Former NPR senior business editor Uri Berliner has joined Bari Weiss’ The Free Press as a senior editor, the publication announced on Tuesday. The hiring came two months after Berliner wrote a scorched-earth essay for Weiss’ outlet, tearing into NPR and accusing it of lacking “viewpoint diversity” and bungling stories such as COVID-19’s origins and Hunter Biden’s laptop. “I’m joining The Free Press because it provides America with groundbreaking, fearless, and independent-minded journalism. I’m inspired to join this team,” he wrote in an announcement. His anti-NPR screed prompted rebukes from the outlet’s editor in chief and the beginning of a new editing layer to oversee all of NPR’s journalism before publication, according to The New York Times. The ordeal also led Berliner to quit NPR in April, claiming he “cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO.”
