NPR Whistleblower Uri Berliner Resigns Amidst Controversy

Uri Berliner resigned Wednesday after he was suspended for blowing the whistle about liberal bias in the organization.

“I am leaving NPR. It is a great American organization where I worked for 25+ years. I do not support the calls to defund NPR. I respect my colleagues’ integrity and want NPR to flourish and continue doing important journalism. But I can’t work in a newsroom that disparages me by a new chief executive whose divisive opinions confirm the problems I cited at NPR in my Free Press article,” Berliner wrote in a statement on X.

Berliner was referring to Katherine Maher who, after taking over as President and Chief Executive Officer last month, has become viral due to her past social media posts expressing far-left views.

Berliner wrote a piece for the Free Press criticizing NPR’s coverage of Russiagate, the COVID laboratory leak theory, Hunter Biden’s scandalous laptop, and the embracement of the theory of systemic racism. He also accused the organization of underplaying antisemitism after Oct. 7.

Berliner wrote that in 2021, registration records showed a shocking disparity between Democrats in Washington, D.C., and Republicans at NPR and that the staff was out to harm Donald Trump’s presidency. Berliner, who claimed to have voted twice against Trump, said that “one of NPR’s best and fairest journalists” had said it was a good idea not to cover the Hunter Biden Laptop story because it would benefit Trump in 2020.

Some colleagues told David Folkenflik, the in-house reporter for media at NPR, that they no longer wanted to work with him. Berliner was suspended without pay for five days and NPR said it was his “last warning”. If he continued to violate NPR’s policies about working with other news organizations, he was going to be fired. He walked out on his terms.

Berliner’s conclusions were publicly refuted by many other NPR figures including Steve Inskeep of “Morning Edition”.