NPR CEO calls First Amendment the 'number one challenge' in America

NPR’s new chief executive Katherine Maher called the First Amendment the ‘number one challenge’ in American journalism during a panel discussion.

Maher, 40, noted the First Amendment provides a ‘fairly robust protection of rights,’ making it ‘a little tricky to address some of the real challenges of where bad information comes from.’

These comments were made during an online panel discussion at the 360/Open Summit held by the Atlantic Council in 2021.

The clip went viral after whistleblower editor Uri Berliner was suspended for speaking out about the outlet’s progressive bias the last week.

Berliner announced his resignation on Wednesday, stating, ‘I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems I cite in my Free Press essay.’

NPR’s new chief executive Katherine Maher called the First Amendment the ‘number one challenge’ in American journalism during a panel discussion in 2021

The clip went viral after whistleblower editor Uri Berliner(pictured) was suspended for speaking out about the outlet’s progressive bias the last week

‘The number one challenge that we see here is, of course, the First Amendment in the United States,’ Maher said at the panel hosted by the Atlantic Council’s research lab, where she served as a nonresident senior fellow.

According to the organization’s release, she discussed fighting censorship, addressing diversity and building trust based on her experience as the former CEO of Wikimedia, which owns Wikipedia.

The clip has now gone viral on X, with Elon Musk reposting and saying, ‘This keeps getting crazier! The head of NPR hates the Constitution of the USA.’

Maher recently made national headlines after former NPR editor Berliner penned an open essay for The Free Press, where he slammed the outlet for being made up almost entirely of Democrats which he argued ‘lost America’s trust.’

Berliner claimed the publicly funded broadcaster became an activist organization obsessed with pushing progressive ideals.

In response to the 25-year NPR veteran’s article, the network suspended him for five days for violating its policy of working or reporting for another outlet without permission, starting Friday.

He resigned on Wednesday, saying ‘I am resigning from NPR, a great American institution where I have worked for 25 years. I don’t support calls to defund NPR. I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism.’

Maher insisted in a statement that the company remains committed to ‘serving all of the American public.’

‘Questioning whether our people are serving our mission with integrity, based on little more than the recognition of their identity, is profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning,’ she said.

Berliner said in an interview that the emergence of Maher’s old tweets undercuts her message.

The clip has now gone viral on X, with Elon Musk reposting and saying, ‘This keeps getting crazier! The head of NPR hates the Constitution of the USA’

Berliner said he cannot work for the ‘divisive’ new CEO, Maher (pictured), in his resignation

Berlinger argued in his article that NPR has ‘lost America’s trust’ because it was filled almost entirely by Democrats

The tweets in question included a veiled shot at Trump branding him a ‘deranged racist sociopath’, and sharing her support for President Biden by sharing selfies wearing his campaign hats.

Berliner confirmed his suspension as he sat down for a follow-up interview with NPR, and the network said he would be fired if he overstepped again.

But the business editor argued Maher’s tweets make her unable to steer the taxpayer-funded company in a moderate and fair way.

‘We’re looking for a leader right now who’s going to be unifying and bring more people into the tent and have a broader perspective on, sort of, what America is all about,’ he said.

‘And this seems to be the opposite of that.’

The tweets also included Maher saying: ‘I do wish Hillary wouldn’t use the language of “boy and girl” – it’s erasing language for non-binary people.’

In November 2020, Maher tweeted: ‘Lots of jokes about leaving the US, and I get it. But as someone with cis white mobility privilege, I’m thinking I’m staying and investing in ridding ourselves of this spectre of tyranny.’

Amid the BLM riots, Maher also contended: ‘I mean sure, looting is counterproductive. 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.’

Before publishing his scathing essay on the state of NPR, Berliner said he tried on numerous occasions to raise his concerns about its liberal tilt.

In particular, he said coverage of issues dominating the last few years had been tainted by NPR’s liberal bias, including the Israel-Hamas war, transgenderism and Covid-19.

Berliner added that, in his opinion, other outlets have similar issues, but feels that NPR’s public funding and insistence that it is moderate mean it has an obligation to remain impartial.

‘I love NPR and feel it’s a national trust,’ he said. ‘We have great journalists here. If they shed their opinions and did the great journalism they’re capable of, this would be a much more interesting and fulfilling organization for our listeners.’

In his article for The Free Press, a popular Substack site, Berliner said the rise of ‘advocacy’ in journalism especially surged at the same time Donald Trump’s political career did.

‘As in many newsrooms, his election in 2016 was greeted at NPR with a mixture of disbelief, anger, and despair,’ he wrote.

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