Liasson Should be Fired

Mara Liasson - Image courtesy NPR

National Public Radio (NPR) has always allowed its reporters a lot of leeway when reporting on their beats.  As a journalist I have a problem with this.  If a reporter is doing their job they should not be allowed to add their personal opinion to the piece.  Or, the rhetoric must be labelled commentary.  But NPR has allowed this many times over the years and yesterday morning, one of it's national political correspondents used the forum of Weekend Edition Sunday to attack the President and states' rights.

Mara Liasson has attacked President Donald Trump previously with no action on her employers part.  NPR, which portrays itself as balanced in national news coverage, should have by now disciplined Liasson for editorializing while she is reporting.  Yesterday under the guise of reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms. Liasson attacked Trump's policies on self quarantine in the coronavirus era.  She also used the same editorial to criticize states for not allowing the federal government to dictate policy to them.  The host of the Weekend Edition Sunday Program, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, never attempted to question Liasson on her lengthy editorial and the network never used the word commentary on Liasson's rant.

This is not the first time Ms. Liasson has been criticized for her editorializing during a so called news story.  Liasson was criticized severely in 2013 by liberals when she started working at Fox News.  At the time NPR looked into it and instead of censuring Liasson, praised her.

Were I the managing editor of NPR, Mara Liasson would no longer be working there.  Her actions are  unprofessional and unacceptable and she is an embarrassment to the rest of the network's reporters.  It's time for Ms. Liasson to go back to local radio reporting and not be permitted 
a national forum such as NPR.