0:00

You're looking at live pictures in New

0:02

York City of Donald Trump's motorcade. It's

0:04

about a 20-minute drive between Trump Tower

0:06

and the court building. A historic

0:08

week of Trump trials has inspired

0:10

more breathless coverage. From WNYC in

0:12

New York, this is On the

0:15

Media, I'm Brooke Gladstone. And

0:17

I'm Michael Loehlinger. All the

0:19

trial drama is entertaining. Competition

0:22

contests, good guys, bad guys,

0:24

oopsie moments. My question is

0:26

whether it really surfaces what

0:29

the stakes are. Of no

0:31

legal accountability for Donald Trump.

0:33

Plus, one former NPR editor's

0:36

grievances continue to reverberate. He

0:38

implies wokeness is ruining the

0:40

place. There is a version

0:43

of what wokeness is. That

0:45

marginalized people are storming the

0:47

barricades and dictating that this

0:50

story happens and this story gets

0:52

killed and we're going to use this language

0:54

and not use that language. It's not what

0:56

I saw. It's all coming up

0:58

after this. This

1:00

episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

1:03

Whether you love true crime or comedy, celebrity

1:05

interviews or news, you call the shots on

1:07

what's in your podcast queue. And

1:09

guess what? Now you can call them on

1:11

your auto insurance too with the name your

1:13

price tool from Progressive. It works just the

1:15

way it sounds. You tell Progressive how much

1:17

you want to pay for car insurance and

1:20

they'll show you coverage options that fit your

1:22

budget. Get your quote today

1:24

at progressive.com to join the over 28

1:26

million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive

1:28

Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price

1:30

and coverage match limited by state

1:32

law. This is Brooke. When you

1:35

finished listening to OTM this week,

1:37

why don't you head over to

1:39

the New Yorker Radio Hour? David

1:41

Remnick sat down with Jerry Seinfeld

1:43

who just directed his first movie

1:45

about Pop-Tarts. Did you really like Pop-Tarts

1:47

all that much, Bro? Oh, yeah. How about now?

1:49

Still, yeah. Really? Yeah, love them. That's a good

1:52

breakfast for you? I eat it after a bad

1:54

show on a Wednesday night. Listen to

1:56

the New Yorker Radio Hour. So do what

1:58

Brooke says. Join us for the

2:01

New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts.

2:13

From WNYC in New York,

2:15

this is on the media. I'm

2:18

Brooke Gladstone. And I'm Michael O'Lanjur.

2:20

This has been a historic week

2:22

in Trumpian jurisprudence. The

2:24

U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments over

2:26

whether Trump should be immune from

2:28

prosecution for attempting to reverse his

2:30

2020 election loss to Joe Biden.

2:32

His former lawyers and others were

2:34

indicted in a 2020 election-related

2:36

scheme in Arizona. A New York

2:39

judge denied Trump's request for a

2:41

new trial in the Eugene Carroll

2:43

defamation case that cost him $83

2:45

million in damages. And

2:49

then there's what some call his

2:51

Hush Money trial. Others call his

2:53

Election Interference trial. And a

2:55

few others call the Biden trial. Two

2:58

of those monikers are accurate. The

3:00

last isn't. Meanwhile, as Jon

3:02

Stewart noted this week, the

3:05

media that vowed to never

3:07

again waste precious airtime on

3:09

Trump-related minutia... Forgot.

3:13

Trump leaving Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.

3:15

They're now making their way across town.

3:17

Heading down the FDR's. To the Manhattan

3:19

Courthouse on Chamber Street. Arriving at this

3:21

intersection of American history with defiance.

3:24

Arriving at the intersection of

3:26

American history. The brilliant

3:29

juxtaposing of the gravitas of the

3:31

moment with simple traffic terms. What's...

3:36

He arrived at the intersection of

3:38

American history where he put

3:41

a quarter in the parking meter of death.

3:45

Leaving the car! Looking

3:49

to avoid stepping in the urine puddle

3:51

of jurisprudence. There's also

3:53

the chance that he could be

3:56

held in contempt for endlessly defying

3:58

a gag order that bans... him from

4:00

intimidating and potentially

4:02

endangering witnesses, jury members,

4:05

and court employees, you

4:07

know, doing stuff like this. April

4:10

17th on Truth Social, Donald Trump

4:12

quotes Jesse Waters from Fox News.

4:14

They are catching undercover liberal activists

4:16

lying to the judge in order

4:18

to get on the Trump jury.

4:21

The prosecutors are pointing to that

4:23

and saying, this is really bad.

4:26

Jurors are intimidated after this post

4:28

went up. Juror too was

4:31

no longer comfortable to serve on

4:33

that jury. When the juror was walking out,

4:35

Trump made a remark that was audible enough

4:37

to be heard in the overflow rumors. And

4:40

Judge Marchand really went apoplectic, basically making the

4:42

case that he's not going to tolerate any

4:45

sort of juror intimidation in his courtroom. If

4:48

the judge says to him, you cannot

4:50

use my courtroom to intimidate the court

4:52

staff, you cannot use my

4:55

courtroom to threaten the prosecutor. He

4:57

just has it on Truth Social. All

4:59

of these questions are, in my view,

5:01

kind of different versions of the same question,

5:03

which is, why can't law

5:06

be better? Some months back,

5:09

legal correspondent Dahlia Lithwick laid

5:11

out in her column why,

5:13

quote, the law alone cannot

5:15

curb Donald Trump's lawlessness. We

5:18

spoke back in January about her

5:20

frustrations with mainstream media's preoccupation

5:23

with horse race questions and

5:25

much of the coverage of

5:27

Trump's various trials. Overwhelmingly,

5:30

what I was hearing the big

5:32

brains in the legal academy fighting

5:34

about was tactical

5:37

questions. Is it just

5:39

going to foment the next

5:41

insurrection to disenfranchise a bunch

5:43

of Trump supporters, whether

5:46

constitutional democracy can withstand the

5:48

Supreme Court signing off on

5:51

that? And then I

5:53

think the sort of sense that the trials

5:55

are taking too long. The question then becomes,

5:57

how do we make this happen in time?

6:00

The aim to have meaningful

6:02

accountability before the election and

6:04

those questions are not legal

6:06

questions. Raised their political questions

6:08

that are coming in the

6:10

garb of legal questions and

6:12

you write that Americans have

6:14

quotes been convinced that the

6:17

justice system alone since somehow

6:19

be deployed. Or in the

6:21

parlance of the insurrectionist. Weaponized into

6:23

becoming the signee entity that could

6:25

preserve democracy the life on a

6:28

tool kit that you can pull

6:30

out to make fascism and but

6:32

I think that there is a

6:34

uniquely American fascination with the kind

6:36

of morality play of you know

6:39

we'll all setbacks as gonna be

6:41

just like law and order in

6:43

the and the right thing will

6:45

happen in the guy will go

6:47

to jail and that is a

6:49

part of what accountability for Donald

6:52

Trump. Must include But

6:54

I think principally. The.

6:57

Judicial system is something that

6:59

we use to determine what

7:02

happened and by. Definition.

7:05

That is a slow, exacting

7:07

process. It's really built to

7:10

do something quite different from

7:12

stuff Donald Trump from being

7:15

the next President. Because.

7:17

Trump you observed, has always

7:19

managed to evade legal accountability

7:21

because he doesn't allow the

7:23

legal system to look back

7:25

at sexy dispute some even

7:27

after they'd been adjudicated. Look

7:29

at the case of the

7:31

eg. Carol he has an

7:33

entirely different. Goals. For the

7:36

mechanisms of the legal process

7:38

he say he loses the

7:40

first each carol trial. The

7:42

jury finds that. He does seem to

7:44

her and what? Does he do? He

7:46

says he was and continues to

7:49

defame her in real time. Sneezes

7:51

law as a tactic, not as

7:53

a search for truth. His goal

7:56

then isn't to win the case.

7:58

If he is. We actually

8:01

pays times that will be a

8:03

material lost the right now. None

8:05

of this matters to him. it's

8:08

just free airtime. He is very

8:10

good at winning for losing. You

8:12

argue that the narrow focus on

8:15

Trump's various trials actually plays in

8:17

his hands because his numbers seem

8:19

to go up. At least he

8:22

says with every indictment. I'm not

8:24

sure what the alternative is. This

8:27

goes back to the old Jay

8:29

Rosen quote. Not the horse

8:31

race, but the steaks. And

8:33

I think when we get

8:35

really, really in the weeds

8:37

of covering these trials as

8:39

a series of really dramatic

8:42

horse races, gets of the

8:44

peace with the sort of

8:46

much bigger indictment of how

8:48

the press is covering elections,

8:50

competitions, competition, contests. Good guys,

8:52

bad guys. look see moments.

8:54

All that stuff is incredibly

8:56

interesting. My question is whether

8:58

it really surfaces. With the stakes.

9:01

Are have no legal accountability for

9:03

Donald Trump. Case. In point.

9:05

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled

9:08

that Trump was ineligible to

9:10

run for President because of

9:12

his involvement in the January

9:14

Sixth effort to stop the

9:17

certification of Bidens when last

9:19

time the Fourteenth Amendment bars

9:21

those who have engaged in

9:23

an insurrection from holding government

9:25

positions. The Colorado ruling was.

9:28

Overturned by the supreme court justices

9:30

ruling and Donald Trump's Faber same

9:32

Colorado has no right to keep

9:34

his name off the ballot this

9:36

November. When we spoke, Dahlia predicted

9:38

that outcome. I think it's for

9:41

exactly the reason that we started at

9:43

Book, which. Is this is

9:45

fundamentally a political question that

9:47

comes to the court dressed

9:50

as a legal question. Is.

9:52

That with the founders. Were

9:54

thinking when they wrote the Fourteenth

9:57

Amendment. know? I think it's fairly

9:59

clear. The room: Donald

10:01

Trump or insurrectionist from the

10:04

ballot so that he cannot.

10:06

Get office again was exactly that's

10:09

the framers were thinking of Out

10:11

and I don't think that's very

10:13

much in dispute. The question is

10:16

whether the Supreme Court which is

10:18

that be lowest public approval in

10:20

your and my lifetime a straight.

10:22

Since they've started Gallup polling, their

10:25

numbers have never been this low.

10:27

Does the Supreme. Court much be

10:29

be entity that yanks Donald

10:31

Trump off. The Ballot. And by

10:33

the way, if Colorado is allowed to

10:36

take Donald Trump off the ballot, Texas.

10:39

And Florida will take Joe Biden

10:41

off the ballot and say he's

10:43

and insurrectionist. So there are very

10:45

very real and I would say

10:47

urgent political questions that are under

10:49

varying this and I think in

10:51

a sense we're hoping that lies

10:53

gonna solve our politics problem. This.

10:56

Week's argument over immunity for

10:58

the President's possesses and even

11:00

more. Urgent political problems other

11:02

our Commander in chief. Is

11:04

immune from the consequences of any

11:07

or all actions he takes an

11:09

office or is it just official

11:11

acts? And not private ones. But

11:14

how can you tell the difference?

11:16

Especially when Trump's lawyers argue not

11:18

for the first time. That

11:20

no crime is to criminal.

11:23

To. Overcome immunity. System.

11:26

President decides. That

11:29

his rival is a

11:31

corrupt person as he

11:34

orders the military for

11:36

order someone to assassinate

11:39

him. Is that

11:41

within this official act for which he

11:43

can get community. It would depend on

11:45

I was out about. We can see that

11:48

could well be an official I could and

11:50

why he's not doing it like President Obama

11:52

is alleged to have done. It to

11:54

protest the country from a terrorists.

11:56

He's doing it for personal. Gain.

12:00

And isn't that the nature of the

12:02

allegations here, that he's

12:04

not doing these acts in furtherance

12:07

of an official responsibility?

12:10

As you said, the law can't be

12:13

boiled down and reconstituted as a vitamin

12:15

and then chugged down with a Gatorade

12:17

to save us from an authoritarian strongman.

12:20

Back in 2016, the journalist Masha

12:22

Gessen, who was raised in Russia,

12:24

warned us that our institutions won't

12:27

save us. But clearly, it's not

12:29

a lesson we've learned. I

12:32

think the point is all of

12:34

these things absolutely should be pursued.

12:37

And absolutely, this is not a call

12:39

to say, we should pump the

12:41

brakes on what Fonny Willis is doing or

12:44

Jack Smith is doing or Alvin Bragg is

12:46

doing. No, no, no, I'm not saying that.

12:48

I'm saying the idea that

12:50

we consider around and think that it's going

12:53

to be in and of itself the

12:55

basis for him not winning the election

12:57

just strikes me as deeply dangerous.

13:01

Americans at this present

13:03

moment have a very

13:05

thin relationship

13:08

with the work of democracy. What do you

13:10

mean a thin relationship to

13:12

the work of democracy? For

13:14

most of us, most of the time, Brooke,

13:17

I think the notion is that

13:19

the system works and we're

13:21

going to go out and vote. And the system doesn't

13:23

work. The system barely held in the 2020

13:26

election. By

13:28

the skin of our teeth, we

13:30

got out of a meaningful effort

13:32

to set aside the election results.

13:35

The Electoral Count Act, which is the

13:38

reason that Donald Trump was almost able

13:40

with the help of John Eastman and

13:42

some of his flying monkeys to set

13:45

aside the 2020 election, that's been

13:47

reformed. There was a loophole in

13:49

there that has been fixed by

13:51

a lot of democracy projects working

13:53

very hard. That was that maneuver

13:55

that was going to try to

13:57

get Pence to set things aside,

13:59

right? Yes, they were going

14:01

to capitalize on vague language and

14:04

that's been fixed. Things are fixable.

14:06

Voting rights are

14:08

fixable. Mail-in voting is

14:10

fixable. Gerrymandering is fixable.

14:13

The reason people are losing

14:15

confidence in voting is because

14:18

we are not performing what it is

14:20

to be confident about voting. And so

14:22

almost more than anything, we

14:25

have to believe that our vote

14:27

matters, finding out about the candidates

14:29

matters, our state elections matter, that

14:32

races like state supreme court races

14:34

matter. We have learned this over

14:36

and over again since Dobbs, right?

14:39

We have the scaffolding for

14:41

a really kind of cool

14:43

democracy and we are

14:45

so unwilling to kind

14:47

of throw ourselves into the machinery of

14:50

that democracy or we want to think

14:52

about it in October before

14:54

the election. So I think the pragmatic

14:56

answer I'm giving you, which is so

14:58

boring, is structural democracy reform.

15:01

That's the answer. Remember in the hours

15:03

and days after Donald Trump enacted the

15:06

travel ban after the 2016 election,

15:08

the Muslim ban, the first

15:11

one, every lawyer I

15:13

knew showed up at an airport and went

15:15

to baggage claim and held up a sign that

15:17

said, dude, I'll be

15:19

your lawyer. And they were just, some

15:22

of them were real estate lawyers. Some of

15:24

them were family lawyers. And they just realized

15:27

that this is not a spectator sport.

15:30

I guess I can teach myself immigration law. And

15:33

remember all those people who showed up

15:35

at JFK, right? And Warren lawyers, the

15:37

taxi drivers and the Uber drivers. So

15:39

I think we can

15:42

very quickly tilt into

15:44

what I'm describing as a

15:46

very thick relationship with democracy

15:48

preservation, but it's a muscle

15:50

brook. We have to use it and

15:53

we have to use it much sooner

15:55

than October of 2024. Thank

15:58

you so much, Dalia. Thank

16:00

you for having me. Dahlia

16:03

Litwick writes about the courts for slate.

16:07

Coming up, what's the matter with NPR? Because

16:10

this is on the media. This

16:17

episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

16:20

Whether you love true crime or comedy, celebrity

16:22

interviews or news, you call the shots on

16:25

what's in your podcast queue. And

16:27

guess what? Now you can call them

16:29

on your auto insurance too with the name

16:31

your price tool from Progressive. It works just

16:33

the way it sounds. You tell

16:35

Progressive how much you want to pay for car insurance

16:37

and they'll show you coverage options that fit your budget.

16:40

Get your quote today at progressive.com to join the

16:42

over 28 million drivers who

16:44

trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance

16:46

Company and affiliates, price and coverage

16:48

match limited by state law. I'm

16:54

David Ramnick, host of the New Yorker Radio Hour. There's

16:57

nothing like finding a story you can really

16:59

sink into. It lets you tune

17:01

out the noise and focus on what matters.

17:04

In print or here on the podcast, the

17:06

New Yorker brings you thoughtfulness, depth and even

17:08

humor that you can't find anywhere else. So

17:12

please join me every week for the New Yorker

17:14

Radio Hour wherever you listen to

17:16

podcasts. This

17:22

is on the media. I'm Brooke Ladstone. And

17:24

I'm Michael Olinger. Now we

17:27

pay some much requested attention

17:29

to the latest controversy at

17:31

NPR. We'll start with a

17:33

guy named Uri Berliner came out. He said, I've

17:35

been at NPR for 25 years. Here's

17:38

how we lost America's trust. On

17:40

April 9th, the Free Press, a

17:42

sub stack run by former New

17:44

York Times writer Barry Weiss, published

17:46

an essay by Berliner, then a

17:48

senior business editor for NPR claiming

17:50

that NPR's reflective liberal takes

17:53

had lost conservative listeners. Which

17:55

now we're kind of niche

17:57

thinking a group think that's

17:59

really. around very selective,

18:01

progressive views. That's Berliner on

18:03

Chris Cuomo's News Nation show.

18:05

They don't allow enough air,

18:07

enough spaciousness to consider all

18:09

kinds of perspectives. He declined

18:11

to speak with us, but

18:13

he argues that at the

18:15

network's Washington headquarters, the focus

18:17

was on ethnic and racial

18:20

diversity on the staff while

18:22

ignoring political diversity. He accused

18:24

his colleagues of left-wing advocacy

18:26

that distorted coverage of the

18:28

Mueller Report, the origins of

18:30

COVID, the Hunter Biden laptop, and more.

18:33

Concerns he said he tried to raise internally

18:35

since 2021. What

18:37

he said is whatever NPR

18:39

could do to hurt

18:41

Donald Trump's presidency, they

18:44

did. Steve Ducey on Fox

18:46

and Friends, part of a now

18:48

weeks-long conservative media feeding frenzy. In

18:50

the name of diversity, they've eliminated

18:52

diversity of thought. It's gotten so

18:55

partisan that I no longer trust

18:57

their facts. I used to understand

18:59

spin. Donald Trump now calling for the

19:01

defunding of NPR. Indiana Congressman Jim

19:03

Banks among a growing list

19:05

of conservative lawmakers to push

19:08

to defund NPR with a

19:10

new bill that would outright

19:12

block federal funding for the

19:14

news organization, accusing Congress of

19:16

spending taxpayer money on, quote,

19:18

low-grade propaganda. A quick note, NPR

19:20

has never produced on the media, although

19:23

it did distribute the show until 2015.

19:26

A defund NPR bill would

19:28

squeeze the Corporation for Public

19:31

Broadcasting, which gives roughly $3

19:33

million to NPR directly and

19:35

over $100 million to stations

19:37

around the country, including $2.5

19:39

million to WNYC, OTM's

19:41

producing station. What has the NPR response

19:43

been, if you can sum it up?

19:46

Last Wednesday, All Things Considered host Mary

19:48

Louise Kelly spoke with NPR media

19:50

correspondent David Fochenflick, who dutifully covered

19:52

the flare-up from within, including NPR's

19:54

response to Berliners claim that a

19:57

focus on the media is on

19:59

the media. on building up staff

20:01

and listenership had skewed its journalism. Well,

20:03

Edith Chapin, our chief news executive, wrote

20:06

a memo last week essentially rejecting the

20:08

argument. She praised the work that our

20:10

colleagues have done on various continents in

20:12

the world, various communities around the country,

20:15

various issues that we focused on, and

20:17

PR also suspended Berliner and it cited

20:19

two things. One, he had

20:21

written the free press op-ed without

20:23

permission from the company, and two,

20:25

in that essay he had shared

20:27

proprietary numbers about listener demographics. The

20:30

suspension gave the conservative media outrage

20:32

cycle a second wind and

20:35

ignited activist Christopher Rufo, who

20:37

unearthed old tweets from NPR's

20:39

new CEO and president, Catherine

20:42

Marr. In 2018, she declared

20:44

that Trump's a racist and she

20:46

did it again in 2020, and then capped

20:48

the year off showing how excited she was

20:50

to vote for Biden. After about 50 NPR

20:53

employees signed a letter urging Marr

20:56

to rebut the quote, factual inaccuracies

20:58

in Uri's op-ed, she wrote an

21:00

internal response. He didn't like

21:02

it. Berliner says, I cannot

21:05

work in a newsroom where I'm disparaged

21:07

by a new CEO whose device of

21:09

views confirm the very problems that NPR

21:12

has cited in my free press essay.

21:14

But lost in much of the coverage

21:16

was a close look at Berliner's proof,

21:18

the NPR coverage he cited as evidence

21:21

of left-wing bias. I actually

21:23

get where he's coming from. I actually thought

21:25

as an editor I could have made his

21:27

argument better for him. Kelly McBride

21:29

is senior vice president of the

21:32

Poynter Institute and chair of the

21:34

Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and

21:36

Leadership. She's also NPR's public editor,

21:38

meaning she's paid by NPR to

21:40

critique NPR to investigate and respond

21:42

to listener complaints about its coverage.

21:45

I basically have the least desirable

21:47

job in journalism. She says the

21:50

more she dug into the claims in Uri's

21:52

piece, the more it felt

21:54

like he had cherry-picked examples

21:57

to prove a point that I thought was

21:59

right. was disingenuous. We

22:02

started covering Trump in a way

22:04

that we were trying to damage his

22:06

presidency to find anything we could to

22:08

harm him. Hurry on Barry Weiss' podcast.

22:10

And I think what we latched on

22:13

to was Russia collusion. He wrote, quote,

22:15

when the Mueller report found no credible

22:17

evidence of collusion, Russia gate quietly faded

22:20

from our programming. But

22:22

Kelly McBride says NPR was right to

22:24

keep the spotlight on two of the

22:26

main questions of the Mueller investigation. To

22:28

what extent did Russia have

22:31

a role in the U.S. election and

22:33

try and disrupt it? And

22:35

to what extent was Trump and his campaign

22:37

a part of that? It

22:39

is ridiculous to think that

22:42

any national news agency wouldn't

22:44

cover the hell out of

22:46

that story. Writing

22:48

in the Washington Post, Eric Wemple

22:50

pointed out a technical problem with

22:52

Hurry's focus on collusion. Robert

22:55

Mueller did not apply the

22:57

concept of collusion to his

22:59

investigation. As Wemple put it,

23:01

quote, Trump will have you

23:03

believe that the absence of

23:05

criminality signifies the absence of

23:07

wrongdoing, a logical atrocity abetted

23:09

by Berliner's essay. Even when

23:11

the Mueller report came out, it

23:13

was initially just a summary characterized

23:15

in one specific way. And then

23:17

when journalists got ahold of the

23:20

whole report, they were like, whoa,

23:22

whoa, whoa, this says something completely

23:24

different. Trump had basically attempted

23:26

to spin the report as exonerating

23:28

him. Robert Mueller declined to

23:30

recommend charges against Trump, at least in

23:32

part due to a Justice Department legal

23:34

opinion that said a current U.S. president

23:36

shouldn't be indicted. And the

23:39

report said, quote, the president's efforts to

23:41

influence the investigation were mostly

23:43

unsuccessful. But that is

23:45

largely because the persons who surrounded the

23:48

president declined to carry out orders or

23:50

cede his requests. Headline,

23:52

it's complicated. Now

23:54

Onto the Hunter Biden laptop story, which the

23:56

New York Post broke in October of 2020.

24:00

Hurry alleges that Npr didn't cover the story

24:02

ahead of the election because it would have

24:04

hurt President Biden. On. Very wise his

24:07

podcast he refers to a couple of

24:09

quotes from Npr staff. one he witnessed

24:11

first hand I remember conversation with a

24:13

group of us am one of a

24:15

great journalists at Npr. Someone who's very

24:17

fair minded said look, I'm glad we're

24:19

not covering this because it could help

24:21

trump. Kelly Mcbride says she doesn't know

24:23

who said this or whether it's an

24:26

accurate quotes but he did recognize the

24:28

second one when what happened was manager

24:30

of when the post published this explosive

24:32

story said we're not going to cover

24:34

stories that aren't stories about. Our audience?

24:36

Be distracted by this. Quote. That

24:38

he attributes to the managing editor

24:40

was actually a quote from my

24:43

newsletter. the week that the New

24:45

York Post came out with it's

24:47

stories, I was responding to questions

24:49

from the audience who were asking

24:51

is Npr going to cover this

24:53

story and I reached out to

24:55

a senior editor and see gave

24:57

me that quote along with a

24:59

lot of other context. The post

25:02

was the only outlet that accepted

25:04

data allegedly from the laptop from

25:06

Rudy Giuliani. Mcbride. Says

25:08

Npr editors passed on the story

25:11

because they didn't have access to

25:13

the laptop no outlet did. As

25:15

Media professor Dan Kennedy pointed out

25:17

in a recent essay, even Fox

25:19

News waited until after the election

25:21

because it couldn't verified basic facts

25:24

about the laptop. Exactly Once

25:26

the provenance of the

25:28

laptop was actually confirmed,

25:31

Journalist began to cover the

25:33

contents of it. That said,

25:35

you believe Npr could have

25:37

covered leader erase Sons of

25:39

The Laptop story sooner than

25:41

it did. Yeah, I think they were

25:43

a little slow to get back to it. Let's.

25:45

Move on to the theory that cove

25:47

it came from a lab league and

25:49

will on China's or he claims that

25:51

the story was not reported at Npr

25:53

for political reasons, that it was dismissed

25:55

quotes as racist or a right wing

25:57

conspiracy theory. The series that I've read.

26:00

The and heard on Npr recently

26:02

implied that the origin of the

26:04

beginnings of covered are still unknown

26:06

and the lab leak as a

26:09

viable series if you look at

26:11

the last. Thirty Stories.

26:13

That Npr did now. did.

26:15

Npr and most of American

26:17

journalism repeats the government line

26:19

that it couldn't have possibly

26:21

been a lab leak without

26:24

a lot of independent investigation.

26:26

Yes, so it was a

26:28

mistake, but it wasn't you

26:30

need to Npr. He

26:32

was alleging that. Because.

26:34

It could be construed as lending

26:36

credence to a quote unquote, racist

26:38

or right wing conspiracy theory. Journalists

26:40

at Npr, we're not sufficiently curious

26:42

about the scientists who early on

26:44

did argue that there might be

26:46

something to the Lafley theory. Were

26:49

they not curious because of

26:51

all of the narratives around

26:54

race and ethnicity and geographic

26:56

origin? Or were they not

26:58

curious because we were in

27:00

the middle of what's arguably

27:02

the story of the sensory

27:04

in There were thousands of

27:07

story lines to pursue that

27:09

seemed more accessible. Let's.

27:11

Talk about Npr. Coverage of recent.

27:14

Conflict. Between Israel and Hamas

27:16

in his column or he portrays

27:18

the editorial process as a frictionless

27:20

conveyor belt of stories about how

27:23

Quote Israel is doing something bad

27:25

and in largely categorizes and be

27:27

ours coverage as quote oppressor vs.

27:29

oppressed were Israelis are the oppressors.

27:32

i get a lot of similar

27:35

critiques in the public editor inbox

27:37

and knows critiques are more precise

27:39

right they critique npr for not

27:42

labeling hamas as a terrorist organization

27:44

for not acknowledging that the health

27:47

authority that reports the number of

27:49

dead which is now around thirty

27:51

seven thousand not labeling that as

27:54

hamas and casting doubt on that

27:56

figure for disproportionately covering the suffering

27:59

of palestinians and minimizing

28:01

the suffering of Israelis for

28:03

not saying often enough that the

28:06

reason that so many people have

28:08

died in Gaza is because Hamas

28:10

hides among civilians and

28:13

for accusing either

28:15

implicitly or explicitly Israel of

28:17

war crimes but not giving

28:20

Israel a chance to respond.

28:23

Those critiques are much more

28:25

precise than Uri's suggestion that

28:27

every time Israel does something

28:30

bad, NPR is

28:32

wont to report it. She says

28:34

NPR should explain on air why it

28:36

makes these decisions. Many

28:38

critics do see bias and it's

28:41

not bias, it's a deliberate set

28:43

of journalistic choices to

28:45

focus on where there are more

28:47

people dead and to

28:49

try and tell that story because there's

28:52

just more story to tell there. But

28:55

she does agree with Uri's criticism

28:57

of NPR's coverage or lack of

28:59

coverage of anti-Semitism. It is smart

29:02

to argue that this is a

29:04

piece of journalism that is currently

29:06

missing from NPR's body of

29:09

work. I would have

29:11

pointed to the statistics that show

29:13

a rise in anti-Semitism and I

29:15

also would have looked at statistics

29:18

of other forms of

29:20

harassment like anti-Muslim, anti-Arab

29:22

racial crimes against black

29:25

people, against Latinos, and

29:27

then looked for NPR's work

29:30

on those areas. I don't

29:32

know if it's disproportionate to other forms

29:34

of hate crimes but if I

29:36

was his editor I would have made him figure it

29:38

out. In an effort to

29:40

quantify NPR's liberal bias, Uri looked

29:43

up the voter registration of DC

29:45

NPR journalists. And what I found

29:47

was 87 registered Democrats on our

29:50

editorial staff, 0 Republicans,

29:52

I presented this at all hands or

29:54

a large news meeting and I said,

29:56

hey look, Something's gone

29:58

wrong here. Really thinking

30:00

about diversity and and our coverage

30:02

like something is really off. Stevens

30:05

keep host of Empires Morning Edition.

30:07

Took. Issue with these numbers and with

30:09

Aires methodology and a column for his

30:11

own subs that pointing out that he

30:14

himself stevens keep is not registered to

30:16

political party that he's worked with people

30:18

who are probably conservative at Npr and

30:20

at hundreds of people working contre Npr

30:22

around the world. What? Are your

30:24

thoughts on are you count and the larger

30:26

point he's trying to make with it. I.

30:29

Lists that he had not

30:31

used to that figure because

30:33

I think it's so easily

30:35

torn apart. I'm assuming that

30:37

that reflects that heavily democratic

30:39

demographics of D C. He

30:42

didn't report how many people

30:44

are no party affiliated. I

30:46

bet that that number was

30:48

bigger, but we know that

30:50

journalism likely tilts. More

30:52

liberal. Or democratic. She. Says

30:55

that for journalists at Npr, the

30:57

methodology of rigorous journalism, the professional

30:59

practice of scrutinizing a theory by

31:01

speaking to a range of sources

31:04

and reporting out the facts offers

31:06

a defense against bias, which we

31:08

all have. Very. Actually did

31:10

what he is accusing Npr of

31:13

doing. He had an a some

31:15

sense of bias and he set

31:17

out to prove that bias any

31:19

reported out one figure that supported

31:21

the proof of that bias, but

31:23

he didn't seek out other data

31:26

that was knowable that might have

31:28

contradicted that. That said, Kelly.

31:30

Mcbride says Npr is too focused on

31:32

news affecting people on the coasts, in

31:34

big cities and university hubs. that a

31:37

to do more to highlight rural and

31:39

small town life. I grew

31:41

up in Toledo, Ohio and

31:43

I don't see air my

31:46

experience of being in a

31:48

declining small industrial town on

31:50

Npr much at all. That's.

31:53

Real. That geographic bias in

31:55

it probably has some overlap

31:57

with conservative liberal that I

31:59

don't. I think it's as one-to-one as people

32:01

think it is. One of Uri's

32:03

strongest pieces of evidence showing that right-wing

32:05

audiences got fed up with NPR is

32:07

internal data comparing 2011 to 2023 showing

32:10

that the percentage of listeners identifying

32:14

as Democrat rose from 23% to 67%,

32:17

while the percentage of conservative listeners dropped

32:21

from 26% to 11%. Did

32:25

NPR change or did the American

32:27

populace change? Because

32:29

it's pretty clear that the

32:31

Republican Party has become much

32:34

more conservative. And so when

32:37

you ask people outside of

32:39

studies like this, how do

32:41

they identify, those numbers have

32:43

moved. Instead, Uri Berliner says

32:46

conservative listeners got turned off

32:48

by biased coverage coinciding with

32:50

former NPR CEO John Lansing's

32:52

North Star, his explicit effort

32:55

beginning in 2021 to

32:57

diversify its staff and audience to better

33:00

reflect the racial and ethnic makeup of

33:02

the country. Since 2020, according

33:04

to a New York Times story this week,

33:06

NPR's listenership has shrunk by 20%. But

33:11

during that same period, the

33:13

pandemic scrambled work commutes and

33:15

listening habits as NPR's podcast

33:18

competition continued to multiply. From

33:21

2020 to 2023, the share

33:23

of adults who get news

33:25

on TikTok quadrupled. From

33:27

2018 to 2022, Pew found that the

33:30

percentage of Americans who closely followed the

33:32

news dropped from 51% to 38%. Conservative

33:38

listeners may be tuning out NPR,

33:40

but they're tuning out conservative media

33:42

too at a remarkable clip. Data

33:45

from the writing found that between February 2020 and February

33:48

2024, traffic to fox.com

33:51

dropped by 24%, by 60% to the

33:53

blaze, and by 87% to Breitbart. CNN

34:00

and the New York Times saw 20 and

34:03

22 percent drops, respectively. In

34:06

other words, it's far too simplistic

34:08

to blame NPR's woes on wokeness.

34:10

I think that NPR is still

34:13

an incredibly valuable public institution. I

34:15

think it needs serious fixing. Erri

34:17

Berliner. But I think there are

34:20

member stations in small towns and

34:22

remote areas that rely on this

34:24

money to provide local news coverage.

34:27

I think it's pretty critical. So

34:29

I wouldn't support

34:31

defunding NPR. I believe

34:33

him. Kelly McBride. But

34:36

he did the thing that's probably

34:38

going to support that cause more

34:40

than any other thing. NPR

34:42

gets a drop in the bucket

34:45

directly from the Corporation for Public

34:47

Broadcasting. It's the smaller

34:49

markets that are mostly going to suffer

34:51

if that money goes away. Coming

34:58

up, NPR has problems, but maybe not

35:00

what you think they are. This

35:03

is On The Media. This

35:06

episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. What

35:09

is comparing car insurance rates? Was it easy

35:11

as putting on your favorite podcast? With

35:14

Progressive, it is. Just

35:16

visit the Progressive website to quote with all the

35:18

coverages you want. You'll see Progressive's

35:20

direct rate. And their tool will provide options

35:22

from other companies so you can compare. All

35:25

you need to do is choose the rating coverage you like.

35:28

Quote today at progressive.com to join the

35:30

over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

35:33

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Comparison

35:36

rates not available in all states or situations.

35:39

Prices vary based on how you buy. This

35:43

is On The Media. I'm Michael Lautinger.

35:45

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Now

35:47

just because many of Uri

35:49

Berliner's specific complaints weren't entirely

35:51

supported by the evidence, it

35:53

doesn't mean NPR is problem

35:55

free. Ask Alicia

35:57

Montgomery, an NPR veteran of nearly

36:00

20 years, now it's late.

36:03

She described in a recent column

36:05

how when she first saw his

36:07

essay, it, quote, felt

36:09

like hearing a loud, ugly family

36:11

argument break out in the room

36:13

next door. I wanted to

36:16

pretend it wasn't happening. I wanted people

36:18

to shut up. But if

36:20

they were going to shout, I

36:22

at least wanted them to tell the whole

36:24

story. You know? Actually,

36:28

as a 23-year NPR veteran

36:30

myself, I get it. Brooke,

36:34

you and I know that

36:36

a lot of public radio

36:38

feels like a family in

36:40

the best ways and the

36:42

worst ones. There

36:46

is a problem with

36:48

receiving even well-intended criticism with

36:50

an open mind, at least

36:52

as far back as I

36:55

can remember. What

36:57

Rory had to say, you know

36:59

how it is when you have a family argument

37:01

and somebody opens the door

37:04

with a truth and then

37:06

it starts getting less and

37:08

less true as the yelling

37:10

continues, that's what

37:12

it felt like. He

37:14

described it as straightforward coverage

37:17

of a belligerent truth-impaired president

37:19

that veered towards efforts

37:22

to damage or topple his

37:24

presidency. Now you were

37:26

there. Was there none of that? There

37:29

was none of that. I'm just

37:31

going to say that straightforward. I can't

37:33

account for what people said in the

37:35

cafeteria, but I was on

37:38

morning edition from fall of 2017

37:40

until spring of 2020. And

37:45

from my seat and the

37:47

meetings that I attended, there

37:49

was a lot

37:51

of effort to cover

37:53

Trump as fairly as

37:56

possible. Which was usual, you know,

37:58

it was the bend over. backward

38:00

stance of a liberal

38:03

news organization? It's

38:05

the bend over backward stance of

38:08

an organization that has to stay

38:10

in good standing with a broad

38:12

swath of people from

38:15

different constituencies in

38:17

order to guarantee its

38:19

survival. Talk about some

38:21

direction that you might've been given

38:23

at an editorial meeting. During

38:26

the run up to

38:28

Trump's election, there were all sorts

38:31

of meetings for team leaders whose

38:33

death or teams might be dealing

38:35

with the election. And

38:38

because I was in leadership at

38:40

CodeSwitch, I was included on a

38:42

lot of these meetings because CodeSwitch

38:44

was for people who don't know.

38:47

CodeSwitch was the editorial vertical set

38:49

up to talk about the intersection

38:51

of race and culture, but

38:54

because of shifts in newsroom

38:56

priorities and resources, we

38:58

became the team that dealt with

39:00

race and often politics. I

39:03

was in one such meeting

39:05

where the suggestion was made

39:07

that if we were covering

39:09

a story about Donald

39:12

Trump lying, we shouldn't match

39:14

it with a story about

39:16

Hillary Clinton lying. And

39:18

the question, well, what if one

39:20

candidate just lies more than the

39:23

other just hung out there as

39:25

hard questions are what to do

39:27

sometimes. You recalled an editorial meeting

39:29

where a white newsroom leader said

39:31

that Trump's strong poll numbers

39:33

wouldn't survive his being exposed as a

39:36

racist. Yes. And a ludicrous. And

39:41

when a journalist of Tyler asked whether

39:43

his numbers could be rising because of

39:45

that racism. Cricket. Crickets. Silence. Again,

39:48

even the suggestion that the fact might

39:51

be more complicated. Silence was

39:53

often the response and that was

39:55

an improvement over what it could

39:57

have which is

39:59

being well. shut down. I recall

40:02

that NPR was a big holdout on applying

40:04

the word liar to Trump. Yes, oh there

40:06

were so many blow-ups about that. We don't

40:08

know what's going on in his mind. Maybe

40:11

he thinks it's the truth. There

40:13

is a valid journalistic point there,

40:15

as frustrating as it was, that

40:19

lying is about somebody's motivation.

40:21

And if you can't tell whether the person

40:24

knows the difference between the truth

40:26

and the lie, are they a liar?

40:28

I don't necessarily think it was a

40:30

way to decide it the right way.

40:32

NPR also didn't want to call waterboarding

40:34

torture. Wow, yes, that's

40:36

a deep cut and also true. I'm

40:39

just saying you talk about

40:41

the ugly truth is that

40:43

NPR's good journalism isn't always

40:46

about the journalism. NPR's good

40:48

journalism a lot of the time is

40:51

about maintaining a good

40:53

relationship with the people in

40:55

charge and maintaining access to

40:58

powerful people. And if

41:01

you are calling waterboarding

41:03

torture, maybe George W.

41:05

Bush's people don't want to come on

41:07

your show. If you're saying

41:10

Obama's policy during the

41:12

Syrian Civil War didn't

41:15

work out very well. You mean the

41:17

red line? What was that

41:19

line in the sand? Did we ever find it?

41:22

Trying to stay on good terms

41:24

with people in power and cover

41:26

them rigorously, always attention, no matter

41:28

who was president. You

41:30

said that it took a kind of

41:32

courage for him to publicly criticize the

41:35

organization, but it took the

41:37

wrong kind of nerve. Yeah. And

41:39

that his argument was, and this

41:41

is strong language, a demonstration of

41:44

contemporary journalism at its worst. Yeah.

41:46

What did you mean? There is

41:48

a kind of journalism where what

41:50

you do is find

41:53

the stories that

41:55

are going to support the world view of

41:57

your audience and ignore or

42:00

downplay the facts

42:03

that your audience would find challenging.

42:06

And what Uri did was to

42:09

call it cherry picking is

42:12

generous. And that's

42:14

what he says NPR does because

42:16

it has coalesced comfortably around the

42:18

progressive world view. You know

42:20

what? For the time that I

42:23

was there, there was nothing comfortable

42:25

about the discussions around Trump

42:28

or around race or

42:30

policing. It was really, really tense.

42:33

The idea that these

42:37

decisions are being made because

42:39

of pressure from people

42:41

in marginalized groups who don't

42:43

want to hear X, Y,

42:45

and Z, that's not

42:48

real. And this is

42:50

something that really got me because, you know,

42:52

for several years while I was at NPR,

42:54

I worked on a program called Tell Me

42:56

More with Michelle Martin. And

42:58

even though the program's explicit

43:00

mission wasn't race, we did

43:02

cover race a lot more

43:04

than the other shows. We

43:07

also covered gender issues, we covered faith issues in

43:09

a way that the other shows didn't. And

43:11

if you listen to media

43:14

that is people of color

43:16

or people in marginalized groups,

43:18

the stuff that we produce for each other,

43:20

it doesn't sound

43:23

anything like what the

43:25

NPR leadership thinks

43:28

people in those groups want to hear. The

43:30

idea that all cops are bad or

43:33

that policing needs to be

43:36

shut down. There was a

43:38

lot of diversity within different

43:41

communities about whether that was a good

43:43

idea. A lot of the police force

43:45

in Washington, D.C., in Philadelphia, in New

43:47

York, in Chicago, Los Angeles, there's a

43:49

lot of people of color in those

43:51

police forces. And they've got families, and

43:54

they've got neighbors, and they've got people

43:56

who think that they're doing good work

43:58

in the community. So, thank you. Grace seems

44:00

to be the point where you argue his

44:03

version of a comfortable coalescence

44:06

at National Public Radio broke

44:08

down or wokeness.

44:12

There is a version of what

44:14

wokeness is when conservative critics talk

44:16

about it, that marginalized

44:19

people storm the

44:21

barricades at a news

44:23

outlet and dictate that this story happens

44:25

and this story gets killed and we're

44:27

going to use this language and not

44:29

use that language. And that's

44:32

not what I saw. During the

44:34

period that Uri was talking about, there

44:37

was an exodus of on-air

44:39

women of color to other places. Could

44:41

have been a coincidence. I don't know.

44:46

I mean, it wasn't just women.

44:48

The network also lost Sam Sanders,

44:50

who rose from, I think, an

44:52

internship to being the host of

44:54

It's Been a Minute. Maybe

44:57

John Lansing changed everything after George

44:59

Floyd's death, but in the

45:02

time that I was at NPR, there

45:04

were always these spasms where some

45:06

terrible thing would happen around race

45:09

and we would have a

45:11

moment that would last somewhere between

45:13

three and six months of

45:16

higher level of attention to issues of

45:18

diversity in reporting and staffing and then

45:20

it would just all fade away. So

45:22

when it faded away, what was

45:25

reasserted? The

45:27

comfortable space, comfortable

45:30

for the leadership anyway, where problems

45:32

of race were all about a

45:35

small minority of really

45:37

bad white people somewhere

45:39

in the country that wasn't close

45:42

to Washington, D.C., doing

45:44

a few terrible

45:46

things to a few

45:48

marginalized people, and that's all

45:51

we needed to cover. NPR's

45:53

core editorial problem is, and frankly

45:55

has long been, you said, an

45:59

abundance of color. that

46:01

often crossed the border

46:03

to cowardice? Donald

46:06

Trump made MS-13 sort of a

46:08

talking point in

46:10

his anti-immigration rhetoric. He

46:13

was always conflating this idea

46:15

of immigrants and

46:18

specifically undocumented immigrants with a rise

46:20

in violent crime, and MS-13 was

46:22

sort of the poster child for

46:24

that. I remember

46:26

a lot of resistance to

46:28

actually diving into that, and

46:31

MS-13 was killing people in

46:33

the neighboring county to

46:35

Washington, D.C., taking advantage of

46:38

central American immigrant communities and

46:40

really terrorizing those places. It

46:43

blew my mind that we

46:45

didn't follow up. Give

46:48

me another example. If you think

46:50

about why weren't the white voters

46:53

so angry about whatever

46:55

was happening in the world, one

46:57

of the things that led to a lot of

47:00

them supporting Donald Trump in

47:02

defiance of what the conventional

47:04

wisdom was, especially in elite

47:06

media, this assumption that immigration

47:09

doesn't threaten the livelihoods

47:11

of most Americans. Immigrants are

47:14

doing jobs that most Americans

47:16

don't want. Immigrants

47:18

may not be competing with

47:21

NPR listeners for jobs, but

47:24

that's a legitimate question worth asking.

47:27

There are statistics that

47:30

suggest that it

47:32

does suppress wages. There are,

47:34

and I felt at the time that there's a

47:36

way to have that conversation without giving in to

47:39

a bunch of anti-Latino, anti-immigrant

47:41

rhetoric. Just ask the

47:43

question. See if there

47:45

is something happening there

47:47

that might be undergirding

47:50

some of this anti-immigrant

47:53

feeling that's not just about

47:55

racism. So you

47:57

agree with Berliner when he says, Open-minded

48:00

spirit no longer exists within NPR.

48:02

Did it ever? I

48:08

mean, I guess that's where I disagree

48:10

with Uri. I don't remember a long

48:14

stretch of time at NPR where

48:16

you could really accurately say that

48:18

the editorial spirit was to be

48:20

open-minded. It was to be smart, but

48:24

it wasn't necessarily open to

48:26

being challenged. And

48:28

you guys were both there for

48:30

roughly the same length, right? Yeah.

48:34

Yes. So I've often

48:36

felt that the need for diversity

48:38

in representation

48:40

in journalism is long overdue.

48:44

I'd also like to see more

48:46

diversity in areas of class and

48:48

region and religion. I

48:50

also, though, see a kind

48:53

of orthodoxy and a chill

48:55

rising from the side that

48:57

has been silenced for too

48:59

long. Backlash

49:02

comes, then the lash again,

49:04

forces of reaction and overreaction.

49:06

It doesn't mean death to journalism by

49:09

any means. But I think

49:11

it's worth acknowledging. You know, I

49:13

have a lot of problems with

49:16

that argument because a lot of

49:18

the lash and backlash and talk

49:20

about wokeness taking over is

49:23

something that is happening in

49:25

social media. And the

49:27

consequences for the people who

49:29

are lashed at now, what

49:32

people call cancellation, is

49:34

that people whose criticisms of

49:36

them wouldn't have been

49:38

heard and examined before are now getting

49:41

a microphone. Again, I'm saying

49:43

that all of this is long overdue.

49:45

And I'm not claiming a kind of

49:48

equivalency, either socially or morally or

49:50

any other way. Just

49:53

as in the Me Too movement, I

49:55

had a lot of boo-hoo on my

49:57

tiny violin. Very rich people got

49:59

to know me. canceled for a few minutes.

50:02

Yeah. Or even for longer. You know,

50:04

when a woman said something

50:06

or a person of color or

50:08

another marginalized person said something that

50:11

made life hard for their bosses,

50:14

you just got fired. Nobody called it cancellation.

50:16

They just called it life and tough

50:18

breaks and too bad. And a

50:21

lot of people are going to call what

50:24

happened to furry cancellation.

50:27

In this particular case, he

50:29

didn't like what they called him and

50:31

he quit. So, you know, he canceled

50:33

himself. He did. He broke

50:36

the rules of the place where he worked.

50:38

And there were consequences that he didn't like.

50:41

And so he left. And that's not a

50:43

tragedy that society needs

50:45

to spend a lot of time trying

50:48

to remedy. And why

50:50

did you write this article now? You

50:53

know, I was prepared to forever hold my peace

50:56

because I love NPR. And

50:58

because I know on some level, any

51:00

kind of criticism of this organization makes

51:03

it harder for the good people in

51:05

the organization to do their work. But

51:08

I wasn't going to sit

51:11

silently by while this false

51:13

narrative demeaning the

51:15

good work of hundreds

51:18

of thoughtful, dedicated,

51:21

and yeah, I'm going to use

51:23

the word patriotic public radio journalists

51:25

got trashed. You

51:28

ended by contesting

51:31

Berliners premise that

51:33

NPR doesn't reflect

51:35

America. You argue that it

51:37

does. It does. I mean,

51:40

and this was part of why I left. You

51:42

can fall in love with the story

51:44

about who you are and your

51:46

role in the world that you were

51:48

blameless for me. Anyway, this is

51:50

the part that's personal blameless and

51:52

whatever went wrong and entirely responsible

51:55

for what went right. And

51:57

rather than listen to the criticism.

52:00

of people who are

52:02

looking to you, people who are looking up to

52:04

you, you just put up a wall, say I

52:06

was always right, I'm on the right side of

52:08

history and everybody needs

52:10

to shut up. That

52:13

is something that I saw at NPR

52:16

and that's something that I've seen in our

52:19

country and that's something that

52:22

I am fighting within myself.

52:26

Alicia, thank you very much. Thank

52:29

you, Brooke. Alicia Montgomery

52:31

is the Vice President of Audio

52:33

at Slate and she's the

52:36

author of the recent article The

52:38

Real Story Behind NPR's Current Problems.

52:55

That's it for this week's show.

52:57

On the Media is produced by

52:59

Eloise Blondio, Molly Rosen, Rebecca Clark

53:01

Callender and Candace Wong with help

53:04

from Sean Merchant. Our technical director

53:06

is Jennifer Munson. Our engineer this

53:08

week was Brendan Dalton. Katja

53:10

Rogers is our executive producer.

53:12

On the Media is a

53:14

production of WNYC Studios. I'm

53:17

Brooke Gladstone and I'm Michael

53:19

O'Linger.