I found that in reading Pete Howard’s article of April 5, there are some real discrepancies with reality. His claims that NPR and PBS are these semi-government entities are the “most fact-checked, researched, and thereby reliable sources of information America has at its disposal” implying they are not biased as their Leaders tried to present in recent Congressional testimony. Unfortunately, the facts do not bear this out. My focus today is on NPR. Here are a few quotes from Katherine Maher, CEO of NPR:

— “Donald Trump is a racist”

— “Donald Trump is a deranged, racist sociopath.”

— “America is addicted to White Supremacy.”

— The terms boy and girl are “erasing language” for non-binary people.

— “Our reverence for the truth has become a distraction from getting things done.”

That does not sound unbiased to me. Actually these are quite typical talking points of the American Left. Then consider that one of their own editors, 25-year NPR veteran Uri Berliner authored an essay last year that claimed NPR allowed liberal bias to affect its coverage. The senior business editor also said the internal culture at NPR had made race and identity” paramount in every aspect of the workplace.”

It is widely known now based on Mr. Berliner’s essay and other accounts that NPR has 85 editors, all Democrats and not one Republican or Conservative. That does not sound very unbiased to me.

And remember in 2020 they completely ignored the Hunter Biden lap top story saying it “was dodgy in the extreme” even though no one in the Biden family or Hunter himself ever denied it was not his. Of course, now under Congressional scrutiny and 5 years later Ms. Maher said they should have covered it more “aggressively”.

The chief “Russiagate” hoaxer, Democratic Congressman and now Senator Adam Schiff appeared on NPR at least 25 times touting his claims that he had “ample evidence of collusion in plain sight” which he of course never produced.

And do not forget NPR, along with most of the mainstream media, squashed or censored anyone who claimed COVID-19came from a lab leak. This although it started in Wuhan where the Wuhan Institute of Virology was located and doing gain of function research there. Not much of a stretch I would say.

It is no wonder NPR’s listeners went from 60 million in 2020 to 42 million in 2024.

Another item of great concern is this Nazi Germany comparison that is used extensively by the left in this country to compare the current administration. The comparison is nonsensical and frankly shallow in its use. This represents a complete misunderstanding of history. And it is tremendously disingenuous to the 105,000 U.S. men and women that perished in Europe during World War II fighting the Nazis and certainly to the more than 6 million Jews that died in Hitler’s death camps. Nazi Germany did not have free and fair elections, an independent judicial branch, religious freedom or personal liberty and many opportunities that we enjoy in the USA today. We remain the most racial, ethnic, and religiously diverse nation in the history of the World.

One final note. With political violence on the left rising at an alarming rate, Howard should be much more worried about burning Tesla’s instead of a few zealots burning books that are readily available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble or any public library.

Ray Coniglio is a Fredonia resident.