberg could not be found. NPR, a supposed source of civility, didn’t demonstrate that cared one bit about this potential political violence. But in March, between Morning Edition and Fresh Air, Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford was granted an hour of taxpayer-funded air time to reproduce her unproven charges of teenaged sexual assault.

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NPR, that network of civility, also has encouraged chaos and disorder in society: On August 27, 2020, NPR’s blog “Code Switch”, with the slogan “Race In Your Face,” posted an interview promoting a new book titled In Defense of Looting. On The NPR Politics Podcast on July 17, 2021,they promoted a book by Yale law professor Elizabeth Hinton saying that protests against policy should not — they shouldn’t be called riots. They should be called “rebellions”. On NPR’s Fresh Air on April 15, 2023, their movie critic John Powers praised the movie How to Blow Up a Pipeline, hailing it as “hugely timely”. You know, this is what NPR is doing. They can devote our taxpayer dollars to getting behind looting, rioting, and blowing up pipelines . And yet, NPR represents the Republicans as uniquely extreme. We’ve seen this throughout this Congress where they come on and say, “oh, the hard right Republicans are ruining everything.” Um, they were doing this morning discussing Miss Taylor Greene, but they have had several sappy interviews with Hakeem Jeffries. Steve Inskeep at one said — said, “you say to Republicans drive the car off the cliff. We are not going to grab the wheel.” This is the way they treat Republicans, basically as nutballs who are gonna drive the car off the cliff. You might understand that’s why we might get a little upset.

Houck then had a fit when a Democratic senator pointed out the MRC’s partisan agenda:

Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) was on the flip side, accusing those investigating NPR’s political tilt of a “disturbing” return to “the dark days of McCarthyism” when, instead, the House should crack down on private “right-wing media organizations that have a long history of peddling misinformation, disinformation, promoting partisan agendas and sowing fear and division.”

“Public cynicism about the media doesn’t come from NPR. It comes from the right-wing media,” he added as if to suggest NPR hasn’t done anything itself to harm its reputation.

Houck was much happier when all the right people were on message:

Moments later, Congressman Jeff Duncan used his time to lambaste NPR as “a Democrat propaganda machine funded by U.S. tax dollars” and mock the idea they’re providing “objective reporting”:

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Congresswoman Debbie Lesko (R-AZ) went to Graham after noting “there’s a hunger in our society for just plain, unbiased news” that also doesn’t send blood pressures soaring. She asked Graham about what’s needed “to ensure NPR provides impartial coverage and serves a broader audience”:

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And, in response to a question from Lesko, Erwin brought up what precipitated the last congressional hearing about NPR (that Graham also testified at), which was “a scandal where local affiliates were sharing donor lists with Democratic Party operatives” and suggested a remedy of allowing taxpayers to opt out of funding NPR (and PBS) on their tax forms.

[...]

Graham explained how NPR has strayed from its mission of representing all voices by explaining how, oftentimes, stories will claim to feature a Republican voice, but said voice will be from, say, Liz Cheney.

Graham apparently didn’t explain why Cheney cannot be considered a Republican merely because she opposes a rapist, convicted felon and insurrection inciter for president.

Graham was quite pleased with himself and his biased testimony in his May 8 podcast:

The House Republicans on the Energy & Commerce Committee invited me to testify on Wednesday about allegations of bias at National Public Radio. The expose by former NPR business editor Uri Berliner galvanized the Republicans to introduce several bills about defunding NPR after more than 50 years of taxpayer support. Is there any hope that NPR will change its biased ways? Don’t be wildly optimistic.

However, I told them they should hold more hearings and press new NPR CEO Katharine Maher to explain how their content serves all the public, and not just the Democrat fraction. Maher declined this invitation, insisting she had an previously schedule all-day board meeting. We’ll hope this committee can find a date to ask her to justify all the tilt we’ve been exposing. 

The next day, Graham expressed further pleasure with himself in the right-wing safe space of Fox Business:

After his boat-rocking testimony before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on the leftist tilt of National Public Radio on Wednesday, NewsBusters Executive Editor Tim Graham appeared on The Bottom Line with Dagen & Duffy on Fox Business. Host Sean Duffy said it was unfair to make taxpayers fund a “radical liberal machine.”.

NPR CEO Katharine Maher declined an invitation to the hearing, and Graham said “Maybe she didn’t want to show up because we had all of the examples today.... NPR likes books like In Defense of Looting. NPR likes the movie How to Blow Up a Pipeline and then it’s everything they have to say about the Republicans, being ‘hard right’ Republicans who want to drive the country off a cliff. I don’t know how you can defend all that. We had Democrats today trying to claim what NPR does is objective, you just don’t like objective reporting, which is comedy. You can’t provide a laugh track when they say that, because it impolite. But you sure wanted to.”

Co-host Dagen McDowell suggested the Democrats don’t listen to NPR so they can be “blissfully ignorant” when they call it unbiased, so they “can stay that without laughing.” She called NPR a “sewage lagoon.” They discussed how NPR claims they only receive one percent of the budget from the federal government, but in reality, the government funds the local affiliates, who send money back to Washington in “programming fees.” So a defunding would be dramatic for them. 

Tim said “What they really need to do is just take that threat, and say we getter go back to what we are supposed to be doing, which is allowing both sides to speak, let both parties speak. That is not what they are doing, they have softballs for Democrats and hardball for Republicans — when they get a chance [to be interviewed].”

It was not pointed out that people with a differing view than Graham, Duffy and McDowell were forbidden from taking part in this segment. Perhaps they were afraid of pegging the irony meter. But the MRC gave away the game — and its ultimately goal of censorship — with the headline of this post: “MRC’s Tim Graham on Fox Biz: NPR’s CEO Should Be Afraid of Us and Our Evidence.”

Graham gave Berliner one more opportunity to display his disloyalty and bias in a May 12 post:

NPR whistleblower Uri Berliner, who penned a bombshell expose on the woke one-sidedness of the “public” radio network’s news product, knocked new NPR CEO Katherine Maher for failing to show for Wednesday’s House hearing on the leftist bias of her new employer. She claimed she had a Board of Directors meeting all day.

Instead, Maher submitted written testimony NPR is “bringing trusted, reliable, independent news and information of the highest editorial standards” to tens of millions of listeners. Eli Lake at The Free Press, which ran Berliner’s piece, talked to Berliner about the no-show.

“Why isn’t she there? Is she the right person for the job at this time?” he asked, adding that her written statement “sounds like a pledge drive.” This question could be turned around on Berliner, who surely was invited to testify by the House Republicans.

It could also be that Maher had no interest in being a punching bag for right-wing congressmen (and Graham) at a hearing that was stacked against her. Graham concluded by whining about “the kind of contempt NPR reporters show for their critics” — even though Graham himself has nothing but contempt for his critics, given how he has muted ConWebWatch on his Twitter/X account.