NPR CEO dodges question on if she should prioritize 'viewpoint diversity' in newsroom following editor's exit

Embattled NPR president and CEO Katherine Maher sidestepped a question about whether she should prioritize "viewpoint diversity" in the newsroom in the wake of the resignation of a veteran editor who sounded the alarm about the organization's liberal groupthink.

During a conversation Wednesday at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Maher was asked about "viewpoint diversity," a topic NPR's senior business editor Uri Berliner tackled last week in his bombshell essay in The Free Press, which resulted in his suspension and exit following reported "turmoil" that erupted among colleagues.

"Is that kind of diversity something that you track or should track internally, or how do you get a handle on whether those things are actually happening or not?" Carnegie senior fellow Jon Bateman, who moderated the "Disinformation, Journalism, and Technology" event, asked.

"I think that's reflected in the stories, right?" Maher responded. "I think that's reflected in what is the audience that we serve and how much value do they get out of our work. Tracking individual viewpoints- I mean, this is the thing about journalism is that, of course, people come from all sorts of backgrounds. They have different lived experiences, but they come to the table to do the work and uphold journalistic ethics and integrity. And that means reporting stories based on the facts. That means reporting stories matter. That means ensuring that we're rigorous with our sourcing. That means ensuring that we are focused on delivering what is accurate and what we know about the world today and then updating it again, right? Because the news is constantly changing and we're going to constantly need to follow those stories to make sure that we're really