Uri Berliner’s disingenuous critique of NPR was the most-viewed Media Nation post of 2024

Robert Mueller. Photo (cc) 2012 by the White House.

On this last day of 2024, I’m taking a look back before we plunge ahead into the new year. Media Nation’s 10 most viewed posts for the year range from my takedown of an intellectually dishonest critique of NPR, to CBS News’ reprimand of an on-air host for being too confrontational with a guest, to news that The Boston Globe is seeking to acquire Boston magazine. So let’s get right to it.

1. Fish in a barrel: Berliner’s case against NPR is based on false and out-of-context facts (April 11). Uri Berliner, a top editor at NPR, created a stir when he accused his employer of liberal bias in a long essay for The Free Press. The problem was that his examples didn’t hold up to scrutiny. To name just one: Berliner wrote that NPR failed to confess its sins after special counsel Robert Mueller found “no credible evidence” that Donald Trump had colluded with Russia, which isn’t even remotely what Mueller reported. There was a lot more disingenuousness where that came from. Berliner ended up resigning his post at NPR and going to work for — yes, The Free Press.

2. Less news, more happy talk: Why CBS News’ reprimand of Tony Dokoupil is so ridiculous (Oct. 8). Journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates popped up on the CBS morning newscast to promote latest book, “The Message,” and faced an unexpectedly tough grilling over his anti-Israeli views from co-host Tony Dokoupil. Among other things, Dokoupil told Coates that his book woudn’t be out of place “in the backpack of an extremist.” Coates gave as good as he got, and he probably sold a few more books than he otherwise would have. Nevertheless, CBS News management called Dokoupil on the carpet — probably because his attempt to commit journalism contradicted the light banter that defines the morning-news format.

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3. A riveting Boston Globe story about a medical disaster with ties to the local news crisis (Jan. 29). A Globe report about the death of a new mother at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital had something in common with the same forces that have hollowed out much of the local-news business. The mother’s death may have been caused by the hospital’s lacking a basic piece of equipment that had been repossessed because its corporate owner, Steward Health Care, wasn’t paying its bills. Steward, in turn, had been pillaged by a private-equity firm, Cerberus Capital Management, which is the same outfit that helped the notorious newsroom-gutting hedge fund Alden Global Capital acquire Tribune Publishing’s nine major-market daily newspapers in 2021.

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Less news, more happy talk: Why CBS News’ reprimand of Tony Dokoupil is so ridiculous

Count me among those who are perplexed as to why CBS News morning anchor Tony Dokoupil has been reprimanded by his bosses for the way he conducted himself in an interview with the journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Coates has written a new book called “The Message,” part of which comprises a harsh critique of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. In a recent interview with Terry Gross of the public radio program “Fresh Air,” and again on “CBS Mornings,” Coates called Israel an “apartheid” state. He also questioned Israel’s existence on the grounds that he opposes the notion of any state based on ethnicity.

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Now, I’m not writing this item to take sides. I’ve long been an admirer of Coates, although I disagree with him strongly on Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state within secure borders — and agree with him about the Netanyahu government’s brutal prosecution of the war in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon.

My point is that there was nothing wrong with Dokoupil’s interview. It was tough but polite. Probably Dokoupil’s one statement that I’d regard as out of line was this:

I have to say that when I read the book I imagine that if I took your name out of it, took away the awards, the acclaim, took the cover off the book, the publishing house goes away, the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist.

But what of it? Coates parried Dokoupil deftly, and the conversation ended a few minutes later on an almost friendly note. Yet CNN media reporters Brian Stelter and Hadas Gold write that CBS News staff members were told at a meeting that Dokoupil’s manner did not meet the network’s editorial standards, adding:

In wake of the criticism, CBS News and Stations president and CEO Wendy McMahon and her top deputy Adrienne Roark enlisted the network’s standards and practices unit to conduct a review of the discussion, according to sources familiar with the matter. The news division’s race and culture unit was involved as well.

Management concluded that “the problem was Tony’s tone” in the interview, one of the sources said. McMahon and Roark didn’t say so on the Monday morning call, but they emphasized the importance of network standards and the need to have “courageous conversations.”

This is absurd. At the most, maybe Dokoupil should have been taken aside and privately told that the “backpack of an extremist” comment was inappropriate. But why do we expect television audiences to be treated like children, with everyone making nice rather than engaging in some tough talk?

As a sign of how clueless CBS managers are, Michael M. Grynbaum and Benjamin Mullins of The New York Times report, “Executives who discussed the interview on Monday’s call had asked staff members to keep their remarks confidential.” Uh, huh.

Neither Dokoupil nor Coates acted like anything untoward had happened, and that’s because it hadn’t. They had an enlightening though brief exchange. I’d like to see more interviews like it and less happy talk — but that’s not going to happen if journalists fear they’ll get in trouble just for doing their jobs.