NPR’s Mara Liasson pressured over appearances on ‘Fox allstars panel’

Looks like NPR signed up for Obama’s “war” on Fox News that backfired in his face. According to Politico, executives at National Public Radio recently asked the network’s top political correspondent, Mara Liasson, to reconsider her regular appearances on Fox News because of what they perceived as the network’s political bias, two sources familiar with the effort said.

According to a source, Liasson was summoned in early October by NPR’s executive editor for news, Dick Meyer, and the network’s supervising senior Washington editor, Ron Elving. The NPR executives said they had concerns that Fox’s programming had grown more partisan, and they asked Liasson to spend 30 days watching the network.

At a follow-up meeting last month, Liasson reported that she’d seen no significant change in Fox’s programming and planned to continue appearing on the network, the source said.

NPR’s focus on Liasson’s work as a commentator on Fox’s “Special Report” and “Fox News Sunday” came at about the same time as a White House campaign launched in September to delegitimize the network by painting it as an extension of the Republican Party.

One source said the White House’s criticism of Fox was raised during the discussions with Liasson. However, an NPR spokeswoman told POLITICO that the Obama administration’s attempts to discourage other news outlets from treating Fox as a peer had no impact on any internal discussions at NPR.

I’m not big fan of Mara Liasson, but she never came off as overly left wing biased, and seemed professional when she appeared on any Fox News show. Ed Morrissey of Hot Air also had this to say about her

I have appeared twice on Liasson’s NPR show in the last few years. She’s professional and represented my point of view fairly in the editing process both times.

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December 7, 2009 · Filed Under Liberal Media Bias, NPR


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