How To Appoint a Commissar (Part 4) - NPR CEO Katherine Maher (she/her)

Yuri's extra spicy commentary on NPR's new CEO's cringe biography and LinkedIn, plus her NYT wedding announcement and E Jean Carroll at the end

Comrades: The Soviets had Pravda, we have NPR.

Rejoice, peasants! Taxpayer-funded regime propaganda network NPR has appointed a new CEO. Katherine Maher (she/her) is one of the cringiest commissars I have ever seen. As I have done with similar unelected demoralization agents at RISDIE and NEA Teachers Union, I will subvert her subversive resume and coronation to the throne of a farcical yet powerful media machine that influences ~50 million weekly listeners. These are naked emperors, not serious people. Laughter and mockery will break them. It’s time to drop some narrative-incinerating napalm on the Commies.

Katherine’s LinkedIn flexing checks all the commissar boxes: pronouns, Reid Hoffman’s podcast, TED Talk, Trevor Noah, CEO of Wikimedia, World Economic Forum, Council on Foreign Relations, Atlantic Council, US State Department, Stanford, World Bank, UN. You could not try harder to join every elite grooming club in existence. The only one she couldn’t get into was Yale’s Skull and Bones, which is why she has a striver chip on her shoulder from NYU. There is no way she is not working for the Feds on narrative control and combatting “disinformation”:

Katherine looks like the output of a generative AI prompt: “Stunning and brave girlboss”:

She is straight out of central casting for The Hunger Games’ Effie Trinket:

Katherine has been busy deleting her hyper partisan and identarian Tweets, but the internet never forgets:

Narrator: She did not leave the hellsite.

Imagine getting the bivalent booster in September 2022:

NPR has selected former Wikimedia Foundation chief Katherine Maher to lead the network through an era of declining broadcast listenership, financial uncertainty and technological turbulence. In an interview ahead of the announcement of her appointment, Maher said her experience at the foundation underscores the importance of NPR's mission to serve the public independently of commercial interest. "There is a strong alignment in both of those organizations around integrity and autonomy," Maher said.

NPR is the opposite of integrity and autonomy. Listenership and financials are declining because no one trusts MSM anymore. NPR employees are demoralization agents like these:

Maher said she intends to build on the fierce loyalty instilled in many listeners for NPR's news programs and everything else. (She said she cringes at the word "content.") And Maher said she will work to expand the pool of people who experience that deep attachment. "It's about matching need and delight so people have a real desire to keep coming back, to engage with what it is that we offer," Maher said.

“Content” is for the peasants. Regime approved goodthink is for the elite. I suggest merging with PBS and renaming the entity NPC.

The appointment of Maher, 40, as NPR's 12th permanent chief executive and president represents an embrace of a generational shift, with firm roots in the digital age. She has sought to promote the free flow of information as a tool of expanding democracy in her work in tech and international affairs. She started her career in finance.

Orwellian level double-speak here. “Free flow of information as a tool of expanding democracy” is the censorship industrial complex.

Maher has never worked directly in journalism or at a news organization. That stands in contrast to many of her predecessors at NPR, including current CEO John Lansing, and her freshly appointed counterparts at CNN and the Washington Post. NPR board chair Jennifer Ferro, who led the search committee, said Maher offers visionary corporate leadership and proven fundraising strengths. And she cited Maher's ability to serve as a forceful ambassador for the network, including to the hundreds of public radio member stations and on their behalf.

Domain expertise is not required. Fundraising and ambassadorship are more important to keep this “non-profit” afloat. Time to tag the sponsors!

"NPR is a powerhouse, and it needs to be more ubiquitous," says Ferro, the president of public radio station KCRW in Santa Monica, Calif. "We need to build that brand up." Ferro says the network, which is a nonprofit corporation, needs a proven leader who will commit to the position for an extended tenure. (With Maher, NPR has cycled through 10 permanent and acting chiefs in the past 20 years.) And Ferro notes that Maher worked to help shape Wikipedia into a trusted organization that shares similar values with NPR, such as broad access to information and democracy.

NPR is no longer a powerhouse. 10 CEOs in 20 years are rats fleeing a sinking ship. Maher is the intersectionality shield where it doesn’t matter if they sink or swim because she’s diverse! Wikipedia’s trust has fallen because its editors are pushing leftist bias.

Maher will start at NPR in late March. In the interview, Maher said she was first exposed to NPR because her parents listened in the car – and it helped determine the course of her life. As a Connecticut high schooler in 2000, Maher recalled, she was intrigued by the peace summit involving top Israeli and Palestinian leaders that had been convened by then President Bill Clinton. But she couldn't find out enough from teachers to satisfy her interest. Listening to longtime NPR foreign correspondent Deborah Amos' dispatches from the Middle East transfixed Maher. After graduation, she moved to Cairo to study Arabic. She also spent time in Syria and other countries throughout the region.

Multigenerational commissar brainwashing. This sounds like the origin story of Jason Bourne in the CIA’s Treadstone program or Claire Mathison in Homeland. Studying Arabic in the Middle East is an obvious CIA posting.

"I've seen what it means ... when people fight for their rights, for access to information, for self-determination," Maher said. "I don't think I would be sitting here with you today if it weren't for my driveway moment, which is that drive to school every day." She joined the Wikimedia Foundation's communications team in 2014 and became its CEO two years later. There, Maher built up a significant endowment — $140 million — to support Wikipedia's promise to "unlock the world's knowledge."

From Comms team to CEO in two years? $140 million raised soon after? I’m sure her handlers at Langley had nothing to do with that.

Maher said she learned at Wikimedia the power of massive, small-scale support. "A huge amount of people [were] giving $2 to $3 in support of that mission. And that allowed for us to make decisions about what we cared about, that were not always in step with what the market would care about," Maher said. "And it allowed us to resist external pressure when we need to do so. It allowed for us to be able to fight for our values, even if they were not going to immediately return on new audience growth."

Massive, small scale support just like the Trump Derangement Substackers who have huge readership but minimal engagement. Operation Mockingjay in action? Move along, nothing to see here…

After leaving Wikimedia in 2021, Maher joined a bevy of boards because, she said, she wanted to learn more about governance. She has resigned from an advisory board at the U.S. State Department to take the NPR job. She said she intends to keep serving on the boards of the nonprofit Consumer Reports and the Signal Foundation, which supports the secure messaging app relied upon by journalists and dissidents abroad.

As a power user of Signal, I am concerned. Are we really supposed to believe that Maher will not be coordinating with her stakeholders at the State Department?

CEO John Lansing has led NPR since 2019, a period of innovation and tumult. With layoffs and podcast cancellations brought on by a projected revenue shortfall, 2023 was a rough year for NPR. Lansing announced last fall he would be stepping down early, months ahead of the end of his five-year contract, but would stay until a successor was named. He cited a desire to travel with his wife while his daughter was studying abroad. Yet Lansing had a string of seeming successes, building the network's priorities around what he called its "North Star": making sure NPR's program and staff better reflected the full texture of America. From the time of his arrival in fall 2019, Lansing argued that reflected both a moral and a strategic imperative. NPR has become notably more diverse. More than 4 out of every 10 staffers are not white. Sixteen percent are Black — a higher proportion than the percent in the U.S. population.

John Lansing DIEd himself out of a job. Before his tenure, NPR aired a reading of the Declaration of Independence every July 4. In 2022, they ended the tradition and instead explored Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with slavery. Enjoy your travels with your daughter, John. She and your grandkids (if she doesn’t abort them) will thank you for helping them become a hated minority.

Lansing looks just like Sacha Baron Cohen’s character Dr. Nira Cain-N’Dogeocello in “Who is America”, the stereotypical cucked NPR listener:

Even as the music publication Pitchfork has vanished — folded into GQ magazine by its corporate owners — NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts and its music podcasts have emerged as more vital than ever among artists and millions of listeners and viewers. NPR's tentpole programs, Morning Edition and All Things Considered, are the nation's top two radio news and talk broadcast shows. It is the country's third-biggest producer of podcasts. During Lansing's tenure, NPR earned its first Pulitzer Prize for "No Compromise," a collaboration with member stations. Despite its recent achievements, NPR's audiences have declined and its financial standing has faltered in the past two years. The network suffered a sharp and unexpected drop in podcasting revenues driven by fears of an economic collapse that has not materialized. It was compelled to lay off 10% of its staff. NPR canceled four podcasts. Lansing's candor enabled trust that he had built with top officials at NPR's largest union to endure.

Every time a MSM propagandist gets laid off or a rag goes under, an angel gets its wings. The few times I have heard NPR, I felt my testosterone levels drop immediately. Pulitzers are no longer achievements, but bootlicking medals from the regime. Here is a peak at NPR’s Race Section:

In that financial crisis, which Lansing termed "existential," NPR did not stand alone. It turned out the network was on the front end of a media recession that has tripped up many of its peers; The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times ultimately reduced their ranks by an even higher proportion. The L.A. Times newsroom has shrunk by a third over the past eight months. The pressures helped fuel turnover at NPR's top ranks: NPR's chief operating officer, finance officer, human resources officer and top programming executive have left over the past eight months. Not all have been replaced.

Break out your tiny violins. Let’s hope these propagandists don’t migrate over to Substack, get frustrated that no one reads their drivel, then start agitating for censorship. Hot air about hot air in NPR’s Climate Section:

Lansing, now 66, arrived at NPR with a rich history in media and journalism, having arisen through local television newsrooms to lead Scripps' cable television channels and websites. He later led the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the government outfit that oversees federally funded international broadcasters such as the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and others.

USAGM is another dodgy “independent government agency” that conducts influence operations around the world.

In October, Maher stepped in to become chief executive of the Web Summit — think of it as a tech-heavy Davos – at which tech entrepreneurs, investors and thought leaders meet in Portugal. Web Summit's founder had stepped down over outcry about his remarks about Israel after the Hamas attacks. On the podcast Masters of Scale, Maher said she saw that as a moment of crisis. "The biggest distinction that I was looking at was, is this a company in crisis or is this a company going through a crisis? I've seen both, and I've worked in both. And the latter is, you enter into something that has fairly solid bones, and it's about: how do you steer through that moment?"

What did she accomplish in 3 months other than a PR tour and hefty paycheck? Web Summit’s previous founder Paddy Cosgrave self-immolated:

Maher does not consider NPR as an institution in crisis. Rather, she says, she sees challenges and opportunities. "I recognize that coming in there will be both a need to move relatively quickly to ensure that the organization has all of its pieces in place and also a need to be thoughtful about how to do that," she said. Among Maher's most critical tasks will be hiring a chief content officer over the newsroom, podcasts and other programming. NPR's top news executive, Edith Chapin, currently holds the content position on an interim basis. Even so, Maher visibly blanched at the word "content," calling it "an empty vessel." She suggested she would figure out another title "that speaks more deeply to our mission."

NPR is the empty vessel. Drop the facade. Rename the title Chief Narrative Propaganda Officer. NPR’s Interim Chief Content Officer Edith Chapin spent 25 years at CNN. She describes her job as “oversee strategic coverage priorities, which include disinformation and other threats to democracy, climate change, social justice, the current presidential administration, the upcoming election and the pandemic.” She appears to be part of the same blueblood Boston, Maskachussetts Karen lineage as Fauxahauntas Elizabeth Warren and Historian Heather Cox Richardson:

Disclosure: This story was reported by NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by NPR Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp. In keeping with NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no corporate officials or news executives reviewed this article before it was posted.

Hilarious disclosure. No way the authors of this piece would be biased or fearful of pissing off their new boss…

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Congrats to Katherine for getting married last year! She just turned 40, so it is highly unlikely her commissar lineage will continue. You won’t need my commentary for her New York Times wedding announcement, which is without exaggeration one of the the funniest things I have read. The Babylon Bee could not outdo this paragon of cringe fake humility, humble bragging, and virtue signaling:

Highlights:

“I thought he was more interested in being my general counsel than my date,” Ms. Maher, 40, said. At the time, she was the chief executive at Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia, where she stayed until 2021. So one question followed another. “How do you think about organizational risk, and what does a strategic legal function look like?” asked Ms. Maher, who graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies from N.Y.U…

“I thought he was really sweet,” Ms. Maher said. She had met him a couple of days earlier at a mutual friend’s nondenominational Seder at Manny’s, a community and civic event space in the Mission District. All of the 100 guests there shared where they and their grandparents were from, and told stories about freedom or a lack of it. Mr. Upreti and Ms. Maher found each other’s stories intriguing: He spoke of his aunt, who, as a schoolgirl during colonial rule in India, briefly stepped foot on a road designated only for the British. Ms. Maher talked about two friends, both Arab activists, who were recently imprisoned and tortured in Syria and Egypt…

More dates followed after their “first” one: They listened to music at the Black Cat jazz club and then saw “Hamilton” at the Orpheum Theater, both in San Francisco. “Let’s make this exclusive for a month,” Mr. Upreti said. Ms. Maher was impressed by his intentionality. “There’s something good here,” he said. “If it isn’t true, we don’t waste each other’s time.” Ms. Maher — who traveled 180 to 200 days a year, mainly for work — wanted that, too, but “it absolutely scared me,” she said. At the time, she was getting over a recent breakup. “I kept calling him a good egg: He was kind. He was funny. He was thoughtful,” she said…

Ms. Maher’s mother and her two labradoodles stayed with the couple in San Francisco until vaccines became available in March 2021. The couple traveled around the world in early 2022 and moved to New York that June. On March 23 — atop Twin Peaks and overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay — Mr. Upreti proposed out of the blue. “We should get married,” he said. “What?” Ms. Maher said over the sound of the wind. “I can’t hear you.” She then hugged him without saying yes right away. He told her to take her time — “a day, a week, a month.” Five weeks later, she said yes, and soon after, they adopted an Alaskan malamute mix.

Here is the happy couple’s sex diary:

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Katherine Maher is 2 divorces, 40 years, 0 kids, and several cats named Vagina away from fulfilling her destiny as the next feminist leftist hero E Jean Carroll. Subvert the subversion by using the template below on other Trump Derangement Substackers like Jeff Tiedrich, Robert Reich, Steven Beschloss, and E Jean herself. Tag them and me because they have all blocked me:

After journeying into the Heart of Darkness, I need to go take a shower and rewatch Apocalypse Now…