Desperate for funds, NPR resorts to immitating the New York Times

/

NPR CEO Miss Katherine, “facts can be a distraction” maher

Previous to moving to NPR in 2024, Mahere was CEO of Wikipedia. Let her tell you how that went:

NPR CEO: You Better Believe I Partnered With Gov't to Suppress 'Misinformation' About Pandemic, Elections

Christopher Rufo has done extensive digging into Maher's track record, none of which had anything to do with journalism until NPR made her its new CEO in January. Maher did work at Wikipedia as its CEO during the pandemic and the 2020 election, where she took an active role in content control. And by content control, Maher made clear in a remote address to the Atlantic Council in 2021, she means imposing censorship on any information or discussion to which the government objected on both topics (transcript via RealClearPolitics):

KATHERINE MAHER: We took a very active approach to disinformation and misinformation, coming into not just the last election, but how we supported our editing community in an unprecedented moment where we were not only dealing with a global pandemic but a novel virus, which by definition means we know nothing about in real-time. And we're trying to figure it out as the pandemic went along.

We really set up, in response to the pandemic but also the upcoming U.S. election as a model for future elections outside of the U.S., including as number happening this year.

The model was around how do we create a clearinghouse of information that brings the institution of the Wikimedia Foundation with the editing community in order to be able to identify threats early on, through conversations with government, of course, as well as other platform operators to understand what the landscape looks like.