Cotterell: Nobody surprised but NPR that it's coverage tilts liberal
A top reporter and editor at National Public Radio caused quite a stir on journalism blogs andsome news programs by saying things that were obvious to everyone — except, maybe, tomany of his fellow journalists.
Uri Berliner wrote a long essay last week for an online site called The Free Press, saying NPRhas lost credibility with the American public due to a knee-jerk liberal take on major politicalevents. Berliner, a senior business editor and reporter, has been at NPR for 25 years and — rightup front — he stated his own left-of-center upbringing, education and experience in news.He cited audience surveys indicating that in 2011, 26 percent of NPR listeners describedthemselves as conservative, 23 percent were middle of the road and 37 percent were liberal. Adozen years later, that had become 11 percent on the right, 21 percent in the middle and 67percent liberal.
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In other words, NPR was doing just what Fox News does by tilting coverage to please a selectgroup of listeners.
He illustrated his point with three big stories — Russian interference in U.S. elections, HunterBiden’s laptop and the argument over the COVID-19 virus originating in a Wuhan, China,laboratory leak or an animal “wet market.” For the most part, Berliner said, NPR parroted theBiden administration’s side of each discussion and, when positions proved inaccurate, eitherignored later revelations or essentially said “oops!” and quickly moved on.
In a bit of legwork that probably earned him the enmity of his newsroom colleagues, Berlinerdid a little checking on voter registration in NPR’s Washington bureau. He found 87 reportersand editors were registered Democrats, and no Republicans — not one — were coveringnational news.Of course, 87-0 could be just happenstance. Surely they all would say they scrupulouslyseparate their personal views from their daily reporting duties. But Berliner doesn’t think so.“There’s an unspoken consensus about the stories we should pursue and how they should beframed,” he wrote. “It’s frictionless — one story after another about instances of supposedracism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad, and the direthreat of Republican policies. It’s almost like an assembly line.”
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Such apostasy earned Berliner a round of interviews on cable TV, sparked social-media chatter, and his Free Press piece was quoted by online journalism sites. His quarter-century with NPR and his voting record — he writes that he voted against Donald Trump twice — lends credence to his view of NPR and, by extension, the major national media. This isn’t some red-hatted MAGA cultist ranting about “fake news” and calling reporters“enemies of the people.” This is a reasoned voice of experience, a man who tried for years totell his bosses that “diversity” means a range of thought, not just race and gender in thenewsroom.
Maybe the only people who’ll be startled to learn that NPR leans leftward are Berliner’scoworkers at public radio. It’s been my experience, working in newsrooms more than 50 years,that most reporters genuinely believe they’re impartial and objective — and, when a storyevokes a natural sympathy or anger, they put aside personal feelings and report straight news.Except at outfits like Fox and a few others that cultivate a niche market of right-of-centerviewpoints, journalists don’t see a world of liberals and conservatives. They see conservativesand normal people. Like a fish is not aware of water — they live in it, eat in it, breathe it, travelin it — reporters and editors tend to be unaware of their group-think assumption that strivingfor “social justice,” as decreed by government, is as natural as water is to a fish.
And so Berliner’s essay may raise eyebrows at NPR [and led to his suspension and resignation] but won’t cause his bosses or coworkers to examine liberal dogma — any more than some insider’s tell-all confession wouldcause Fox News to rethink its cheerleading for the looney-toon segments of the MAGA movement and Republican Party.
Bill Cotterell is a retired capitol reporter for United Press International and the TallahasseeDemocrat. Distributed by The News Service of Florida.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: NPR needs to reexamine its lack of objectivity in news coverage
