On July 15, National Public Radio (NPR), the left-wing radio network that is largely funded by the U.S. government, announced that it is creating a team that will cover what it calls a “disinformation crisis.” The announcement was made by Terrance Samuel, vice president & executive editor at NPR, and Nancy Barnes, a vice-president and editorial director for the organization.
Among the new team’s targets will be stories about the 2020 presidential election, Covid-19 vaccines, and what NPR terms “climate-change denialism.” Pretty much anything NPR considers “conspiracy theories” will be fair game.
“The viral spread of mis- and disinformation has emerged as one of the great civic challenges of our time,” the announcement read. “From the lies about the 2020 election to the growing influence of anti-vaccine activists, to the enduring influence of climate-change denialism, lies and conspiracy theories have seeped into nearly all aspects of modern-day life, both in the US and around the globe.”
The new team is born out of a reporting team that the left-wing broadcaster set up to cover the January 6 unrest at the U.S. Capitol in 2021.
“Over the past year and a half, that ad hoc team has had many successes reporting on election disinformation, the role of the tech platforms and multiple path-breaking stories about Covid disinformation,” the announcement declared. “Now, we’re pleased to announce that we’re making the work of this team permanent.”
Among the new team members will be business correspondent Shannon Bond; reporter Lisa Hagen, who had been working at WABE in Atlanta; assistant producer Huo Jingnan; and reporter Brett Neely.
The group will focus on finding and reporting about what NPR calls “disinformation” in the media.
“The mandate is to seek out original, high-impact stories and to work closely with the many beat reporters in the newsroom and at member stations whose work involves disinformation,” an NPR internal announcement read.
Many pointed out that NPR has a history of promoting dubious news and ignoring stories that might hurt left-wing causes in the past.
On Twitter, a New York Post reporter noted once such instance in which NPR basically ignored the Hunter Biden laptop story. When asked “why haven’t you seen any stories from NPR about the NY Post’s Hunter Biden story?” NPR responded, “We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.”
In March of this year, both The New York Times and The Washington Post finally confirmed what the New York Post had said all along — that the laptop was real and not “Russian disinformation” as the Biden camp claimed.
The Washington Examiner‘s Byron York asked sardonically, “Perhaps the NPR Disinformation Team will begin its work by examining NPR.”
John Cooper of the Heritage Foundation noted a possible connection between NPR’s new team and the Biden administration’s failed effort to set up its own disinformation board. “One government-funded agency shuts down its disinformation board, another sets one up.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), of course, announced that it would be initiating its own Disinformation Governance Board in April of this year. The censorious new board was set to be headed up by “disinformation expert” Nina Jankowicz. Jankowicz, who was widely mocked for a video of her singing a disinformation song set to the tune of a song from Mary Poppins, resigned from the program in May. DHS dropped the program following Jankowicz’s resignation.
Earlier this month, NPR faced more criticism when it decided to end a long tradition of reading the Declaration of Independence on the Fourth of July. Instead, the public broadcaster aired a piece purporting to examine what equality means in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to invalidate Roe v. Wade.
NPR’s new “disinformation team” is scheduled to begin its work of telling listeners what to believe later this month.
