NPR public editor defends network against partisan coverage claims

NPR public editor Kelly McBride argued in a recent media appearance that she thought accusations of “political bias” from President Donald Trump were just actual examples of “geographic bias.”

While appearing on the “1A” radio show to discuss the Trump administration’s efforts to defund NPR, she heard from a caller who blamed NPR’s partisan coverage for Trump’s actions.

“I really do lament the loss of funding for public radio, especially in, like you say, Native American communities,” Florida resident Kendra said. “But the only people you have to blame for that are the people at places like NPR. The programming is terrible. It’s partisan. It’s hacky. It’s, you know, people have been warning you guys for a very long time that you need to be more balanced in your coverage, and you have steadfastly refused.”

TRUMP SAYS HE’D LOVE TO YANK FUNDING FOR NPR, PBS, WOULD BE ‘HONORED’ TO SEE IT END

However, another caller, Erin Timbers from Indiana, said that NPR was an example of “unbiased news” that she used for her students at a local high school.

McBride accused Trump and other critics of “singling out individual stories that seem to be focused on very small communities, trans communities, minority communities, immigrants” rather than looking at NPR as a whole.

She suggested perceived bias likely came more from journalists being largely situated on the East and West Coast, claiming that NPR seeks to compensate for that.

“To the extent that there is a bias, I don’t think it is a political bias,” McBride said. “I think it is a geographic bias, and I think that NPR has worked very hard to compensate for that. And I think it’s unfair to look at, to cherry-pick small stories or individual stories, especially when you go back 10, 12, 15 years.”

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She added, “When you look at the amount of content that NPR puts out in a given week, it’s something like 1,800 individual stories, individual topics. So, that really, if you’re going to look at bias, you really have to look at a representative sample. And when I do that, I do not find bias the way that the president and other critics find.”

In a comment to Fox News Digital, White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields attacked McBride for “unabashedly” denying NPR’s “flagrant bias.”

“NPR has a clear record of flagrant bias, so it’s no surprise that its public editor would unabashedly deny this fact. The American people should not be responsible for funding Democrat propaganda, and the President is cutting the cord on the reckless abuse of taxpayer dollars. NPR will have to learn how to survive without federal subsidies,” Fields said.

In May, Trump signed an executive order to slash taxpayer funding for NPR and PBS after the White House accused them of spreading “radical woke propaganda.” 

Later that month, NPR and three other Colorado public radio stations sued the Trump administration in federal court, calling it a violation of the Constitution and the First Amendment.