NPR chief admits dismissing Hunter Biden laptop story was a mistake

<p><a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/npr-chief-admits-dismissing-hunter-biden-laptop-story-mistake">NPR chief admits dismissing Hunter Biden laptop story was a mistake</a></p>

<p>Fox News</p>

<p>Joseph A. Wulfsohn | March 26, 2025</p>

<p>NPR CEO Katherine Maher conceded during her congressional testimony on Wednesday that her organization missed the mark in its lack of serious coverage of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/category/person/hunter-biden" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Hunter Biden</a>&nbsp;laptop story during the 2020 election.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Maher and PBS CEO Paula Kerger were grilled by House Republicans on the newly formed Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) subcommittee regarding accusations of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">biased news coverage</a>&nbsp;backed by federal funding.&nbsp;</p>

<p>&#8220;I do want to say that NPR acknowledges we were mistaken in failing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story more aggressively and sooner,&#8221; Maher told Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas.</p>

<p>She later reiterated &#8220;we made a mistake&#8221; about not covering the laptop in a separate exchange with Rep. Brian Jack, R-Ga. Maher was named CEO of NPR in 2024, so she wasn&#8217;t with the taxpayer-backed outlet at the time the story first broke.</p>

<p>The New York Post&#8217;s bombshell reporting on the laptop was released in the heat of the 2020 election where then-Democratic nominee&nbsp;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/category/person/joe-biden" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Joe Biden</a>&nbsp;faced off against President Donald Trump. The story shed light on Hunter Biden&#8217;s overseas business practices and his father&#8217;s possible involvement, and the laptop also had shocking videos and photos of drug use and lewd acts.</p>

<p>Many mainstream news outlets&nbsp;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/hunter-biden-laptop-from-hell-scandal-turns-4-how-media-intelligence-community-mislead-americans" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">disparaged the story at the time</a>&nbsp;and even credulously repeated suggestions the laptop was a Russian disinformation operation. At the time, NPR public editor Kelly McBride addressed a listener&#8217;s question about the news outlet&#8217;s blackout of coverage. She said the Post&#8217;s reporting had &#8220;many, many red flags,&#8221; including its potential ties to Russia, and the assertions within the story weren&#8217;t significant.</p>

<p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don&#8217;t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions,&#8221; NPR managing editor Terence Samuel told McBride. &#8220;And quite frankly, that&#8217;s where we ended up, this was … a politically driven event, and we decided to treat it that way.&#8221;</p>

<p>In a <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/5-things-veteran-npr-editor-exposed-stunning-criticism-own-employers-liberal-bias" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">stunning tell-all essay</a> published last April, then-veteran NPR editor Uri Berliner recalled the attitude of his liberal colleagues to the laptop revelations. </p>

<p>&#8220;The laptop was newsworthy. But the timeless journalistic instinct of following a hot story lead was being squelched,&#8221; Berliner wrote. &#8220;During a meeting with colleagues, I listened as one of NPR’s best and most fair-minded journalists said it was good we weren’t following the laptop story because it could help Trump.&#8221;</p>

<p>&#8220;When the essential facts of the Post’s reporting were confirmed and the emails verified independently about a year and a half later, we could have fessed up to our misjudgment. But, like Russia collusion, we didn’t make the hard choice of transparency,&#8221; he continued.</p>

<p>During her exchange with Cloud, Maher also acknowledged the legitimacy of the Wuhan lab-leak theory by the CIA after NPR previously dismissed speculation about the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/category/health/infectious-disease/coronavirus" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">COVID pandemic</a>&#8216;s origins at the time.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Maher remained adamant that NPR is a &#8220;nonpartisan&#8221; news organization despite her admissions.</p>
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