NPR CEO Katherine Maher to Receive First Amendment Award Despite Past Criticism of the Amendment
Harper's Magazine will honor NPR CEO Katherine Maher with its James C. Goodale First Amendment Award on Oct. 26, citing her leadership through political and financial scrutiny. Critics point to Maher's 2021 remarks calling the First Amendment a 'challenge' to combating disinformation, and to NPR's 2020 decision not to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story.
NPR CEO Katherine Maher will receive Harper's Magazine's James C. Goodale First Amendment Award on Oct. 26, an honor that has drawn sharp criticism because of her past characterization of the First Amendment as a «challenge» to efforts against disinformation.
In announcing the award earlier this year, Harper's Magazine said Maher had guided «one of America's most important public media institutions through a period of extraordinary political, legal, and financial scrutiny, reaffirming journalism's essential role in a democratic society.» The magazine also credited her with leading NPR through «a period of heightened scrutiny and challenge» and with «successfully battling» President Donald Trump's efforts to defund the broadcaster.
That framing is disputed. Congress still rescinded $1.1 billion in federal funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 2025, and NPR has since sought to shore up its finances through philanthropy, including an $80 million gift from a Democratic megadonor and a staff buyout program after receiving $113 million in charitable gifts.
The controversy centers on comments Maher made in 2021, when she was CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, which oversees Wikipedia. Discussing efforts to combat disinformation, she described the First Amendment as the «number one challenge» in the United States, calling it «a fairly robust protection of rights» for platforms and adding that it makes it «a little bit tricky to really address some of the real challenges of where does bad information come from.»
Critics also cite NPR's decision in 2020 not to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story before the presidential election, which many saw as an effort to protect then-candidate Joe Biden. Maher, who did not become NPR CEO until 2024, later conceded during congressional testimony in 2025 that NPR «made a mistake» and «acknowledges we were mistaken in failing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story more aggressively and sooner.»
Tim Graham, executive editor of the media watchdog NewsBusters, told Fox News Digital that Harper's is «demonstrating the usual liberal impulse, that being fiercely critical of Trump and the Republicans is what the First Amendment is all about.» He argued that NPR did not hold President Biden accountable and instead treated coverage of corruption in Biden's family as a «distraction.»
Graham also disputed the magazine's claim that Maher successfully fought off defunding, saying NPR was in fact defunded and that liberals treat the loss of taxpayer subsidies as a First Amendment violation. He pointed to Maher's 2021 TED Talk, where she called the First Amendment a «challenge» and a hurdle that makes censorship «a little bit trickier,» and asked how that record merits a First Amendment award.
NPR celebrated the honor, pointing to a past statement in which Maher said public media exists to serve the public interest and that «I can think of no greater service to the public than the defense of the First Amendment.» She added that «the freedom, imagination, and initiative of all Americans flourish with its protections» and that «the compact of citizenship asks that we each step up to defend our constitutional rights if they are threatened.» Maher said she was «deeply honored» to accept the award on behalf of NPR and the NPR Network.
Harper's Magazine did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. The award is named for James C. Goodale, a longtime First Amendment attorney and former New York Times general counsel.
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