NPR CEO Katherine Maher who recently suspended and ultimately lost a veteran editor for exposing the outlet’s pervasive left-wing bias and who has been quoted criticizing freedom of speech has been revealed to sit unbelievable as chair of the Signal Foundation — an organization that claims to be a champion of free speech.
The news comes on the heels of growing calls to defund NPR due to its egregious left-wing slant of its coverage and commentary.
A 2021 TED Talk given by Maher during her tenure as CEO of Wikipedia from 2016 to 2021 has resurfaced and gone viral. In the speech she suggested that the truth is subjective and can be an obstacle to achieving goals.
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
The Signal Foundation boasts an app with over 40 million users. Its popularity stems largely from its reputation as a secure platform independent of Big Tech players who are prone to censorship.
The app also provides end-to-end encryption positioning it as a vanguard for free speech. But Maher’s recent actions at NPR have called a host of issues into question, including the organization’s real commitment to free speech and the safety of user data under the leadership of such a bias decision maker.
Maher sparked a firestorm of controversy when she suspended veteran editor Uri Berliner who’d worked at NPR for 25 years and exposed the 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 his honesty Maher suspended Berliner for five days without pay.
After many of his colleagues expressed their contempt for his candor he decided to resign. Maher’s troubling history of opposing First Amendment protections of freedom of expression has also come under scrutiny.
During her 2021 speech she indicated that controversial issues should not be encumbered by objective truth. Referencing the Wikipedia model Maher told the audience “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.”
Sean Parker a tech entrepreneur and philanthropist tweeted “Alarming to see the head of @SignalApp – which claims to be a bastion of free speech – simultaneously running @NPR which just forced out a 25-year veteran for criticizing newsroom bias. The hypocrisy is staggering
