Uri Berliner, a senior editor on NPR’s business desk, has resigned from his position following a five-day suspension for violating company rules regarding outside work without permission.
Berliner’s resignation comes on the heels of an essay he wrote criticizing his employer for its internal practices, and the essay has sparked a heated debate about the balance between unbiased journalism and the duty of journalists to critique their own organizations.
In his resignation letter, posted on X (formerly Twitter), Berliner launched a scathing attack on NPR’s new CEO, Katherine Maher, stating that he could not work in a newsroom where he was “disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems” he had written about in his essay.
Maher, a former executive at Wikipedia’s parent company, has faced criticism from conservative activists for past social media messages that slammed former President Donald Trump. These messages predated her January hiring at NPR.
Berliner’s essay, published on The Free Press site, accused NPR of being dominated by far-Left staffers and lacking an open-minded spirit, a shift he attributed to the network’s coverage of Trump’s presidency. He claimed that there was an “unspoken consensus” about the stories NPR should pursue and how they should be framed.
“There’s an unspoken consensus about the stories we should pursue and how they should be framed,” he wrote. “It’s frictionless — one story after another about instances of supposed racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad and the dire threat of Republican policies. It’s almost like an assembly line.”
The controversy surrounding Berliner’s suspension and resignation highlights the delicate balance that news organizations and their editorial employees must maintain between producing unbiased news and critiquing their own organizations’ approaches to journalism when necessary. As the issue unfolds, it raises questions about the appointment of business executives, rather than journalists, to roles overseeing news organizations and the scrutiny they face for signs of bias.
Despite his criticism, Berliner emphasized in his resignation letter that he did not support efforts to strip NPR of public funding, stating that he respected the integrity of his colleagues and wished for NPR to thrive and continue producing important journalism.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.