NPR said it won’t “waste” its time covering Hunter Biden’s business dealings despite polls showing a public split on whether his father, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, is being honest about the subject.
On Thursday, the nonprofit media organization said it is refusing to report on materials unearthed from emails found on a laptop and hard drive that purportedly belong to the younger Biden, claiming “the assertions don’t amount to much” even if they are confirmed to be true.
“We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions,” said Terence Samuel, NPR’s managing editor. “And quite frankly, that’s where we ended up, this was … a politically driven event and we decided to treat it that way.”
NPR noted that its coverage has been limited to Twitter and Facebook taking steps to prevent the story from circulating on social media.
Why haven’t you seen any stories from NPR about the NY Post’s Hunter Biden story? Read more in this week’s newsletter➡️ https://t.co/CJesPgmGvo pic.twitter.com/jAi7PnpbZf
— NPR Public Editor (@NPRpubliceditor) October 22, 2020
Joe Biden has called reporting on the materials a “smear campaign,” though neither he nor his son has denied the authenticity of the computer materials.
On Tuesday, a federal law enforcement officer confirmed to the Washington Examiner that the Justice Department and the FBI do not believe the laptop was connected to a Russian disinformation campaign, siding with Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and countering claims from Democrats and former intelligence officials that the information can’t be trusted.
