Matthews: Confessions of a former NPR commentator: The network has changed 

There is a growing concern over the country’s political fracturing. And the media frequently wonder what can be done to stem that shift. Berliner has a suggestion, “We could keep doing what we’re doing hoping it will all work out. Or we could start over with the basic building blocks of journalism.” 

I read with great interest now-former National Public Radio senior editor Uri Berliner’s reflections on the changes that have occurred at NPR. I am a 45-year-long NPR listener and a former occasional commentator for its flagship news program, “All Things Considered” (ATC), and I found that his concerns as a left-leaning employee reflect mine as a conservative listener and former commentator. 

Both ATC and “Morning Edition” used to aire commentaries. Some great voices — such as humorist Tom Bodett, children’s author Daniel Pinkwater and large-animal veterinarian Baxter Black — were heard. And some respected journalists, such as Daniel Schorr and Ted Koppel, were once featured as political commentators.  

My first appearance on ATC was in the late 1990s. On a whim, I faxed a commentary to then-ATC executive editor Ellen Weiss. She called back in an hour and wanted to record it. She said that she received lots of conservative-leaning commentaries and ignored most of them, but that mine was humorous and entertaining.  

Over the next four or five years, I supplied a small number of commentaries. Even though my NPR editors were on the political left, they were outstanding professionals who were meticulous in their efforts to ensure a high-quality audio product for the NPR audience. 

That commitment to excellence helped left-leaning NPR attract a fairly representative audience. As Berliner pointed out in his Free Press statement, in 2011, 26 percent of NPR’s listeners considered themselves conservatives, 23 percent were moderates and 37 percent liberal. 

But things were changing. I heard it in much of the reporting, especially after the election of Donald Trump in 2016, and even more so once the COVID-19 pandemic hit. 

Reporters and program hosts began incorporating and highlighting progressive viewpoints in their topics, comments and reports. The hosts could be aggressive or sometimes dismissive when interviewing someone from the conservative side, but tame and uncritical when interviewing lefties. 

For example, Scott Simon, longtime “Weekend Edition” host, is one of the most respected voices in journalism. On Oct. 16, 2021, he interviewed Hillary Clinton and her co-author, Louise Penny, on their new novel “State of Terror,” about terrorists gaining access to a nuclear weapon.  

During the interview, Simon invited Clinton to discuss her concerns about current threats to democracy (i.e., Donald Trump). She responded, “I worry a lot about the very serious attacks on our democracy from without and within. … And, very tragically, we have people in our own country who are really trying to undermine our institutions and our rule of law because they don’t like the multicultural, incredibly dynamic and diverse society that we have become.” 

This from the woman whose 2016 presidential campaign paid for the Steele Dossier, which invented allegations against Trump and instigated the Russian-collusion hoax.

Five months after her Simon interview, the Federal Election Commission fined the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee $113,000 for paying a law firm $849,000 to handle the dossier and then falsifying campaign-disclosure documents that laundered the payments. 

While Clinton’s involvement had been known for some time, Simon couldn’t even ask her one question about her own efforts to undermine democracy. It was as fawning an interview on the left as Tucker Carlson’s widely panned recent interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin was on the right. 

It doesn’t have to be that way. I frequently listen to the “BBC Newshour” program, which airs on many NPR affiliates. I suspect most of the BBC’s hosts and reporters are on the liberal side, but I seldom hear it in their reporting. And the hosts regularly drill spokespersons, whether right or left, with hard questions.  

Sadly, NPR’s leftward drift has largely alienated conservatives and even many moderates. By 2023, Berliner writes, only about 11 percent of NPR listeners described themselves as conservative, 21 percent were moderates, and 67 percent as somewhat or very liberal. 

There is a growing concern over the country’s political fracturing. And the media frequently wonder what can be done to stem that shift. Berliner has a suggestion, “We could keep doing what we’re doing hoping it will all work out. Or we could start over with the basic building blocks of journalism.” 

NPR responded by suspending Berliner without pay, whereupon he resigned. Similar incidents have occurred at other major media outlets. These days, diversity of opinion is something the media only like to tout, not practice. 

Merrill Matthews is a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas, Texas. Follow him on X@MerrillMatthews.