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    NPR Let The US Attorney General Tell A Falsehood On The Air

    Host Steve Inskeep and his team missed several opportunities to hold a powerful official accountable for misleading the public. Instead, they helped him perpetuate a myth.
    by Kelly McBride Jul 16, 2020 7 minutes
    U.S. Attorney General William Barr, pictured in the Oval Office, pushed an unproven narrative about election fraud during an NPR interview.

    NPR's four-member "election security team" is responsible for covering all things about American voting, from access, to fraud to innovations and investments in the process. It is one of the foundations of NPR's politics coverage. Amid its admirable work on election security was a recent high-profile misstep, and the audience took note.

    An estimated 1.4 million people listening to Morning Edition on Friday, June 26, heard U.S. Attorney General Barr falsely declare that mail-in ballots will jeopardize the security of the upcoming presidential election.

    "There's so many occasions for fraud there that cannot be policed, I think it would be very bad, " Barr said of the push in some states to convert to voting by mail. "But one of the things I mentioned would be the possibility of counterfeiting."

    Host Steve Inskeep pressed Barr for evidence to support the claim. Barr responded: "It's obvious," but provided none.

    Barr's view has been uttered by President Trump and others, provoking extensive reporting (including by NPR before Inskeep's interview), fact-checking and academic research. The overwhelming consensus is that there's no credible evidence that counterfeit mail-in ballots have posed any substantial threat to election security.

    "He was talking about very specific things and

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