Anti-Free Speech NPR CEO Chairs Free Speech Board
Controversial NPR CEO Katherine Maher is in more hot water following the suspension and ultimate resignation of a courageous whistleblower at the outlet. Now it is revealed that she is the chair of the Signal Foundation, which claims to be a defender of free speech.
As calls rang out for defunding NPR due to its egregious left-wing bias, a TED Talk given by Maher in 2021 went viral. In it she claimed that the truth is subjective and can be a stumbling block to accomplishing goals.
This came during her tenure as CEO of Wikipedia, which ran from 2016 to 2021.
Maher is now the chair of the Signal Foundation, which boasts an app that enjoys over 40 million users. Its popularity is due largely to its perception as a secure platform independent of Big Tech players who are prone to censorship.
It also provides end-to-end encryption, making it a vanguard for free speech. Or so it seemed.
Former CEO of Wikimedia and National Public Radio Katherine Maher has been called out by bias-detector-in-chief Christopher Rufo recently. Maher essentially supported the idea that truth is subjective, and Wikipedia too committed to free speech, which is apparently against her… pic.twitter.com/EHvEX2pAky
— Sean Bw Parker (@seanbwparker) April 21, 2024
As the new head of the notoriously untruthful NPR, Maher ignited a whirlwind of controversy when she suspended veteran editor Uri Berliner.
After working for the outlet for a quarter of a century, he exposed the pervasive bias and agenda-driven reporting of his colleagues. Berliner wrote an essay for the Free Press describing the far-left ideology that drives the NPR newsroom and is embraced by virtually the entire staff.
For this, Maher suspended Berliner for five days without pay. After many of his colleagues expressed their contempt for his honesty, he decided to resign.
And Maher has a troubling history of standing strong against First Amendment protections of freedom of expression.
During her 2021 speech, she indicated that controversial issues should not be encumbered by objective truth.
Referencing the Wikipedia model, Maher told the audience that in everyday lives, “these contentious conversations tend to erupt over a disagreement about what the truth actually is. But the people who write these articles, they’re not focused on the truth.”
Almost all reasonable people would agree that, from Wikipedia to the Signal Foundation to NPR, the truth should be the overarching guiding principle that lights the way for each. But that is not the case.
To Maher and her leftist cohorts, it is an impediment, an inconvenience that must be worked around to achieve goals of far-left ideologies.