The Left Eats Itself: Petition Inside NPR Accuses Them of a ‘White Supremacist Culture.’
We’ve seen some of the nation’s largest liberal newspapers boil over in internal turmoil over race, so it’s only natural it would happen at National Public Radio. Paul Bedard at the Washington Examiner cited a manifesto for an “antiracist future” and the “transformation of public media” published at Current, a website for public broadcasting employees and insiders.
Organizer Celeste Headlee boasted on Twitter on Friday that she has over 450 signatories to this “vision” statement, which declares, “White supremacist culture and anti-blackness shape the policies, norms, and standards of public radio.”
It added, “They determine whose opinions are valued, whose voices are heard, whose stories are told and taken seriously, who is promoted, and whose resume never gets a second glance. Historically, black on-air talent are told their dialect and speaking voices do not fit the public radio prototype. There is a strong bias against journalists who have a distinct ethnic or regional tone in their vocal delivery.”
NPR’s All Things Considered had black co-anchor Michelle Morris and then black co-anchor Audie Cornish. Weekend All Things Considered stars black anchor Michel Martin. NPR added a “Code Switch” project in 2013 to pacify the desire to talk endlessly about race, and that included a promotional interview in August with the author of the book In Defense of Looting. But go ahead, suggest NPR is hopelessly “white supremacist.”
“It’s time for a new kind of journalism: anti-racist journalism. We hope to tear down public radio in order to build it back up,” it said. The media coverage should “center the most marginalized” and serve those who “have been traditionally underserved by corporate media.”

