Lawmakers Want NPR CEO To Testify

The House Energy & Commerce Committee is summoning the head of NPR before Congress to answer accusations the outlet has a left-wing bias despite receiving federal funds, reports Fox News Digital.

"The Committee has concerns about the direction in which NPR may be headed under past and present leadership. As a taxpayer funded, public radio organization, NPR should focus on fair and objective news reporting that both considers and reflects the views of the larger U.S. population and not just a niche audience," Committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., wrote to NPR CEO Katherine Maher.

She led Morgan Griffith, R-Va., chair of the subcommittee on oversight, and Bob Latta, R-Ohio, chair of the subcommittee on communications and technology, in asking Maher to publicly testify before Griffith’s panel next week.

Katherine Maher

"You are requested to appear before the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee for a hearing on May 8, 2024, to explain the allegations of political and ideological bias rampant at NPR," they wrote.

The lawmakers also sent Maher a list of questions, including about the political affiliations of registered voters working in the newsroom and whether any concerns were raised in recent years by NPR’s board of directors about political diversity in their workplace.

The committee also asked for any internal written materials regarding a lack of viewpoint diversity within NPR.

Conservatives have long accused NPR of reporting with a left-wing bias while some of its funding is provided through federal grants and other government-backed dollars.

Those concerns were recently magnified when former NPR editor Uri Berliner asserted in an op-ed that the outlet mishandled critical stories that stemmed from Hunter Biden’s laptop hard drive and COVID-19 lab leak theories, among others, and that registered Democrats were vastly overrepresented in the newsroom, 87-0.