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NPR CEO Katherine Maher says viewpoint diversity is critical, defiant when grilled on liberal bias claims
AUSTIN, Texas – NPR CEO Katherine Maher was largely defiant during a rare public acknowledgment of longtime editor Uri Berliner’s claims that the government-funded organization lacks “viewpoint diversity” and caters to a liberal audience.
“I stand here to defend the integrity of the newsroom and to defend the integrity of the reporting and to say that every single day our folks get up, and they want to stand there and make sure that they are serving the American public in the best possible way from a nonpartisan perspective,” Maher said Saturday at the Texas Tribune Festival.
Berliner stunned the media industry earlier this year when he blew the whistle on liberal bias at the organization. Berliner, who was suspended and ultimately resigned over the criticism, penned a scathing takedown of NPR in the Free Press that criticized NPR’s coverage of Russiagate, the COVID lab leak theory, Hunter Biden’s scandalous laptop, embrace of the theory of systemic racism, in addition to saying it downplayed antisemitism following Oct. 7.
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NPR CEO Katherine Maher was largely defiant during rare public acknowledgment of longtime editor Uri Berliner’s claims that the public news organization lacks “viewpoint diversity” and caters to a liberal audience. (Fox News)
Maher was asked about the situation during a lengthy on-stage Trib Fest conversation about the future of public media with former New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan. Maher insisted early in the conversation that she is “not a journalist” and she relies on NPR editors and newsroom leaders to direct coverage.
“My responsibility is ensuring the big picture, and their responsibility is ensuring the integrity,” she said.
“We want to be down the line, we want to serve the American public well,” Maher continued. “We want to serve people from a range of perspectives and backgrounds. And they should feel as though that coverage is meaningful to them.”
Maher said her “strategic view” is that NPR needs to be “really thoughtful about our role as a nonpartisan media organization.”
Maher said that Berliner’s criticism was received inside NPR as an “affront to the individual journalists who work incredibly hard to report the news and report the news well and report the news with integrity … in a nonpartisan way” by his now-former colleagues.
Maher said that Berliner’s criticisms fell flat when she examined the individual stories he publicly complained about, but she recognizes that it opened the door for a larger conversation about NPR.
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Longtime editor Uri Berliner stunned the media industry earlier this year when he blew the whistle on liberal bias at NPR. (Fox News Digital/Getty Images)
“Whether you want to call that sort of selective review or cherry-picking or what have you – it was meant to drive a thesis, and that thesis certainly got legs. Whether or not the criticism itself had validity or not, [the] thesis got legs, which means, at least in part, it tapped into some sort of sentiment,” she said.
“What I would love to disaggregate is the difference between what I think of as, sort of, an agenda-driven critique, which may be in part around broader conversations around public media receiving federal funding. And that is a long-standing conversation that happens in this country, you know, within political discourse,” Maher continued.
Maher said Berliner’s remarks underscore that NPR must ensure that it looks inwards in the face of “perceived criticism” to make sure the company is upholding its mission and serving a broad audience. She insisted that NPR faced criticism from all sides and some listeners even think the organization is too friendly to former President Trump.
“I think it’s important for us to say, ‘If you feel as though NPR was something that was a resource for you, and you no longer feel that it’s a resource for some sort of reason, why is that the case?’ And what is it that we need to interrogate about our own practices, editorial decisions, programming decisions that that makes it feel that way? And some of the answers that we came up with were kind of worthwhile,” Maher said.
Maher said that a constructive critique she has heard is that NPR is “too repetitive” on particular stories, because headlines of the day are cut in throughout various programs and could be heard a variety of times. So, if a listener hears the same story multiple times, it could seem like NPR is “putting our thumb on the scale.”
Maher pointed out that Berliner’s bombshell came only two weeks into her tenure, and everything the longtime editor objected to predates her time running NPR. However, Maher understands that it was her mess to clean up.
“When you step into an organization, you assume the responsibility for all that comes before it. That’s appropriate. That’s fine. It’s my responsibility to do with that criticism what we need to do in order to be able to address it,” Maher said.
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NPR CEO Katherine Maher appeared at the Texas Tribune Festival. (Fox News)
Sullivan asked Maher about a series of her social media posts from before her time at NPR that went viral following Berliner’s remarks. Maher showed support for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden’s presidential runs while regularly sharing far-left talking points and criticizing Donald Trump on social media before landing the NPR top job.
Maher said that once she assumed the role, she stuck to the same standards that everyone at NPR must adhere to and her only priority is to uphold the organization’s mission to serve the public.
“Those are past positions,” she said.
“I wasn’t a journalist previously, and I work in a journalism organization now. I think it’s fair to have some level of critique around it,” Maher added. “The question is, ‘Was it a disproportionate level of critique?’”
She believes that criticism of her past tweets had “some degree of disproportionate treatment,” because her predecessor, John Lansing, previously oversaw the Obama-era, government-supported Broadcasting Board of Governors but never received such harsh claims of being partisan.
“I never worked for government. I never worked for a partisan organization, I was a private individual with personal beliefs,” she said.
Maher said that “every single thing” in her life was combed through, and her family was doxxed and threatened along the way. She isn’t even sure if she’ll vote in November’s presidential election because her current address would become accessible once she registers, and she’s concerned people still have a bone to pick.
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NPR CEO and President Katherine Maher’s old tweets about looting, her support for Hillary Clinton and Biden-Harris resurfaced earlier this year. ( (Photo by Rita Franca/NurPhoto via Getty Images), Screenshot/X/KatherineMaher)
“It was really ugly,” she said. “There were security questions, I had to change the way I went to work in the morning. It was not a super fun experience.”
Once Maher and Sullivan wrapped up their one-on-one interview, Fox News Digital asked the NPR honcho to address Berliner’s claim that voter registration records in 2021 showed an astonishing disparity between Democrats and Republicans in the NPR newsroom. Berliner said he found 87 registered Democrats and zero Republicans.
Maher said the numbers need to have context, as roughly 600 people work in the newsroom and the stats provided by Berliner represent a “small fraction” of individuals who self-reported their political affiliation. She also said Washington, D.C., does not allow hiring or screening candidates based on political affiliation, so hiring managers would “never” ask if a potential staffer was a Democrat or Republican.
“I do think it’s incredibly important for us to have people of diverse viewpoints in the newsroom, and the totality of the lived experience. It’s one of the things that we also seek to do by expanding the newsroom just outside of D.C.,” she said.
Maher said NPR has been investing in “collaborative newsrooms” across the country to give a voice to staffers from places like the Appalachia region, the Midwest, the Rocky Mountains, Texas and other rural areas.
“That’s a great way for us to start getting out of D.C. and bringing in people who have a variety of different lived experiences and backgrounds,” she said.
“I think it’s important for us to be hiring reporters who are reporting based on their beats and experience, as opposed to looking and screening by political ideology,” Maher added. “Then ensuring that the work that they do is engaging with diverse sourcing and making sure that we’re representing all the stories that we cover in a way that it feels very balanced.”
Fox News Digital’s Joseph A. Wulfsohn and Hannah Lambert contributed to this report.
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Arizona governor vetoes Charlie Kirk memorial license plate, sparking GOP outrage: ‘This bill falls short’
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Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs is facing fierce backlash after vetoing a bill that would have created a specialty license plate honoring slain Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, a move Republicans are blasting as a stunning act of partisanship after his assassination.
Kirk, who was assassinated while speaking at a Sept. 10 Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University, lived in Arizona with his wife, Erika, and two children.
The proposed specialty plate, referred to as the “Charlie Kirk memorial” plate or the “Conservative grassroots network special plate,” featured a photo of the late Kirk and the TPUSA logo in front of an American flag background.
Below the license plate number were the words “FOR CHARLIE.”
A custom Arizona license plate, featuring a Turning Point USA and Charlie Kirk design, shared by state Sen. Jake Hoffman. (Senator Jake Hoffman via X)
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Of the $25 fee required for the plate, $17 would be an annual donation deposited into the Conservative Grassroots Network Special Plate Fund, according to the legislation.
While the recipient of the Grassroots Network Special Plate Fund was not explicitly designated as TPUSA in the bill, it noted the director of the fund would allocate revenue annually to a nonprofit organization, founded in 2012, that focuses on restoring traditional values, maintaining a grassroots activist network on high school and college campuses in Arizona, and assisting college students with voter registration and absentee ballots.
People gather at a memorial to mourn Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk outside Turning Point USA headquarters Sept. 12, 2025, in Phoenix. (Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images)
TPUSA, founded by Kirk in 2012, is well known for its grassroots activist networks on high school and college campuses. It is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona.
The $25 fee and annual $17 donation are consistent with the fees for the other 109 nonprofit license plates offered by the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT).
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The state Senate passed the bill, 16-2, with the House of Representatives voting 31-23 in favor prior to Hobbs’ veto.
Specialty plates in Arizona are authorized by the legislature and sent to the governor to be signed into law. They have been offered since 1989.
In a letter explaining the veto, Hobbs cited concerns with the bill “bring[ing] people together,” claiming it would “insert politics into a function of government that should remain nonpartisan.”
Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs is facing fierce backlash after vetoing a bill that would have created a specialty license plate honoring slain Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
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“Charlie Kirk’s assassination is tragic and a horrifying act of violence,” Hobbs wrote. “In America, we resolve our political differences at the ballot box. No matter who it targets, political violence puts us all in harm’s way and damages our sacred democratic institutions.
“I will continue working toward solutions that bring people together, but this bill falls short of that standard.”
Specialty license plates with political interests already approved by the state include the “Choose Life” Plate, which benefits the Arizona Life Coalition and its mission to promote anti-abortion advocacy and education; the “In God We Trust” Plate, which benefits conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom; and the Arizona Realtors’ “Homes for All” Plate, which funds affordable housing projects.
Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, speaks during the Turning Point Action conference in 2023 in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Lynne Sladky/AP Photo)
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Another approved plate, “Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock Plate,” which benefits Solid Rock Teen Centers, features a portrait of the legendary musician, who has made political comments about social issues including gender identity.
Republican state Sen. Jake Hoffman, who sponsored the bill, posted a fiery statement on social media after the governor’s action, claiming her “grotesque partisanship knows no bounds.”
“Even in the wake of a global civil rights leader — an Arizona resident and her own constituent — being assassinated in broad daylight for his defense of the First Amendment, Hobbs couldn’t find the human decency to put her far-Left extremism aside simply to allow those how wish to honor him to do so,” Hoffman wrote. “Katie Hobbs will forever be known as a stain on the pages of Arizona’s story.”
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On Saturday, TPUSA COO Tyler Bowyer shared an X post that said, “Deport Katie Hobbs.”
TPUSA, Bowyer and Hobbs’ office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.
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Air Force veteran warns ‘cartels don’t collapse — they fracture’ after notorious drug lord killed
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Nearly two weeks after Mexican forces killed notorious cartel boss Ruben “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, questions remain about how the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) will respond and whether the blow will meaningfully disrupt the flow of fentanyl into the United States.
Carlos De La Cruz, a 20-year U.S. Air Force veteran who deployed after 9/11 and later served along the southern border, told Fox News the cartel leader’s death marked a major victory, but warned Americans should not mistake it for the end of the fight.
“When I say that this is a significant win, I mean it,” De La Cruz said. “El Mencho ran one of the most violent cartels on the planet.”
Oseguera, who rose to prominence in the post–El Chapo era, oversaw CJNG’s aggressive expansion across Mexico and into key trafficking corridors feeding U.S. drug markets. Under his leadership, the cartel became a central architect of fentanyl and methamphetamine trafficking and drew a $15 million U.S. reward for information leading to his capture.
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Smoke rises from burning vehicles after a military operation that a government source said killed Mexican drug lord Nemesio Oseguera, known as “El Mencho,” in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on Feb. 22, 2026. (Screen grab obtained from a social media video. @morelifediares via Instagram/YouTube via Reuters)
But De La Cruz cautioned that removing a cartel kingpin does not dismantle the organization.
“Cartels don’t collapse when you just cut the head off — they fracture,” he said. “And part of that fracture is going to see a lot of short-term violence while all these factions fight over territory.”
Following Oseguera’s killing on Feb. 22, the U.S. State Department issued travel alerts in multiple Mexican states, citing road blockages and criminal activity tied to security operations, underscoring concerns about instability in the aftermath.
Drawing on his military background studying enemy command structures, De La Cruz described the cartel fight as a long-term campaign requiring sustained pressure.
A mughsot of Ruben “Nemesio” Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” beside graffiti depicting the letters of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, covering the facade of an abandoned home in El Limoncito, in the Michoacan state of Mexico. (Eduardo Verdugo/AP Images; Drug Enforcement Administration)
“You don’t win a war with just one airstrike,” he said. “The goal is dismantling the networks and going after their financing.”
De La Cruz, who is running for Congress and is the brother of Texas Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz, argued that CJNG’s Foreign Terrorist Organization designation gives U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies expanded tools to target cartel infrastructure and financial pipelines.
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A soldier stands guard by a charred vehicle after it was set on fire in Cointzio, Mexico, Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026, after the cartel leader’s death. (Armando Solis/AP Photo)
But he stressed that the fentanyl crisis should be viewed as a domestic security emergency, not a distant foreign problem.
“For decades, they were using their territories as launching pads to pump chemical weapons into America — because that’s exactly what fentanyl is,” he said.
De La Cruz, who said he worked side by side with Customs agents while deployed to the border, warned that cartel networks are highly adaptive and that any gains could be temporary without sustained follow-through.
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Smoke rises after violence hit Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. (Courtesy of Scott Posilkin)
“These networks, they’re going to adjust. They’re going to adapt and they’re going to adapt quickly,” he said. “We have to continue to go after the money launderers, especially on our side of the border, because that’s the full fight.”
While Oseguera’s death removes one of the most dominant figures in Mexico’s criminal underworld, De La Cruz said the mission is personal.
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“I took an oath to defend this country,” he said. “And I intend to stand by that oath.”
Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner contributed to this report.
Stepheny Price covers crime, including missing persons, homicides and migrant crime. Send story tips to stepheny.price@fox.com.
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TUCSON, Ariz. — More than five weeks after the suspected abduction of Nancy Guthrie — the 84-year-old mother of “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie — Arizona authorities say cadaver dogs used earlier in the investigation are not currently being deployed as the search continues.
The elder Guthrie is believed to have been kidnapped from her home in the Catalina Foothills in northern Tucson around 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 1.
While no suspects have been publicly identified, and she has not been found, cadaver dogs had been deployed earlier in the case, according to Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos. They have not been visible in weeks.
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A member of the Pima County Sheriff’s Office remains outside of Nancy Guthrie’s home, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026 in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ty ONeil; Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)
“They are available if needed in the future,” he told Fox News Digital.
There are a number of reasons not to be using cadaver dogs at this stage in the investigation, according to Betsy Brantner Smith, a retired police sergeant and spokeswoman for the National Police Association.
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Savannah Guthrie visits the Today show at Rockefeller Plaza in New York on Thursday, March 5, 2026. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
One would be if there’s credible information that Guthrie is still alive.
“Anything is possible,” Nanos told Fox News Digital last week, adding that he would not discuss specific leads or evidence in the case.
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Brantner Smith, who is not involved in the case, said departments may hold back K-9 resources for several reasons. Those could be that authorities don’t have a good idea of where to search, they think she might be concealed in a place where dogs would have a hard time detecting her, or they believe she’s been taken to Mexico, according to Brantner Smith.
Law enforcement agents walk around the neighborhood where Annie Guthrie, whose mother Nancy Guthrie has been missing for more than a week, lives just outside Tucson, Ariz. (Ty ONeil/AP Photo)
“I do believe that the sheriff’s department has much more information that they are not releasing to the public,” she told Fox News Digital. “And I’m not sure at this point why that would be, unless they have a solid suspect and don’t want to tip them off.”
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Most departments, including the Pima County Sheriff’s, don’t have their own cadaver dogs and borrow them from state and federal authorities or neighboring jurisdictions.
An investigator looks inside a culvert in the neighborhood where Annie Guthrie, whose mother Nancy Guthrie has been missing for more than a week, lives just outside Tucson, Ariz., on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (Ty ONeil/AP Photo)
In Guthrie’s case, the sheriff’s department sought K-9 assistance from the local Border Patrol office earlier in the investigation.
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PCSD deferred further comment on the K-9s to Customs and Border Protection, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A member of the Pima County Sheriff’s Office walks around Nancy Guthrie’s home on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026 in Tucson, Ariz. (Ty ONeil/AP Photo)
The biggest lead so far has been Nest camera video showing a masked intruder on Guthrie’s doorstep the morning of her abduction.
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He is described as about 5 feet, 9 inches to 5 feet, 10 inches tall and of medium build.
Nancy Guthrie, 84, has been missing from her Arizona home since Jan. 31, 2026. (Don Arnold/WireImage/Getty Images)
He was wearing a black Ozark Trail backpack.
Authorities have said they won’t consider the case cold until they run out of viable leads to follow up on — and tens of thousands have come in so far.
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Savannah Guthrie has asked anyone with information to dial 1-800-CALL-FBI.
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There’s a combined reward of more than $1.2 million for information that leads to her mother’s recovery.
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