Conservatives have called for the de-funding of National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) for years. Now, with CEO Katherine Maher on the hot seat in front of Congress, that may become a reality.
Most Americans have enjoyed some of public broadcasting’s offerings, like Sesame Street and nature documentaries. With NPR, the long-running Prairie Home Companion variety show was also a hit, at least until the #MeToo movement’s broad claims of sexual harassment took him down just as he was retiring.
But both PBS and NPR have gone hard, hard left in the past decade, NPR most obviously. Even longtime liberal listeners found themselves turning the radio dial when every single story was used to pitch fringe-left ideas about how systemically racist, misogynist, and anti-environmental America allegedly was.
Despite the denials of partisanship, NPR’s own Uri Berliner blew the lid off the lies in late 2024 with an exposé of just how biased the network really was. Berliner was with the network for 25 years, and had his own progressive credentials as a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and being raised by, in his words, “a lesbian peace-activist mother.” Writing for The Free Press, Berliner tried to sound the alarm for his colleagues with a warning that their blindness to the radio network’s hyper-partisanship jeopardized not only their subscribing listeners but the support of the American public.
The most shocking part of Berliner’s essay were the cold hard facts. He discovered that of the 87 members of the broadcaster’s core editorial staff, not a single one of them was conservative. Each of the 87 was a registered Democrat.
While being grilled by Congress this week, Maher used her patented Mommy-Tone speaking voice so beloved by the Ted Talk set. Watch South Carolina Republican Rep. William Timmons question Maher about the hard-left position she and her staff take. He ends with an implied warning that NPR’s budget might have to be re-jiggered because the network is not “worth saving.”
Throughout the hearing, Maher gave implausible answers on many topics, suggesting she may not have been entirely honest. She claimed not to have any idea about the 100-percent registered-Democrat status of her headquarters staff. She also claimed to have no memory of several of her own posts on Twitter (now X) calling for reparations money for black Americans, and accusations that the country was inherently racist and woman-hating.
Here’s freshman Republican Brandon Gill from Texas nailing her on her social media claim that Americans were “addicted to white supremacy.”
Here’s what X users had to say. They remember some of her other greatest hits, such as questioning whether searching for the truth was really all it was cracked up to be.
She’s not getting high marks for her performance as the head of Wikipedia either.
Bob’s view sounds like that from many former NPR listeners, liberal and conservative.
