The new president and CEO of NPR has a history of anti-Trump and pro-Democrat tweets that resurfaced this week as one of her employees went public with concerns of left-wing bias at the outlet.
Katherine Maher, who started as head of NPR last month, wrote a letter to her employees Friday addressing a story written by NPR senior editor Uri Berliner published by The Free Press that detailed the company’s alleged left-leaning bias. She wrote that Berliner’s story was “hurtful” and “demeaning.” NPR announced Tuesday that Berliner had been suspended for five days without pay beginning last Friday, per Fox News.
Berliner’s article criticized his employer for promoting “Russiagate,” ignoring the Hunter Biden laptop story, and dismissing the COVID-19 lab leak theory.
“In DC, where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans,” he wrote.
Maher’s letter criticizing Berliner prompted some media outlets to resurface her history of left-wing tweets. The New York Post reported that her tweets touted support for President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020 and Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016. Another post read, “Donald Trump is a racist.”
In a statement, Maher said the following, per Wisconsin Public Radio:
“In America everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen,” she said. “What matters is NPR’s work and my commitment as its CEO: public service, editorial independence, and the mission to serve all of the American public. NPR is independent, beholden to no party, and without commercial interests.”
Other posts expressed sympathy for Black Lives Matter rioters in 2020.
“I mean, sure, looting is counterproductive,” Maher tweeted in March 2020. “But it’s hard to be mad about protests not prioritizing the private property of a system of oppression founded on treating people’s ancestors as private property.”
“White silence is complicity,” she tweeted the following day. “If you are white, today is the day to start a conversation in your community.”
Maher’s gig at NPR is her first job in media, the New York Post reported. Her mother is a Democratic state senator in Connecticut.
“I know that hysteric white woman voice,” Maher tweeted in May 2020. “I was taught to do it. I’ve done it. It’s a disturbing recognition. While I don’t recall ever using it to deliberately expose another person to immediate physical harm on my own cognizance, it’s not impossible. That is whiteness.”
