First, perhaps the most egregious display of activist journalism: their response to the Hunter Biden laptop story of corruption involving a major party candidate on the eve of the election. Not only did @NPR not cover it, they bragged about refusing to do so.

Insofar as @NPR did cover the Hunter Biden scandal, they actively tried to cover it up. They applauded Facebook & Twitter strangling the story as part of a push against “misinformation and conspiracy theories.” The story, of course, turned out to be far from invented.

In particular, @NPR shamelessly went after @EmmaJoNYC for, of all things, doing real journalism. Her doing so offended NPR so badly that they wrote an entire hit piece about her.

This wasn’t the only hatchet work from @NPR in defense of Biden. When questions about Biden’s cognitive functioning started to bubble up in February 2024, NPR leapt Pravda-like to his defense. The real problem? How such allegations would be “weaponized.”

Oh, and Biden’s pardoning of his son? No big deal, to hear @NPR tell it. Partisan bias is one thing. Actively serving as stenographers of the administration, with your tax dollars, I would say is another.

Or how about @NPR begging voters to consider how good the economy allegedly was under Biden? Early effort to insulate him — look at the headline! — from electoral attacks.

Such pro-government animus when a Democrat was in office contrasts sharply with @NPR’s breathless coverage of “Russian collusion.” Despite (I get a kick out of this) claiming they weren’t going to discuss the sensational allegations, they were among the lead proponents.

Here are just a few examples of @NPR rushing to repeat the baseless narrative that Trump was compromised by Russia. Here’s just a couple examples.

But of course this sentiment extended to all things connected to Trump. The worst, in my book, remains their dismissal of the COVID lab leak hypothesis. Not mincing words, @NPR claimed that the idea that Covid originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, had been “debunked.”

The lab leak theory, of course, is wasn’t debunked. It has since become the going theory not just in the U.S. but abroad. I would like this @NPR side by side on my tombstone.

And @NPR had more bad Covid lab leak coverage, and coverage of the pandemic more broadly. Perhaps my favorite is this, where they compared the lab leak theory to (I’m not joking) the “lead-up to [the] Iraq War.”

The rush to hit Trump has led to some other funny side by sides from @NPR, like this one about Covid’s danger.

And on some issues, @NPR has really taken on the role of advocacy organization, not media entity. As @MaryMargOlohan flagged earlier, NPR has been at the vanguard of promoting the merits of“gender affirming care.”

And then of course there are the seemingly endless examples of @NPR using your tax dollars to do “journalism” that, well, I’m not sure many people would pay for. Are you concerned about worm emojis? How about policing emoji skin tone? No? Anyone?

Are you interested in your tax dollars funding coverage of the symbolic dance protest of Trump’s actions toward the Kennedy Center?

Surely you’re okay with your tax dollars investigating whether the depiction of people with eating disorders is too white? Or camel caps attacks on capitalism?

This one presented without comment.

So, yeah, if everyday Americans look at the coverage @NPR produces and think, no, I don’t want my tax dollars going to this, I think that’s reasonable. I can’t help but think that maybe those who are up in arms about the prospect aren’t really interested in journalism at all.

(I will always treasure my own mention in @NPR though!)

@NPR I’ve been sitting on some of these for a long time, so apologies if some of the screenshots (of my previous screenshots) aren’t as crisp as usual

@NPR If you’re interested in this kind of media criticism, you should check out my newsletter, @Holden_Court https://drewholden.substack.co...

@NPR @Holden_Court and as ever, if you’d like to help finance the phone space required for these screenshots, and the beer to occasionally revisit them, you can kick me a couple bucks at my tip jar. https://www.paypal.com/donate/...