The melodrama playing out at the tax-vacuum that is National Public Radio is entertaining to behold, but it is also a deeply significant event in the media environment. The very fact that this story continues to evolve and play out beyond the usual 24-hour news cycle is proof that something seismic has taken place. What we are beginning to see is that the reactions and the realities exposed at NPR are proving the revelations made by (former) Executive Editor Uri Berliner are spot-on accurate.

It has since been announced that Berliner — after being handed a one-week professional suspension — has decided to resign from his post at the network. As I discussed on the Lie-Able sources podcast, this essentially became inevitable when the list of NPR figures commenting on the column did not address its content and instead opted to simply go with the patented “Well, how DARE he!” approach. But one of the many things accomplished by the Berliner piece was he exposed the character that is Katherine Maher, CEO of the network.

Since the publishing of the column last week, we have seen a shift in focus quickly away from Uri himself, and Maher has become caught in the crosshairs. This is a woman who cannot be said to represent the rot in journalism for two reasons. First, she has only been on the job at NPR for barely a month, but also because she is not a journalist. Maher did not rise through the ranks at the radio network; she has not even paid her dues in the journalism landscape.

Maher, hailing from her own admitted whitebread New England upbringing, displays all of the blueprint of white liberal guilt. She hectors whites as benefitting from racist privilege, and therefore, their opinions are discounted — but HER opinions are to be held as sacrosanct, for some reason. Maher is the prototype of the college freshman activist who never grew up, yet this alone is not what disqualifies her from running a media outlet.

Maher's resume is filled with appointments dripping with leftist elitism, from think tank seats and European positions to working with the Council of Foreign Relations before working directly with the United Nations here in its UNICEF division. Then, about five years ago, she parlayed this experience to come the closest to a journalism position – she became CEO of Wikimedia. And here is where the severe problems become evident.

Maher has shown to have zero qualms about shutting down speech and censoring content that she deems to be misinformation. But more than this now-familiar practice in the press, she has crowed about her efforts to contort reality on the platforms she oversees. During a Ted Talk she gave (seriously, who wanted to listen to her on any matter?!), she came forward to declare that facts were easily disregarded for the greater good.

NPR’s far-left CEO Katherine Maher: "Our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that’s getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done." pic.twitter.com/yuFCKBjzjT

— Ben Kew (@ben_kew) April 17, 2024

Look, it is a staggeringly ignorant thing for anyone to come out and declare that the facts and the truth can become distaff items in the servicing of the narrative. For this to be a set of principles held by someone overseeing a news outlet is downright disturbing. This is — quite literally — Orwellian “Big Brother” (Sister) statism thought-policing taking place. And as we have come to learn, this is hardly Maher slipping up and having the veil slide on her views; she not only holds to these principles of lording over the facts, she brags about it.

Here is another video clip of her speaking to The Atlantic Council, and she was laying out the game plan they employed in policing and moderating speech during the pandemic, and the ensuing election.

We took a very active approach to disinformation and misinformation, coming into not just the last election, but how we supported our editing community in an unprecedented moment where we were not only dealing with a global pandemic but a novel virus. We really set up, in response to the pandemic but also the upcoming U.S. election as a model for future elections outside of the U.S. 

The model was around how do we create a clearinghouse of information that brings the institution of the Wikimedia Foundation with the editing community in order to be able to identify threats early on, through conversations with government, of course, as well as other platform operators to understand what the landscape looks like.

She goes on to say the First Amendment makes it “a little bit tricky” to censor content. She is not holding the 1-A as sacred; she is declaring it an inconvenience to her goals. Controlling speech and driving the approved narrative — with the partnership and coordination of government — is kind of, sort of, a little bit, maybe the polar opposite of what journalism is charged with as its mission statement. This is who NPR chose to lead its news dissemination outfit. Maher is vastly inexperienced and displays all of the traits that run counter to journalistic principles, yet NPR selected her to run its entire operation. 

It is not a question of who thought this was a good idea, but “why?” Why would a supposedly serious news outlet select someone with a truncated work history in the field, who is an avowed activist, and has routinely cited instances where it was necessary to silence certain voices and that the facts are not a primary concern?! Then take into consideration her dismissive approach to the truth while making claims to be concerned with misinformation; she intends entirely to control narratives and deliver only approved storylines.

The reason why she was hired might be seen in the reaction to all of these revelations in the broader journalism sphere. That is to say – there is no reaction. Uri Berliner’s column has mostly been covered in the press by the reactions it has generated. The actual revelations he delivered and the effects it has been having on the press industry have gone wholly unaddressed. Now we have a CEO of a major news outlet found to have a history of avowed hostility towards facts and the truth in order to drive the news narratives, and nobody in journalism circles seems at all bothered by these revelations.

There is abject silence because so many news divisions operate in this very fashion. They are just as imbued with an activism mindset, their newsrooms are comprised of the same wildly imbalanced political views as Berliner exposed at NPR, and there is the same history of a push to silence disagreeable viewpoints. 

Note the frequency with which “misinformation” is mentioned these days as an excuse for delivering slanted news. Look how many journalists have announced a need to halt giving both sides equal coverage. We have even seen a rising tide of voices in journalism saying particular outlets need to be taken down and silenced. 

Katherine Maher is not an anomaly in the industry; she is the very product that is sought out. A generation ago, the idea of trampling on the First Amendment would have generated immediate howls from proper journalists. Today, a news division CEO can boldly tout the need to silence free expression, and she is welcomed with open arms. The only reason this is a possible problem today is that the voices pointing out her disturbing views had not been properly silenced.