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Resigning gets you nowhere: Whether it’s the Globe’s Renée Graham or now former NPR senior editor Uri Berliner, newsroom dissidents would be better off staying put and fighting it out
By Emily Rooney
Renée Graham’s departure from the Boston Globe’s editorial board was an otiose move; in other words, it gets her nowhere. Resigning is the wimpy way out. Stick it out, make them fire you for what you believe.
Graham apparently did not support an unsigned editorial the Globe published a few days after the assassination of Charlie Kirk titled “We Need More Charlie Kirks,” which essentially praised Kirk’s support of free speech, writing in part: “We must all accept that disagreements - even about fundamental moral and political questions - are normal … the solution is to do what Kirk did, air those differences.”
But as many readers pointed out, Kirk was hardly a bastion of tolerance for free speech. Graham, a prominent Black voice on the editorial team, clearly did not agree with the consensus message. But so what? Fight back; don’t concede.
That’s what 60 Minutes Executive Producer Bill Owens did, too. After fighting for months to protect the stellar reputation of the CBS 60 Minutes team, which was facing a $10 billion lawsuit by President Trump over alleged manipulation of a Kamala Harris interview last summer, Owens finally threw in the towel. The network settled for $16 million, leaving correspondents Lesley Stahl, Scott Pelley, and others to fight without their once fearless leader.
I understand Owens’ frustration and anger at CBS chief Shari Redstone’s willingness to capitulate for an $8 billion Paramount/Skydance merger to take place, but resigning only gave him a few days of headlines and likely a seat at future journalistic roundtables. Notably, Owens discouraged his own staff from quitting in protest.
I feel the same way about Uri Berliner, the NPR senior editor who resigned after publishing an essay in The Free Press accusing NPR of having a liberal bias.
In Uri’s case, NPR was likely going to fire him anyway for breaking company policy for publishing something outside of NPR without their permission. But ok, “let them” as Mel Robbins would say. A firing would have been perceived as retaliatory since NPR pushed back on all of Berliner’s documented examples of bias, including its complete dismissal of the Hunter Biden laptop story.
If you really believe NPR lacks diversity of opinion, stay and fix it.
Renée Graham is not leaving the paper; she is just emptying a seat on the editorial board. She will continue to write her column, but she has conceded her voice on the board. That just makes no sense.
I don’t always agree with Graham, but I must say, she was right on this one. The Kirk editorial bent over backwards to be conciliatory and deferential in a way that was not necessary, but is representative of the new normal for largely progressive publications like The Globe and the Washington Post, which are desperate to be seen as “fair” in the eyes of the Trump administration.
In February of this year, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos limited his editorial pages to issues concerning “personal liberties and free markets,” saying different views “would have to be published elsewhere.” And editors censored a cartoonist whose humor Bezos would not have appreciated. Resignations followed. The bullies won.
Woke justice? Mass. state senate’s most progressive member eyeing a run for a top law enforcement job
Just call her the Rachael Rollins of the suburbs.
State Sen. Becca Rausch has pushed for a moratorium on new prison and jail construction in Massachusetts
The Needham Democrat, who voted for bills backed by progressive groups 95 percent of the time the past two years, is also listed as a sponsor of a proposal that would move 18-20 year olds into the juvenile justice system.
Now Rausch is eyeing a potential 2026 run for Norfolk County District Attorney, sources say.
