Ex-NPR editor knocks CEO Katherine Maher, says she crossed newsroom 'firewall' by publicly rebuking his essay

NEW YORK CITY - Uri Berliner, the veteran NPR editor who was ousted after penning his bombshell essay about the left-wing takeover of the newsroom, knocked CEO Katherine Maher for breaking the "firewall" that is supposed to separate NPR's journalism from its business side.

Speaking at the Dissident Dialogues festival on Saturday, Berliner revealed that one of the "big factors" that motivated him to go public with his concerns about NPR's ideological groupthink was Maher's arrival in March. He hoped the new CEO could "turn a new leaf" for the outlet.

"As I said in my essay, we're welcoming a CEO, I'll be rooting for her because I thought, okay, maybe this is the time to bring this up. We've got new leadership. Maybe this is the time we could really tackle these things," Berliner said.

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Berliner then pivoted to the memo Maher penned to staff publicly rebuking his essay, "Questioning whether our people are serving our mission with integrity, based on little more than the recognition of their identity, is profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning."

"Supposedly there's what's called a firewall in the newsroom," Berliner said. "There's the newsroom, the editorial team, and there are people who run the business, the CEO."

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"And I think basically in one of her first acts, if not her first act, she crossed over that firewall to criticize me as a journalist. And that I found especially troubling given her views on the First Amendment, free expression," he continued.

NPR did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for