NPR CEO Katherine Maher reportedly refused to quit her job despite calls from one of the outlet’s biggest backers as President Trump and Congress denied it funding over alleged biased coverage.
Patricia Harrison, CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, told Maher she should resign earlier this year, the New York Times reported in a flattering profile of the public radio boss.
The exchange came as Congress was gearing up to claw back a whopping $1.1 billion in funding from the public media system, which includes NPR and the CPB.
Trump argued that the nonprofit CPB’s support of left-leaning outlets like NPR violated its mandate to stay apolitical.
On a call in the spring, Harrison asked Maher if she would be willing to say anything to members of Congress or the press to “acknowledge concerns from listeners who viewed NPR’s reporting as biased,” sources told the Times.
Maher dismissed the notion of slanted coverage. Months later, Harrison told her she should quit her position “for the good of public media,” the Times reported.
Maher, who refused to quit, had a track record of rejecting claims of bias before.
The former head of Wikipedia parent Wikimedia grabbed the reins as NPR’s CEO in March 2024.
She faced backlash over past comments she made including calling Trump “racist” and blasting Hillary Clinton for using the terms “boy” and “girl” — saying the pol was “erasing language for non-binary people.”
Maher also condemned claims of bias at NPR made by longtime staffer Uri Berliner, who penned an essay on website the Free Press called “I’ve Been at NPR for 25 years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.”
Berliner, a Peabody Award-winning journalist, called out journalistic blind spots around major news events, including the origins of COVID, the war in Gaza and the Hunter Biden laptop.
He also said he’d counted 87 registered Democrats and no Republicans in editorial roles and presented the findings to his colleagues at a May 2021 all-hands editorial staff meeting.
The journalist was suspended without pay and then resigned, citing what he characterized as Maher’s hostility toward him and criticism of the claims he was making about the outlet.
Regarding Maher and Harrison, tensions grew between them when Trump issued an executive order on May 1 banning government funding of NPR and PBS. NPR sued the White House, arguing the order violated the outlet’s First Amendment rights, and it named the CPB as a defendant, since it is the steward of federal funding for both organizations.
In July, Congress made the defunding of public media official in a vote, striking a major blow to CPB. Things between the corporation and NPR got worse when CPB reassigned control of the Public Radio Satellite System, an entity that had once been controlled by NPR.
NPR issued a restraining order against CPB and a legal battle erupted between the organizations. Maher’s organization argued that CPB had caved to Trump when it changed the funding of the public radio distribution system.
After a bitter back-and-forth, the two sides reached a settlement in November, which saw CPB agree to restore the $36 million contract with NPR.
The CPB is set to shut down in January as the end of government support has raised questions over the future of public radio.
The corporation, created by Congress in 1967, has distributed more than $500 million each year to PBS, NPR and more than 1,500 locally-operated public radio and TV stations.
NPR receives about 1% of its funds from federal sources annually, and about 3% indirectly from stations, the company has reported.
The bulk of NPR’s funding comes from member station fees, corporate sponsorships and individual donations, but the cut in funding could have a major impact on its member stations.
The gloves-off strategy hasn’t killed NPR, which still has a stable business and, according to Maher, is expected to generate record donations this year and deliver $22 million in financial support to members of its network.
NPR’s lawsuit against The White House continues to move forward in court.
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