NPR’s CEO’s testimony is ridiculous

It’s been a long week. Want a good laugh? 

National Public Radio CEO Katherine Maher told a congressional committee on Wednesday that NPR delivers “unbiased, nonpartisan, fact-based reporting to Americans.” 

I know, right? And she did it with a straight face. Hilarious. 

That’s right, the Pravda Press executive in the “Biden President” hat and mask told the House’s Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) subcommittee that the right-hating, leftist propaganda that NPR peddles is worth every penny of the $120 million-plus the public radio system annually receives in American taxpayer generosity. 

The laugh riot continued. Maher, who has routinely vilified President Trump as a “deranged, racist sociopath,” assured the government waste-cutting committee that her leftist broadcast fiefdom focuses on the “highest journalistic standards.” NPR and the hundreds of local public stations that use its programming operate “independently,” she said. That is to say, the CEO “has no editorial role at NPR.” That’s kind of like saying Jeff Bezos has no role in what The Washington Post publishes. 

“…[L]et me inform you that your federal funding is also paid for by the other half of the country — the 77 million Americans who voted for President Trump. Someone you called a deranged, racist sociopath,” Committee chairwoman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., scolded Maher. 

‘I Hear, Respect, and Understand Your Concerns’

The NPR head gave the committee the old Ike Turner, as she and PBS CEO Paula Kerger begged for continued taxpayer subsidies. I’ve changed, Tina. Baby, I won’t hurt you again. 

“We have a responsibility to serve Americans across the full political spectrum in a trustworthy, non-partisan fashion,” Maher said in her opening statements. “It is essential we deliver on this commitment, and we have work to do and we are doing it.”

How are they doing that, pray tell? NPR, Maher said, has launched an initiative to improve its editorial review processes “to make sure all pieces are fair and comprehensive.” Central control is meeting regularly with its 200 local newsrooms to fulfill the needs of its audiences — its mostly monolithic, conservative-deploring audiences. 

“I hear, respect and understand your concerns regarding bias and whether public media is relevant in a commercial landscape,” Maher told the committee in a tranquilized NPR voice. 

‘I Believe that I Tweeted that’

Maher’s leftist resume and NPR’s history betray her sanguinity. Read NPR long-time senior editor Uri Berliner’s withering report on his former employer, for the love of God. It’s an indictment on the absolute leftist bubble NPR is. You couldn’t find more communists at a Fidel Castro family reunion. 

As for Maher, the former CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation (a font of journalistic integrity) who did tours of duty rubbing elbows with leftist politicos and globalists, well, the past sure feels like prologue. And what a past — highlighted in an exchange with DOGE committee member, Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas.

“Do you believe that America is addicted to white supremacy?” Gill asked the NPR CEO.

“I believe that I tweeted that and as I said earlier, I believe much of my thinking has evolved over the last half-decade,” Maher painfully explained. She couldn’t say why she tweeted what she tweeted. 

“Do you believe that America believes in black plunder and white democracy?” Gill asked. 

Looking perplexed, Maher stuttered, “I don’t believe that, sir.”

“You tweeted that in reference to a book you were reading at the time, apparently, The Case for Reparations,” Gill pushed. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever read that book, sir,” the head of NPR claimed. She did. At least according to her old tweets. 

Check out the archive of her 29,400 tweets here, thanks to City Journal. 

“I apologize, I don’t recall that I did. I have no doubt that your tweet there is correct, but I don’t recall that,” Maher conceded about her tweet.  

She denied saying that white people should pay reparations. But she did write that, as Gill noted from Maher’s musings on America’s “original collective sin” tweeted out on January 2020. Maher dismissed her post, saying she didn’t believe that was in reference to “fiscal reparations.” 

“What kind of reparations was it a reference to?” Gill pressed. 

“I think it was just a reference to the idea that we all owe much to the people that came before us,” the NPR exec responded. 

Gill found that response to be a “bizarre framing” of her original tweet. He asked Maher how much she has personally paid in reparations. She didn’t believe she had ever paid reparations. 

During the Black Lives Matter riots — insurrections, if you will — of 2020, Maher tweeted about her apparent indifference to looting. 

“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,” she wrote. 

‘They Think They’re Broad-Minded’

Yes, Maher posted the incendiary comments referenced at the DOGE committee meeting before she landed at NPR. But as Gill noted, the agency she leads promoted a pro-looting book titled, curiously enough, In Defense of Looting. 

Veteran critic of leftist media Tim Graham said he’d like to see reparations from NPR for the many millions of taxpayers dollars the “nonpartisan” public broadcaster has taken to pump out biased, anti-conservative “journalism.” 

“I think the Republican critique on this is right. [Public broadcasting] is a niche service for rich liberals, it’s past its prime and it is ridiculous we should have to fund something that attacks us,” Graham, executive editor of the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters and host of the NewsBusters podcast, told The Federalist after watching Wednesday’s hearing. 

Graham has been tracking NPR and the rest of the accomplice media players for a long time. He said everyone — especially Maher — knows NPR and PBS will do nothing to change their leftist slant. Their leftist audience would revolt. 

“They think they’re broadminded but they can’t stand listening to conservatives,” Graham said. 

The question is, should taxpayers continue to pick up the tab for this biased, liberal narrative peddler? 

While she says all kinds of funny things and words like “nonpartisan” and “fact-based” that she clearly doesn’t understand, Katherine Maher seems the perfect fit to run this left-wing public news outlet. 

Just not on the public’s dime. 

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.