There’s more than a little bravery in the world of journalism.
The reporters who’ve died to bring us news from Israel and Gaza come to mind, but you see that kind of bravery every day.
Someone showed a special kind of bravery Tuesday that you rarely if ever see.
Twenty-five-year National Public Radio editor Uri Berliner wrote a devastating critique of the newly woke broadcaster’s descent into the fever swamps of identity politics.
Berliner has put his career — everything he built for himself over decades — on the line to tell his colleagues they have lost their way.
Already he’s being called a racist and all the other -ists and -phobes the progressive left deploys to destroy any journalist who speaks up.
But Berliner’s case is iron-clad.
As best he could determine, there are exactly zero Republicans working as journalists in the government-funded news organization’s DC office.
The words delivering the news on the publicly owned airwaves of NPR’s member stations are chosen to please segregated activist groups more than for accuracy.
There has been no self-reflection on how NPR was snookered by the self-serving “experts” on key news stories in recent years.
From suggestions of a COVID lab leak to the Hunter Biden laptop, NPR was more interested in delivering the progressive talking points of the moment than the truth and dropped coverage altogether when the facts got inconvenient.
As a journalism veteran of decades myself, I know this is not how news organizations are supposed to work.
For starters, the correct number of conservatives and Republicans working for a news organization that serves red states and blue states alike is greater than zero.
Your words shouldn’t be predigested by partisans; they should be your own.
When you mess up, you should be accountable.
The results are clear: As with much of the rest of the woke traditional press, trust from the public is cratering.
NPR brags that one in three Americans believes what he or she hears from WAMU in the East to KQED in the West.
Never mind those two out of three who don’t trust what their tax dollars pay for.
Conservatives and moderates who used to listen to NPR are fleeing.
Judging from NPR Editor in Chief Edith Chapin’s response, the message didn’t get through.
She issued a memo defending the national broadcaster in the officialdom word salad typical of those caught red-handed.
And she addressed little of Berliner’s detailed critique directly.
“We’re proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories,” she intoned.
Not a word on why her staffers self-segregate by racial, sexual and gender identity to homogenize coverage.
Not a word on why they don’t hire conservatives for journalists’ jobs and many conservatives won’t even talk to them.
That’s no surprise.
Berliner tried to raise his concerns internally.
At lower levels they got talked about, but nothing changed.
When he tried to take them to the top, executives didn’t have time for him.
So Berliner wrote for Bari Weiss’ Free Press and shared his views with all of us.
Many like me, an avid NPR listener before the woke takeover, now wait to see how long before Uri is shown the door on North Capitol.
He only gave the inside story of the rot we’ve seen from the outside.
I saw the same thing happen at USA Today in the years after George Floyd’s murder.
The angry diversity committees, the racial and gender-identity segregation, the censorship and the dominance of progressive ideology under the old leadership, which let the principles of independent journalism be shattered.
I was demoted for the crime of observing that women are the ones who get pregnant, not people (as I detailed for The Post).
Like NPR, USA Today has new leaders now.
Maybe there’s hope that if enough of those of us left who remember what journalism is supposed to be about speak up, they’ll find the courage to right the ship.
David Mastio, a former USA Today editor and columnist, is a regional editor for The Center Square.
Twitter: @DavidMastio