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NPR CEO's Testimony on Capitol Hill Yesterday Was a Disaster

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  March 27, 2025 2:01 PM

This might be one of my favorite Congressional hearing exchanges of all time -- or at least within recent memory.  It features Republican Congressman Brandon Gill, a freshman from Texas, and the CEO of National Public Radio, Katherine Maher.  We'll get there, but before we proceed any further, please recall that this is the same Katherine Maher whose long virtual trail of woke, partisan, knee-jerk social media posts caused a stir after she was tapped to take the helm of taxpayer-funded NPR last year.  This clip has also made the rounds, in which she laments our society's "reverence for the truth" as a "distraction" and obstacle to making progress and "getting important things done."  In the hearing yesterday, she tried to claim these comments have been taken out of context, but her point seems fairly straightforward here, and it's certainly interesting coming from someone who leads a newsroom:


She just claimed in her testimony that her true meaning in that talk was that we must "focus on the facts."  Hmm:


It's worth noting that prior to arriving at taxpayer-funded NPR, she spent years as a top official at Wikipedia, which is under scrutiny for systemic political and ideological bias among its editors (hint: It's not right-wing bias). In any case, under oath, Maher was grilled about her new organization's infamous lefty bias.  Watching her try to grapple with a series of major examples proffered by Congressman Jim Jordan was entertaining: 


Jordan's sourcing, by the way, was longtime, decorated and liberal NPR journalist Uri Berliner, who publicly blew the whistle on the organization's screaming bias in an essay published last spring.  He was suspended for doing so, then resigned, citing disparagement from...Katherine Maher.  She said yesterday that she wishes she'd gotten an opportunity to speak to him.  His reaction:


He noted that his piece closed by welcoming Maher to NPR. “I'll be rooting for her," he wrote. "But then I was suspended & Katherine Maher posted a statement on the NPR website calling my words: 'profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning.' It’s still there."  She had ample opportunity to speak with Berliner.  She instead suspended him and trashed him, precipitating his ouster from his professional home for many years.  Over the course of this process, she didn't talk to him once.  According to him, that was her choice.  Incredible.  Which brings us to the pièce de résistance from Wednesday's hearing.  All I can say is that it's worth watching every second this clip:

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Spectacular stuff, truly:


"This woman has undergone an emergency conversion in her views. This video is devastating," Brit Hume observes.  She now says she has "evolved" in her views, while maintaining that she doesn't see any evidence of political bias at NPR.  This all comes amid calls for the cessation of taxpayer funding for the outlet, as endorsed by President Trump.  I'll leave you with his comments on the matter, as well as my view of it: