National Public Radio (NPR) misquoted a former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffer, twisting his comments on government performance before issuing a correction.
In a June 5 article titled “Former DOGE engineer says he was ‘surprised’ by ‘how efficient’ the government is,” NPR quoted Sahil Lavingia acknowledging the unexpected competence he encountered inside the federal bureaucracy. However, the piece stopped short of conveying his larger point, forcing the outlet to issue a correction on Friday.
“I did not find the federal government to be rife with waste, fraud, and abuse. I was expecting some more easy wins. I was hoping for the opportunity to cut waste, fraud, and abuse. And I do believe that there is a lot of waste. There’s minimal amounts of fraud. And abuse, to me, feels relatively nonexistent,” Lavingia told NPR when asked about the lack of fraud and spending abuse he saw. “And the reason is — I think we have a bias as people coming from the tech industry, where we worked at companies, you know, such as Google, Facebook, these companies that have plenty of money, are funded by investors and have lots of people kind of sitting around doing nothing.”
Weeks after the article was published, NPR issued a correction:
“A previous version of this web story and its headline incorrectly reported that Sahil Lavingia, a former employee of DOGE, said that he found waste and fraud to be ‘relatively nonexistent’ in the federal government. In fact, he said that he believes abuse was ‘relatively nonexistent,’ that ‘there’s minimal amounts of fraud’ and that ‘there is a lot of waste.’”
Former NPR editor Uri Berliner accused the outlet in April 2024 of abandoning journalistic standards in its coverage of then-former President Donald Trump. In an essay for The Free Press, Berliner alleged that NPR pursued debunked Russia-collusion claims and aligned its reporting with Democratic narratives.
Berliner also condemned NPR’s editorial leadership for refusing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, claiming they dismissed it as a “distraction.” He argued that the network’s internal culture prioritized race and identity over viewpoint diversity, resulting in lopsided coverage and an aggressive push for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
The White House sent Congress a $9.4 billion rescissions package that included $1.1 billion in cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS. The House of Representatives voted to pass the package on June 12.
NPR did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline, and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Mariane Angela
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://www.bizpacreview.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.
