NEW YORK (AP) — A National Public Radio editor who wrote an essay criticizing his employer for promoting liberal views resigned on Wednesday, attacking NPR's new CEO on the way out.
Uri Berliner, a senior editor on NPR's business desk, posted his resignation letter on X, formerly Twitter, a day after it was revealed that he had been suspended for five days for violating company rules about outside work done without permission.
“I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems” written about in his essay, Berliner said in his resignation letter.
Katherine Maher, a former tech executive appointed in January as NPR’s chief executive, has been criticized by conservative activists for social media messages that disparaged former President Donald Trump. The messages predated her hiring at NPR.
NPR’s public relations chief said the organization does not comment on individual personnel matters.
The suspension and subsequent resignation highlight the delicate balance that many U.S. news organizations and their editorial employees face. On one hand, as journalists striving to produce unbiased news, they're not supposed to comment on contentious public issues; on the other, many journalists consider it their duty to critique their own organizations' approaches to journalism when needed.
In his essay, written for the online Free Press site, Berliner said NPR is dominated by liberals and no longer has an open-minded spirit. He traced the change to coverage of Trump's presidency.
“There's an unspoken consensus about the stories we should pursue and how they should be framed,” he wrote. “It's frictionless — one story after another about instances of supposed racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad and the dire threat of Republican policies. It's almost like an assembly line.”
He said he'd brought up his concerns internally and no changes had been made, making him “a visible wrong-thinker at a place I love.”
In the essay's wake, NPR top editorial executive, Edith Chapin, said leadership strongly disagreed with Berliner's assessment of the outlet's journalism and the way it went about its work.
It's not clear what Berliner was referring to when he talked about disparagement by Maher. In a lengthy memo to staff members last week, she wrote: “Asking a question about whether we're living up to our mission should always be fair game: after all, journalism is nothing if not hard questions. Questioning whether our people are serving their mission with integrity, based on little more than the recognition of their identity, is profoundly disrespectful, hurtful and demeaning.”
Conservative activist Christopher Rufo revealed some of Maher's past tweets after the essay was published. In one tweet, dated January 2018, Maher wrote that “Donald Trump is a racist.” A post just before the 2020 election pictured her in a Biden campaign hat.
In response, an NPR spokeswoman said Maher, years before she joined the radio network, was exercising her right to express herself. She is not involved in editorial decisions at NPR, the network said.
The issue is an example of what can happen when business executives, instead of journalists, are appointed to roles overseeing news organizations: they find themselves scrutinized for signs of bias in ways they hadn’t been before. Recently, NBC Universal News Group Chairman Cesar Conde has been criticized for service on paid corporate boards.
Maher is the former head of the Wikimedia Foundation. NPR's own story about the 40-year-old executive's appointment in January noted that she “has never worked directly in journalism or at a news organization.”
In his resignation letter, Berliner said that he did not support any efforts to strip NPR of public funding. “I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism,” he wrote.
David Bauder writes about media for The Associated Press. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbauder
FILE - The headquarters for National Public Radio (NPR) stands on North Capitol Street on April 15, 2013, in Washington. A National Public Radio editor who wrote an essay criticizing his employer for promoting liberal reviews resigned on Wednesday, April 17, 2024, a day after it was revealed that he had been suspended. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — More worries about inflation and interest rates staying high are knocking U.S. stocks lower on Tuesday, as the market closes out its worst month since September.
The S&P 500 was down 1% in late trading and on track to close out its first losing month in the last six. Its momentum slammed into reverse in April, falling as much as 5.5% at one point, after setting records through the early part of the year.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 430 points, or 1.1%, as of 3 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.3% lower.
Stocks began dropping as soon as trading began, after a report showed U.S. workers won bigger gains in wages and benefits than expected during the first three months of the year. While that’s good news for workers and the latest signal of a solid job market, it feeds into worries that upward pressure remains on the economy and inflation.
It's the latest in a string of reports on inflation and the overall economy to come in stubbornly higher than forecast. That's pushed traders to largely give up on hopes that the Federal Reserve will deliver multiple cuts to interest rates this year. That in turn has sent Treasury yields jumping in the bond market, which has cranked up the pressure on stocks.
Tuesday's losses accelerated in the afternoon as traders made their final moves before closing the books on April, and ahead of Wednesday's afternoon announcement by the Federal Reserve on interest rates.
No one expects the Federal Reserve to change its main interest rate on Wednesday. But traders are now mostly betting the Fed will cut rates either one or zero times through the balance of this year, according to data from CME Group. That’s a big letdown after traders came into the year forecasting six or more cuts.
The Fed itself was earlier penciling in three cuts to rates during 2024, but top officials have recently hinted rates may stay high for longer as they wait for more confirmation inflation is heading down toward their 2% target. The Fed’s main interest rate is sitting at the highest level since 2001, which puts downward pressure on the economy and investment prices.
Without the benefit of easing interest rates, companies will need to deliver bigger profits in order to support their stock prices, which critics have called too expensive following their run to records.
GE Healthcare Technologies tumbled 13.1% after it reported weaker results and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. F5 dropped 7.8% despite reporting a better profit than expected. Its revenue fell short of forecasts, and it said customers were remaining cautious and forecasting largely flat IT budgets for the year.
McDonald’s erased an early loss and was up 0.1% after its profit for the latest quarter came up just shy of analysts’ expectations. It was hurt by weakening sales trends at its franchised stores overseas, in part by boycotts from Muslim-majority markets over the company’s perceived support of Israel.
Helping to keep the market's losses in check was 3M, which rose 5.3% after reporting stronger results and revenue than forecast. Eli Lilly climbed 5.2% after turning in a stronger profit than expected on strong sales of its Mounjaro and Zepbound drugs for diabetes and obesity. It also raised its forecasts for revenue and profit for the full year.
This earnings reporting season has largely been better than expected so far. Not only have the tech companies that dominate Wall Street done well, so have smaller companies across a range of industries.
That’s a change from the recent past, and it helped push strategists at Deutsche Bank to raise their forecast for full-year earnings growth for the S&P 500. Many companies are topping forecasts because they’ve been able to wring more profit out of each $1 of revenue than analysts were expecting, according to Binky Chadha, chief strategist at Deutsche Bank.
Such strength could support stock prices even if interest rates end up staying high, according to Kristy Akullian, head of iShares Investment Strategy, Americas.
“Equities don’t need Fed rate cuts for the rally to continue, all they need is solid earnings growth,” she said.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.68% from 4.61% just before the report’s release.
The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for the Fed, jumped back above the 5% level to 5.03% from 4.97% late Monday.
In stock markets abroad, Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.2% after reopening following a holiday. The government reported stronger-than-expected gains in industrial production for March.
Indexes were mixed across much of the rest of Asia, but lower in Europe.
AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.
A person passes the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday, April 30, 2024 in New York. Global shares are trading mostly higher as investors keep their eyes on potentially market-moving reports expected later this week. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)
A person looks at an electronic stock board showing Japan's stock prices at a securities firm Tuesday, April 30, 2024, in Tokyo. Asian shares mostly rose Tuesday, as investors kept their eyes on potentially market-moving reports expected later this week. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
A window cleaner works along the window of at a securities firm building Tuesday, April 30, 2024, in Tokyo. Japanese characters read as "securities." (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan Yen/U.S. dollar exchange rate at a securities firm Tuesday, April 30, 2024, in Tokyo. Asian shares mostly rose Tuesday, as investors kept their eyes on potentially market-moving reports expected later this week. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
A person stands in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm Tuesday, April 30, 2024, in Tokyo. Asian shares mostly rose Tuesday, as investors kept their eyes on potentially market-moving reports expected later this week. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm Tuesday, April 30, 2024, in Tokyo. Asian shares mostly rose Tuesday, as investors kept their eyes on potentially market-moving reports expected later this week. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
People pass by an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index, left, and U.dollar/Japanese yen conversion rate at a securities firm Tuesday, April 30, 2024, in Tokyo. Asian shares mostly rose Tuesday, as investors kept their eyes on potentially market-moving reports expected later this week.(AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
People stand in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm Tuesday, April 30, 2024, in Tokyo. Asian shares mostly rose Tuesday, as investors kept their eyes on potentially market-moving reports expected later this week.(AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
