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Honestly with Bari Weiss

NPR Editor Speaks Out: How National Public Radio Lost Americans' Trust

Honestly with Bari Weiss

The Free Press

Society & Culture, News

4.67.8K Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2024

⏱️ 48 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Uri Berliner is a senior business editor at NPR. In his 25 years with NPR, his work has been recognized with a Peabody Award, a Gerald Loeb Award, an Edward R. Murrow Award, and a Society of Professional Journalists New America Award, among others. Today, we published in The Free Press his firsthand account of the transformation he has witnessed at National Public Radio. Or, as Uri puts it, how it went from an organization that had an “open-minded, curious culture” with a “liberal bent” to one that is “knee-jerk, activist, scolding,” and “rigidly progressive.”  Uri describes a newsroom that aimed less to cover Donald Trump but instead veered towards efforts to topple him; a newsroom that reported the Russia collusion story without enough skepticism or fairness, and then later largely ignored the fact that the Mueller report found no credible evidence of collusion; a newsroom that purposefully ignored the Hunter Biden laptop story—in fact, one of his fellow NPR journalists approved of ignoring the laptop story because “covering it could help Trump.” A newsroom that put political ideology before journalism in its coverage of Covid-19. And, he describes a newsroom where race and identity became paramount in every aspect of the workplace and diversity became its north star.  In other words, NPR is not considering all things anymore.  On today’s episode: How did NPR lose its way? Why did it change? And why does this lone journalist feel obligated to speak out? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm Barry Weiss and this is honestly.

0:03.0

This is weekend all things considered from NPR News.

0:10.0

I'm Lisa Simioni.

0:11.0

Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf's... I grew up listening to n-Pherr.

0:14.0

I grew up listening to NPR.

0:17.0

Congress will consider undoing the ban on assault weapons and making federal law on guns

0:21.0

also hip-didger- do with Dr. Didge.

0:24.0

First, this news update.

0:27.4

I have such a sense memory of my dad picking me up from swim practice

0:32.1

at around five or six in the evening and hearing

0:34.8

from NPR News this is all things considered I'm Robert Siegel and I'm no Adams in a

0:40.3

New Year's message today in a way it's message today.

0:43.0

In a way it was the soundtrack to my growing up.

0:46.8

But the NPR of the 90s and the early 2000s

0:50.6

is not the NPR of today.

0:53.0

And sometimes doctors can be reluctant to provide psychiatric care to pregnant people.

0:58.0

Why is it so hard for white people to talk about racism. That's the question author Robin

1:04.5

De Angelo tries to answer in her latest book, White Fragility. And she joins us now.

1:09.8

Welcome. Thank you. In the last decade, as any longtime NPR listener like myself will have noticed.

1:16.9

First, since we are on radio here, no one can see us, let's just point out that you, Robin, are

1:22.3

a white woman.

1:24.0

I am very clearly a white woman.

...

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