NPR, as most people know, stands for National Public Radio. Many listeners are concerned about how well NPR lives up to its name.
Listeners regularly ask, “How truly national is NPR?”
I think the question also means, “How well does NPR reflect the country?” For others, it means, “How often should NPR air stories that come from the hundreds of member stations within the public radio system?”
It depends on who you are and where you are listening.
Some listeners who live in larger urban areas think that NPR reflects the country just fine, thanks.
How Does NPR Sound?
From their perspective, NPR sounds just like them: educated, middle class and — mostly — white.
Those who listen to NPR in rural communities and in smaller towns tend to hear NPR differently. They refer (somewhat disparagingly) to NPR as “bi-coastal” because they hear less about their own interests, concerns, values and culture in their own areas. Their local stations usually do a good job, often better than NPR, they say.
NPR, say these critics, has become like other mainstream media in its reflection of the major population centers. These listeners believe that NPR is too concerned with the so-called blue states — i.e., the more liberal-voting parts of the country — and at the expense of covering the red (more conservative) states.
NPR has grown and become more prominent in the American media landscape, especially over the past 10 years. But the irony is that even as NPR has become more successful, it seems to be moving away from its roots.
Member Stations Reporting on NPR: A Fading Signal
In 1997, only 5 percent of the reports on NPR came from reporters who were based at the member stations. Over the next few years, that rose to 25 percent due to a deliberate collaborative effort of NPR and member station reporters.
But recently, that number has declined again.
In the period from Aug. 30, 2004 to Aug. 30, 2005, NPR aired a total of 18,486 reports on the newsmagazine programs. That figure includes all of the news programs but excludes reports heard on NPR hourly newscasts.
Only 960 — or 5.19 percent – of all reports came from member-station reporters over the past year.
And that means NPR-station collaboration is back where it was eight years ago.
Is Geography Destiny?
Why the decline?
NPR’s recent growth and financial success has led to a rapid expansion of its news service. NPR may not be relying on reporters from the stations in the way in once did.
And geography is partly a factor.
NPR is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and its one other major production center in Los Angeles’ Culver City. NPR has its own reporters in 22 cities around the country. Most of them are in the larger urban areas.
NPR reports originate from those places with significant public radio audiences. Unfortunately, NPR reports less often from those parts of the country with smaller public radio stations — rural areas, the south, the Rocky Mountain States, Alaska and Hawaii.
Some of this is simply news driven; there are more stories that come out of New York or Los Angeles than from Austin or Salt Lake City. But are the big-city stories always more newsworthy?
There are a lot of stories from outside the main news-generating areas that NPR doesn’t cover. NPR hasn’t been able to be everywhere it should be or wants to be.
I suspect that it is also because NPR, like most other news organizations, sees the world as a reflection of its own location and interests which are predominantly urban, and yes, “bi-coastal.” Some listeners (and NPR staffers) warn that as NPR becomes a more “mainstream” news organization (a.k.a., “successful”), it will tend to move closer to the values of other mainstream, commercial news organizations.
Balancing ‘Mainstream’ and ‘Alternative’ Radio
As a public broadcaster, should NPR report the predictable news agenda that can be heard, seen and read everywhere else? A lot of listeners think so, if an increased audience is your measure of success. But that shouldnt be the only measure in public radio.
NPR should be a source of news from and to all parts of the country. It used to be the broadcaster that did the stories that other broadcasters didn’t or wouldn’t or couldn’t. That quirky quality is less evident to some than it once was. Ten years ago, NPR reported stories from more off-the-beaten-track places according to many longtime listeners and NPR staffers.
Undeniably, NPR has changed over the past ten years: its listeners are more abundant and NPR now has a justly deserved reputation as a major news provider in America.
But some critics wonder if NPR’s unique vision of the country has been diminished by its evident success. And is it possible for NPR to be both a major news service as well as a provider of those many fascinating but little known stories about America.
There May Be Another Way
792 public radio stations are part of the NPR system of member stations. These stations — all of them independent — broadcast NPR programs like Morning Edition and All Things Considered. The stations aren’t evenly spread around the country, but every state has at least one public radio station.
Why NPR doesnt have more reports from all of those stations?
The answer, like the public radio system itself, is complicated.
Some listeners have asked why NPR can’t assign reporters in local newsrooms. While NPR frequently collaborates with local news reporters, those reporters, like their stations, are not NPR’s. They answer to and are paid by the local station. These reporters are not NPR’s to assign.
Many of the public radio stations also have newsrooms that vary in size and experience. The larger stations — when asked — contribute to NPR News. Others don’t file reports to NPR as often, because they have fewer reporters and the ones they have, have primary obligations to the local station. As a result, listeners to NPR News hear less from some parts of the country than from others.
Reflecting the Country
That many stations — 792 — are an incredible editorial resource. How to harness this presence and this deep knowledge of the country into a more accurate and newsworthy reflection on public radio?
Recently two important histories of NPR have been published. One is by a longtime public radio veteran, Jack Mitchell and is entitled Listener Supported. The other is NPR: The Trials and Triumphs of National Public Radio, by Michael McCauley from the University of Maine.
Both books explain — from different perspectives — NPR’s present situation by exploring the origins in the public radio system. When it was formed in the late 1960s, NPR was set up to provide programs to already established stations — some had been on the air since the 1920s. Most public radio stations operated out of land-grant colleges in the Midwest and the Northeast. The colleges and universities that held the broadcast license from the FCC back then. It’s still true today — two thirds of all public radio stations are licensed to institutions of higher learning.
NPR’s roots in college radio have meant that public radio was a bound to be a reflection of higher education in the United States. Wherever you found a college, you would probably hear a public radio station. Many of NPR’s journalists are products of that system with its geographic base in the Midwest and the Northeast.
That may be about to change.
NPR, in collaboration with the public radio stations, is initiating an important project that should deepen the journalistic skills of many of the public radio stations. There is a renewed interest around the system in how to strengthen and expand local radio. The result should be stronger journalism at every level.
If successful (and there’s no reason to doubt its success) this project will broaden and deepen the ability to generate high quality radio journalism both locally and on NPR from around the country.
I wish it well. It is long overdue.
Next week, the question many listeners keep asking: how “public” is NPR?
[Chantal de la Rionda contributed to the research for this column].
A ‘FAIR’ Question
One more issue from last week: the media watchdog group, FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), criticized NPR about a report that aired on Morning Edition on Sept. 15.
The report, by NPR’s Corey Flintoff, referred to an anti-terrorism resolution being debated at the United Nations in light of last summer’s bombings in London. The report went on to say that:
Some extremist groups say those bombings were a response to the U.S. and British military presence in Iraq.
Hundred of listeners and supporters of FAIR wrote to object to the phrase “extremist groups” to describe those who oppose the war in Iraq.
Paul Fiscella wrote:
Do you believe as [the] Flintoff report implies that only an “extremist” could acknowledge a connection between acts of terrorism and foreign policy? Please encourage NPR to air a clarification of Flintoff’s remarks.
Ted Clark is the Deputy Foreign Editor at NPR:
I don’t think a correction is warranted. There is no error…just a difference of interpretation… The author of the letter(s) interpreted the sentence as meaning “that only terrorists or their sympathizers perceived such a connection.”
The fact that “some extremist groups” perceive the connection does not rule out the possibility that non-extremists also perceive the connection. The sentence can also be interpreted this way: Extremist groups THAT ENDORSED THE BOMBINGS say they were a response to the U.S. and British military presence in Iraq. That is what we meant when we wrote the sentence. If we had wanted to say, “only terrorists and their sympathizers perceive a connection between the bombings and the war,” we would have written the sentence that way. I will grant you that our sentence could have been written more precisely.
But the report was unclear and an editor should have caught the imprecision before it aired. I think NPR owes the listeners an on-air correction and clarification. The issue (the war in Iraq) is too important to be bogged down in editorial nuance, especially if the subtleties go unappreciated by the listeners.
