NPR CEO who previously called First Amendment a 'challenge' to receive 'First Amendment Award'

NPR CEO Katherine Maher will receive Harper's Magazine's "First Amendment Award" later this month despite her past criticism of the amendment.

"As president and CEO of NPR, Katherine Maher has 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 said in a press release earlier this year about Maher receiving the James C.

Goodale First Amendment Award on Oct.

26.

Harper's Magazine also claimed that Maher led NPR "through a period of heightened scrutiny and challenge" along with "successfully battling" President Donald Trump's efforts to defund NPR , though Congress still rescinded $1.1 billion in federal funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 2025.

NPR GETS $80 MILLION GIFT FROM DEMOCRATIC MEGADONOR IN MAJOR BOOST AFTER LOSING GOVERNMENT FUNDING Although the magazine hailed Maher as an advocate for journalism, Maher has not always been supportive of the First Amendment as a whole.

In 2021, when Maher was the CEO of Wikimedia, which oversees Wikipedia, she discussed efforts to combat disinformation and considered the First Amendment a "challenge" in that goal.

"The number one challenge here that we see is, of course, the First Amendment in the United States. [It] is a fairly robust protection of rights and that is a protection of rights both for platforms, which I actually think is very important that platforms have those rights to be able to regulate what kind of content they want on their sites," Maher said.

BILL MAHER TELLS NPR INTERVIEWER HE VIEWS OUTLET AS 'FAR EXTREME OF THE LEFT' She added, "But it also means that it is a little bit tricky to really address some of the real challenges of where does bad information come from, and sort of the influence peddlers who have made a real market economy around it." NPR has also had a history of questionable journalism.

Most notably, NPR declined to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020 ahead of the presidential election in what many critics saw as an effort to protect then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Maher, who was not appointed NPR CEO until 2024, later conceded that the publication "made a mistake." NPR OFFERING STAFF BUYOUTS AFTER RECEIVING $113 MILLION IN CHARITABLE GIFTS "I do want to say that NPR acknowledges we were mistaken in failing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story more aggressively and sooner," Maher said during congressional testimony in 2025.

Fox News Digital reached out to Harper's Magazine for comment.