NPR Executive Boasted About Following Government Censorship Directives While Leading Wikipedia
Katherine Maher, the CEO of National Public Radio (NPR) and former Wikipedia CEO, has been accused of advocating for censorship and disinformation in collaboration with government officials. Maher’s controversial actions include aligning with censorship strategies tied to political conversations. Maher’s involvement has sparked debates on information dissemination and censorship practices across various platforms.
Katherine Maher, the new CEO of National Public Radio (NPR), previously bragged about pushing censorship on behalf of government officials.
In a clip posted to X by journalist Christopher Rufo, Maher, who previously served as CEO of Wikipedia, said she “took a very active approach to disinformation,” based on “conversations with government” through 2020. Maher also said that approach was established as “a model for future elections outside the U.S.”
EXCLUSIVE: Katherine Maher says that, as CEO of Wikipedia, she “took a very active approach to disinformation,” coordinated censorship “through conversations with government,” and suppressed content related to the pandemic and the 2020 election.
NPR’s new censor-in-chief. pic.twitter.com/BoKZlrJuLE
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 17, 2024
Maher joined NPR as CEO of the far-left, taxpayer-funded outlet last month. Prior to taking the helm of the state media outlet, Maher served as CEO of Wikimedia Foundation from March 2016 to April 2021, according to her LinkedIn page. The Wikimedia Foundation runs Wikipedia, the seventh-most visited website in the world. It was under Maher’s tenure that Wikipedia tried to eliminate The Federalist’s online entry.
In February 2021, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger condemned the online encyclopedia’s leftward shift: “Wikipedia’s ideological and religious bias is real and troubling, particularly in a resource that continues to be treated by many as an unbiased reference work.”
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Murthy v. Missouri (formerly Missouri v. Biden) earlier this year on whether the federal government could pressure private tech companies to silence dissidents online. The sweeping lawsuit uncovered systemic federal government pressure on online information brokers to shut up anyone who criticized the federal government, disagreed with officials, or pointed out government errors.
Footage from a TED Talk last year shows Maher explaining she believes in no such thing as objective truth.
“Our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that’s getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done,” she said.
In 2020, Maher also wrote to justify looting amid the nationwide riots erupting in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death.
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.
— Katherine Maher (@krmaher) May 31, 2020
One of Maher’s earliest moves as chief of NPR was to discredit a whistleblower from among the network’s own senior editors. Former NPR Senior Business Editor Uri Berliner resigned from NPR today after he published an exposé of his company’s propaganda culture last week in The Free Press.
“An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America,” wrote Berliner in his Free Press article last week. “That wouldn’t be a problem for an openly polemical news outlet serving a niche audience. But for NPR, which purports to consider all things, it’s devastating both for its journalism and its business model.”
On Friday, Maher wrote in a public message to employees that Berliner’s op-ed was “profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning.”
“We recognize that this work is a public trust, one established by Congress more than 50 years ago with the creation of the public broadcasting system,” Maher said. “In order to hold that trust, we owe it our continued, rigorous accountability.”
Berliner noted in his report last week that NPR editors dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story revealing corruption related to his vice president father as a “waste” of “time on stories that are not really stories.”
Berliner, a 25-year veteran of the outlet, was suspended from NPR Tuesday. He resigned Wednesday as dozens of colleagues signed a letter to demand a tougher rebuke of him from the CEO.
“I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay,” he wrote.
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at [email protected]. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.
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