Was Maher fired?

[Yngvadottir]

Hey I'm a rodeo clown

I don't doubt you'd have been a better choice to head NPR.

[ancientofmumoo]

excellent overview here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFkL4ME-8dQ

[Midsize Jake]

newnprceo.jpg

[Randy from Boise]

excellent overview here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFkL4ME-8dQ

Hey, that's a Molly White video!

And the You Know Meter™ is not ringing. Yaaaay.

t

P.S. Not sure I buy her conclusion that because the Right Wing onslaught against veracity in media is ongoing, therefore Maher is a good choice to head any organization bigger than a water hazard golf ball recovery society at the local country club. But, yeah, I've pretty much already said what I think about WMF and their minions.

P.P.S. I very much disagree with her defense of the indefensible Orwellian idiocy of Verifiability Not Truth. Thank god that shit has been flushed. That Maher is so clueless as to defend it is what got her in this mess to begin with.

[Giraffe Stapler]

excellent overview here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFkL4ME-8dQ

I think Molly White did a great job of putting the Maher quotes in their proper context, but her audience is not people who get their news from Twitter.

It will be interesting to see where this goes in the next couple of days. The Uri Berliner essay (and fallout) were not good PR for NPR. The timing of this attack on Maher is almost definitely not coincidental. It's piling on and pushing it to a wider audience. If it gets big enough, I wouldn't be surprised to see one of those "I don't want to be a distraction to the larger NPR goal" type of resignations.

[Zoloft]

Hey I'm a rodeo clown

Spiff up your résumé. I'll write a letter of recommendation.

You could be head of NPR in a week or two.

[Zoloft]

excellent overview here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFkL4ME-8dQ

I think Molly White did a great job of putting the Maher quotes in their proper context, but her audience is not people who get their news from Twitter.

It will be interesting to see where this goes in the next couple of days. The Uri Berliner essay (and fallout) were not good PR for NPR. The timing of this attack on Maher is almost definitely not coincidental. It's piling on and pushing it to a wider audience. If it gets big enough, I wouldn't be surprised to see one of those "I don't want to be a distraction to the larger NPR goal" type of resignations.

I'd like to make a couple of things clear. I am to the left of Maher. I feel Rufo is a right-wing thug, and Elon Musk is a loon. My opinion about Maher was built up over a period of years and is not connected to the flap with Berliner.

[Vigilant]

Hey I'm a rodeo clown

Spiff up your résumé. I'll write a letter of recommendation.

You could be head of NPR in a week or two.

Seems a bit overqualified.

[Vigilant]

excellent overview here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFkL4ME-8dQ

I think Molly White did a great job of putting the Maher quotes in their proper context, but her audience is not people who get their news from Twitter.

It will be interesting to see where this goes in the next couple of days. The Uri Berliner essay (and fallout) were not good PR for NPR. The timing of this attack on Maher is almost definitely not coincidental. It's piling on and pushing it to a wider audience. If it gets big enough, I wouldn't be surprised to see one of those "I don't want to be a distraction to the larger NPR goal" type of resignations.

I'd like to make a couple of things clear. I am to the left of Maher. I feel Rufo is a right-wing thug, and Elon Musk is a loon. My opinion about Maher was built up over a period of years and is not connected to the flap with Berliner.

As someone else who feels they are to the left of Maher, I have to ask, what does Maher actually believe?

I strongly suspect her internal intellectual position is about as cogent as the average MAGAt's.

[Kraken]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... s_going_on

.....(long analysis of the current controversy).....

Even if they were accurate portrayals of her philosophy, the Wikimedia Foundation does not influence the content of the articles you read on Wikipedia in any way. Any news publication that's actually interested in things like "truth" could've figured out these tweets were misleading with minimal effort. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 19:43, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

"In any way" is of course a blatant lie.

The Wikimedia Foundation directly edits Wikipedia for a variety of reasons. Most are uncontroversial. Some are decidedly not.

Fram (T-C-L) was by anybody's standards, a really rather prolific weapon against disinformation corrupting Wikipedia. He was a stickler for the rules.

Under the leadership of Maher, the Wikimedia Foundation found itself in the rather embarrassing position of deciding that how Fram went about his chosen task mattered more than what he was doing. Editor's feelings mattered more than the integrity of the content. They went over the heads of Wikipedia's volunteer led disciplinary systems to ban Fram.

That may not be a direct edit of Wikipedia content. But it is an edit. And a very important edit. And by extension, it was a very powerful way of indirectly editing Wikipedia, since their ban immediately prevented the edits Fram did, and made anyone else who was doing similar work, question themselves. Some Administrators even resigned in protest, which likely had massive and yet unknowable influence over Wikipedia content.

Which was of course their express and clear minded intent of that edit. Stop Fram from editing. Hang the consequences. Fuck the community.

There's seemingly nothing about Maher that would prevent her from making the same mistakes with NPR.

And more broadly speaking, the Foundation influences Wikipedia content in massive and yet equally unknowable ways, many of which originated under Maher. Their strategy agreed, they are spending shit loads of money on an assortment of initiatives whose direct and clear purpose is to indirectly influence Wikipedia content by changing who edits Wikipedia and what they believe their collective purpose is.

This isn't a problem confined to the Foundation of course. Rhododendrites (T-C-L) is a Wikipedia Administrator who recently argued vehemently that Kashmiri should be banned from Wikipedia. His crime? He spoke openly about the clear and obvious proof that the Wikipedia Bureaucrat Nihonjoe (T-C-L) had several undeared conflicts of interest. And as we now know, this even rose to him violating the rules against paid editing. In the mind of Rhododendrites, the feelings of Nihonjoe mattered more than the fact he had corrupted Wikipedia content.

If that isn't a clear threat to Wikipedia's ability to say it proactively works to prevent disinformation, I don't know what is.

And it gets better of course. Why was Kashmiri forced to go public? Because Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee had already declined to do anything about confidential reports about Nihonjoe, and the wider Wikipedia community had resolved (with the direct influence of very high ranking editors, including Bureaucrats and Arbitrators) that Nihonjoe had only failed to declare one conflict on one article, and a mere apology sufficed.

We now know different. Wikipedia has had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the truth.

Maher presided over an era where it become totally normal for the Foundation and the community to prioritize people's feelings and by extension woke agendas, over preventing disinformation. She likely will do the same for NPR. That culture persists today.

Disagree?

Try getting Rhododendrites sanctioned for telling that lie. Having told it in a place where an outsider (journalist, NPR staff, the Twitterati) who is looking for the truth of these things might be looking.

Go on, try.

Try getting them to admit she was wrong to use her position of trust to intimidate Kashmiri. Corrupt even, since there was no part of that scandal that they didn't know the whole truth about.

You will find out very quickly, how little the truth matters on Wikipedia.

They are totally unaccountable. And the very idea that the community is somehow independent of the Foundation, is laughable. They don't like to admit it, many are probably totally unaware of it, but every single thing the community does, up to and including having an Arbitration Committee at all, is in the gift of the Foundation.

If it should prove an impediment to their mission, there isn't a single part of the Wikipedia community that cannot be changed by the Foundation. The volunteers have only one right. The right to leave.

It's amazing any of them even stay, under such circumstances. The fact many can see Wikipedia can theoretically influence what the world sees as true and false, in a way that if necessary doesn't have to be tied to what is true or false, is surely sufficient to explain that.

[Midsize Jake]

Okay, another good post — though, admittedly, too long again — but this does tend to contradict some of your earlier statements on the subject, no? In the past you've tended to say that the WMF is not so much to blame for Wikipedia's problems, not to mention that you seemed to be firmly in the anti-Fram camp during that whole business.

I suspect you'll say that the post above doesn't contradict your past positions on these subjects at all (and to be fair, your position was more along the lines of "there was no Sefidari/Hale conspiracy" than "Fram deserved it"). But is it just possible that you've changed your mind on some of this stuff? Also, I'd hate to think you felt compelled to "re-frame" your previous positions just to fit in with what might be seen as the prevailing views on this particular website.

Btw, I don't know if anyone ever told you this or not, but I did actually write a lengthy two-part blog post about the "Framban" incident that we didn't publish, simply because it was too equivocal. You were probably right to criticize us for not covering Frambananamania at the time — someone else probably should have written one instead that was less so, but maybe the reason nobody did was because they didn't want to hurt my fragile, delicate, overly-equivocal feelings.

[Beeblebrox]

I'd like to make a couple of things clear. I am to the left of Maher. I feel Rufo is a right-wing thug, and Elon Musk is a loon. My opinion about Maher was built up over a period of years and is not connected to the flap with Berliner.

As someone else who feels they are to the left of Maher, I have to ask, what does Maher actually believe?

I strongly suspect her internal intellectual position is about as cogent as the average MAGAt's.

I feel about the same. My dislike of Maher is from her time at the WMF and the shitty way she acted during Framgate, which backfired on her pretty badly with the rank and file.

I think what a lot of people find off-putting about her is the tendency to resort to vague buzzword-speak with no real substance, which is of course exactly the type of trait that comes out to shine on Twitter.

I didn't really know anything abut Rufo before know but he seems like a typical internet jerkwad, and I believe it is pretty well established that Musk is a raving idiot with a god complex.

[No Ledge]

She and Molly can dismiss the right wing-with-an agenda criticisms.

Uri Berliner, not so much.

In October 2020, (BBC head Davie) set out new guidelines for BBC staff, stating that they should avoid expressing their personal views on current issues of political controversy (which he called 'virtue signalling') on their own private social media accounts. He said this was to reduce perceived bias in the BBC. This would include a ban on news reporters taking part in "public demonstrations or gatherings about controversial issues"......Davie later said that journalists could attend events such as Pride marches if they were "celebratory" and not "taking a stand on politicised or contested issues".

I think Berliner would agree with this. It's obviously not Maher's mindset though, and that's the big problem.

[Randy from Boise]

I feel about the same. My dislike of Maher is from her time at the WMF and the shitty way she acted during Framgate, which backfired on her pretty badly with the rank and file.

I think what a lot of people find off-putting about her is the tendency to resort to vague buzzword-speak with no real substance, which is of course exactly the type of trait that comes out to shine on Twitter.

.........Not to mention that she's a jet-setting jet-setter junketeer that could probably buy a new house in Palo Alto with credit card travel miles.

t

[DanMurphy]

I probably listen to an hour of NPR a day. It's the same middle-of-the-road, soft, bending over backwards to see "all sides" warm milk it has always been (for instance: Their constant consideration of whether the woke panic people "have a point."). The NPR CEO has minimal input on editorial decisions, and in her case there is no discernible change during her brief tenure. My assumption is she was hired because they looked at WMF's fundraising prowess and decided she would bring them some of that.

The whole game is so stupid. Nakedly ideological outfits like Fox - proven to have editorial directives from the very top to lie and distort in favor of a political agenda - clutching their pearls that Trump was rightly called a liar in a twitter post long ago. Of course, the stupid game is proving effective because so many are willing to play.

[Zoloft]

Please get back on topic which is... *checks* Rodeo clowns? *shakes head* No, not that.

Oh yeah, Maher, NPR, and glib vacuity.

[tarantino]

Matt Taibbi wrote a column about her a few days ago, but unfortunately you have to subscribe to his newsletter to read the whole thing.

Katherine Maher, the new head of NPR, was a minor character in the Twitter Files. She was CEO of Wikimedia when the company was (like Twitter) being invited to election tabletop exercises at the Pentagon and “Industry meetings” with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. She also scored the rare personal triumvirate of being a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a World Economic Forum young global leader, and a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Labs.
She took a job heading NPR in January, shortly before senior editor Uri Berliner set off a nuclear newsroom stink-bomb by publishing a tell-all article at The Free Press about station failures on stories like Russiagate. Berliner’s piece triggered a frenzy of anti-NPR Schadenfreude, which led to furious examinations of Maher’s sitting-duck tweet history. Maher’s timeline reads so much like the Titania McGrath site spoofing overeducated nonsense-babbling white ladies that it’s difficult to believe she’s real — she even looks like the fictional McGrath, if Titania had more money to spend on personal upkeep.
Maher’s commentary dating back to the early Obama years is a gold mine of unintentional comedy. She’s gotten the most heat for using phrases like “As someone with cis white mobility privilege,” and “Sure, looting is counterproductive, but…” She also made an impressive Usain Bolt-like surge past Hillary Clinton in the Intersectional Gibberish Olympics:

[Randy from Boise]

Matt Taibbi wrote a column about her a few days ago, but unfortunately you have to subscribe to his newsletter to read the whole thing.

Katherine Maher, the new head of NPR, was a minor character in the Twitter Files. She was CEO of Wikimedia when the company was (like Twitter) being invited to election tabletop exercises at the Pentagon and “Industry meetings” with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. She also scored the rare personal triumvirate of being a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a World Economic Forum young global leader, and a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Labs.
She took a job heading NPR in January, shortly before senior editor Uri Berliner set off a nuclear newsroom stink-bomb by publishing a tell-all article at The Free Press about station failures on stories like Russiagate. Berliner’s piece triggered a frenzy of anti-NPR Schadenfreude, which led to furious examinations of Maher’s sitting-duck tweet history. Maher’s timeline reads so much like the Titania McGrath site spoofing overeducated nonsense-babbling white ladies that it’s difficult to believe she’s real — she even looks like the fictional McGrath, if Titania had more money to spend on personal upkeep.
Maher’s commentary dating back to the early Obama years is a gold mine of unintentional comedy. She’s gotten the most heat for using phrases like “As someone with cis white mobility privilege,” and “Sure, looting is counterproductive, but…” She also made an impressive Usain Bolt-like surge past Hillary Clinton in the Intersectional Gibberish Olympics:

I used to love reading Taibbi when he was writing politics for Rolling Stone. Not so much now that he has put on kneepads for Putin — but he's clearly got Maher the jet-setting jet setter junketeer pegged.

t

[Zoloft]

underrated post of the topic.

[The Blue Newt]

underrated post of the topic.

It’s probably not underrated.

Half of us are stunned by its brilliance, and the other half haven’t figured out how to go one better.

[tarantino]

Another article from Christopher F. Rufo.

Katherine Maher’s Color Revolution
The NPR boss is a symbol of regime change—foreign and domestic.

The Color Revolution is restless. Beginning in the former Soviet republics in the early 2000s, it moved along the coast of North Africa with the so-called Arab Spring in the 2010s, and, into the current decade, has spread further.

The ostensible purpose of Color Revolutions—named after the Rose Revolution, Orange Revolution, and Tulip Revolution in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, respectively—is to replace authoritarian regimes with Western liberal democracies. American and European intelligence services are often heavily involved in these revolutions, with ambitions not only to spread modern ideologies but also to undermine geopolitical opponents.

The West’s favored methods of supporting Color Revolutions include fomenting dissent, organizing activists through social media, promoting student movements, and unleashing domestic unrest on the streets. Americans hold varying opinions on such efforts, but what many don’t realize is that they occur not only overseas but also here in the United States. The summer of rioting following the death of George Floyd, which ushered in the new DEI regime, was in many ways a domestic Color Revolution, advanced by progressive NGOs, media entities, and political actors.

A minor figure in these movements, a woman named Katherine Maher, has recently come to greater prominence. Maher was involved in the wave of Color Revolutions that took place in North Africa in the 2010s, and she supported the post-George Floyd upheavals in the United States in the 2020s. She was also the CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, and was just recently named the new CEO of National Public Radio.

...

During the volatile Arab Spring period, under a constantly rotating series of NGO affiliations, Maher went to multiple countries that were undergoing U.S.-backed regime change. Beginning in 2011, for example, she traveled multiple times to Tunisia, working with regime-change activists and government officials. In 2012, she traveled to a strategic city on the Turkey-Syria border, which had become a base for Western-backed opposition to Bashar al-Assad. That same year, she traveled to Libya, where the U.S. had just overthrown strongman Muammar Gaddafi.

During much of 2011, Maher worked for the National Democratic Institute, a government-funded NGO with deep connections to U.S. intelligence and the Democratic Party’s foreign policy machine. The organization was “set up to do independently what CIA had done covertly worldwide,” says national security analyst J. Michael Waller. While initially some distance supposedly existed between NDI and the intelligence services, that relationship has devolved back to “the gray zone,” per Waller, and it appears that they often work in concert. “NDI is an instrument of Samantha Power and the global revolution elements of the Obama team,” Waller explains. “It has gone along with, and been significant parts of, color revolutions around the world. It is very much a regime-change actor.”

[Randy from Boise]

Another article from Christopher F. Rufo.

Katherine Maher’s Color Revolution

During the volatile Arab Spring period..., Maher went to multiple countries.... Beginning in 2011, for example, she traveled multiple times to Tunisia.... In 2012, she traveled to a strategic city on the Turkey-Syria border.... That same year, she traveled to Libya....

Mr. Rufo is reading WAAAAAAAAAAY too much into Blatherjaw's jet-setting jet setter junketeering... I cut to the chase for y'all...

t

[Giraffe Stapler]

Another article from Christopher F. Rufo.

Wait, Maher is a spook?

[tarantino]

Another article from Christopher F. Rufo.

Wait, Maher is a spook?

Daniel B. thinks so.

[DanMurphy]

Rufo is a fever swamp-radiated dolt.

[Vigilant]

She's, at most, spook-curious.

She's obviously an opportunistic vapid buzzword pusher and nothing more.

[Randy from Boise]

Another article from Christopher F. Rufo.

Wait, Maher is a spook?

Only if she can scam plane tickets from deep pockets...

t

[iii]

CEOs of nonprofits are hired for their ability to fundraise.

The rest is just window dressing.

[Randy from Boise]

CEOs of nonprofits are hired for their ability to fundraise.

The rest is just window dressing.

That is probably right.

t

[The Blue Newt]

CEOs of nonprofits are hired for their ability to fundraise.

The rest is just window dressing.

That’s a valid generalization, but it’s a lot less true for nonprofits that have a super-specialized mission, or have to make hard choices about limited resources.

[tarantino]

House Republicans summon NPR CEO for hearing on 'rampant' bias allegations

[Speaker Mike] Johnson told Fox News Digital of the probe, "In light of the recent, disturbing revelations about National Public Radio (NPR) and its leadership, I’ve directed Chair McMorris Rodgers and the Energy and Commerce Committee to conduct an investigation of NPR and determine what actions should be taken to hold the organization accountable for its ideological bias and contempt for facts. The American people support the free press but will not be made to fund a left-leaning political agenda with taxpayer funds."

[GOP lawmakers wrote] "You [Maher] yourself have stated that you view the First Amendment as ‘the number one challenge’ because speech protections make it ‘tricky’ to suppress ‘bad information’ and the ‘influence peddlers who have made a real market economy around it.’’ Ironically, both you and NPR have used the same First Amendment to protect your own views and statements," they wrote.

[Beeblebrox]

Well, yeah the right hates NPR for no very good reason.

[Midsize Jake]

I think the real problem here is that Maher probably won't be able to adequately explain the context of what she was tweeting back when she was the WMF Executive Director. It's also very likely that the Republicans won't care about the context since this is obviously just political theater, but it's still unfortunate since the explanation is so simple: The First Amendment is a problem for Wikipedia because there's only one article per subject, and so things are inevitably going to be left out and the people whose stuff is left out will claim they're being censored. NPR doesn't have that problem. (Also, Wikipedia has much more of an international audience than NPR.)

But the Republicans won't be interested in that explanation and the associated context, and Maher probably won't be capable of getting them (or anyone else) to understand it anyway, simple and straightforward though it is.

[Vigilant]

Gah!

Now I have a real dilemma.

Root for Maher or the house gop?

[rnu]

Gah!

Now I have a real dilemma.

Root for Maher or the house gop?

You could root for an asteroid ...

[Zoloft]

I'm just going to root for a few more House Republicans to get disgusted and leave office, roll credits on 'Speaker Johnson.'

[Vigilant]

I'm just going to root for a few more House Republicans to get disgusted and leave office, roll credits on 'Speaker Johnson.'

After the deadline for the reappointment by their governor to keep the seat open until November.

[greenday61892]

I'm just going to root for a few more House Republicans to get disgusted and leave office, roll credits on 'Speaker Johnson.'

I've been rooting for this (as I'm sure you have been too) since the very first resignation dropped and this became a real prospect

[smallchief]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 1123369545

I am a bit amused (and a bit appalled) that Victoria says a problem of Wikipedia is that the "average age of the editors" is increasing. Three lashes for her with a spaghetti whip for "ageism."

[ltbdl]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 1123369545

I am a bit amused (and a bit appalled) that Victoria says a problem of Wikipedia is that the "average age of the editors" is increasing. Three lashes for her with a spaghetti whip for "ageism."

i'd have thought it was decreasing...

[rnu]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 1123369545

I am a bit amused (and a bit appalled) that Victoria says a problem of Wikipedia is that the "average age of the editors" is increasing. Three lashes for her with a spaghetti whip for "ageism."

I think that's a bit of a misunderstanding.

And it cannot be achieved by enwika alone, as we see the number of articles reaching the plateau, number of new editors falling and average age of the editors increasing.

I think what she means is that Wikipedia is at a risk of geriatrization if it cannot attract new users. It is not a problem if there are lots of old people. It is a problem if there are only old people. Both because you need a certain population diversity and because old people have the nasty habit of dying at some point.

[Randy from Boise]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 1123369545

I am a bit amused (and a bit appalled) that Victoria says a problem of Wikipedia is that the "average age of the editors" is increasing. Three lashes for her with a spaghetti whip for "ageism."

i'd have thought it was decreasing...

I'm shocked at your cultural appropriation of Italian popular cuisine and your biased insinuation that the Italian people are connected with violence! /jk

Average editor age has been increasing since 2006 or so, I would guess, just pulling a date out of the sky... The Wikipedian worker bees by then joined the hive en masse and have been getting older ever since.

t

[Giraffe Stapler]

Average editor age has been increasing since 2006 or so, I would guess, just pulling a date out of the sky... The Wikipedian worker bees by then joined the hive en masse and have been getting older ever since.

Well, I've been afraid of changin'
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I'm getting older too

[Vigilant]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 1123369545

I am a bit amused (and a bit appalled) that Victoria says a problem of Wikipedia is that the "average age of the editors" is increasing. Three lashes for her with a spaghetti whip for "ageism."

i'd have thought it was decreasing...

I'm shocked at your cultural appropriation of Italian popular cuisine and your biased insinuation that the Italian people are connected with violence! /jk

Average editor age has been increasing since 2006 or so, I would guess, just pulling a date out of the sky... The Wikipedian worker bees by then joined the hive en masse and have been getting older ever since.

t

And wikipedia is way, way off the 'cool stuff to do' list for anyone who didn't join back in 2006.

[No Ledge]

Gah!

Now I have a real dilemma.

Root for Maher or the house gop?

I'm sure it will go as well as the hearing on antisemitism and we can look forward to Maher vs. the GOP in an SNL cold open.

[Vigilant]

Signal’s Katherine Maher Problem

Rufo's a moron, but it's still funny.

[Randy from Boise]

Signal’s Katherine Maher Problem

Rufo's a moron, but it's still funny.

I refuse to believe (1) that the CIA would hire anyone as vapid as Ms. Maher or (2) that Ms. Maher is capable of miming vapidity and staying in character as long as she has managed to do.

t