Authored by Jonathan Turley via JonathanTurley.org,
Harper's Magazine appears to be competing with The Onion in satire this week. It is awarding its First Amendment prize to NPR CEO Katherine Maher. It is akin to awarding a Second Amendment prize to Gavin Newsom. Maher has long been the very symbol of advocacy journalism and bias. Ironically, she is being given an award after steering NPR into the rocks to keep her job and its ideological bias.
Many of us have written for years about NPR's biased reporting. Not all of this criticism was made out of hostility toward the outlet - many honestly wanted NPR to reverse course and adopt more balanced coverage. That is why, when NPR was searching for a new CEO, I encouraged the board to hire a moderate figure without a history of political advocacy or controversy.
Instead, the board selected Katherine Maher, a former Wikipedia CEO widely criticized for her highly partisan and controversial public statements. She was the personification of advocacy journalism, even declaring that the First Amendment is the "number one challenge" that makes it "tricky" to censor or "modify" content as she would like.
Maher has supported "deplatforming" anyone she deems to be "fascists" and even suggested that she
