The NPR interview is known for showing intelligence and respect for the interviewee and the listener in a civil discussion. We don’t yell.
It’s where thoughtful journalists interview thinking people who have an important story to tell or with a perspective to share.
Too Deferential?
But some listeners have said that occasionally, NPR interviews are overly polite, far too passive, even bordering on the deferential.
First example:
On Fresh Air, on April 24, Neal Conan of NPR News hosted the program while Terry Gross was away. The interviewee was James Bamford, author of a recently published book on the National Security Agency, called Body of Secrets.
The book has been well reviewed except for one controversial allegation: Bamford claims that in 1967, the Israelis deliberately destroyed the USS Liberty, an electronic intelligence ship causing the deaths of 34 American sailors and injuring another 171. Bamford says the ship, in the eastern Mediterranean, was collecting evidence that the Israelis were killing Egyptian POWs. Subsequent commissions of inquiry, both American and Israeli, disputed that claim. The official explanation for the sinking of the USS Liberty was that it was a “tragic error”.
Conan asked Bamford why the Israelis would attack a ship belonging to their closest ally. Bamford’s answer was not considered particularly clear and so it was edited out by the show’s producer.
On May 3, Conan was asked to host another NPR program, The Connection. Bamford was again a guest. This time, Conan alerted the producers to the need to explore the issue around the USS Liberty. In the phone-in portion of the program, Bamford was vigorously questioned by the listeners.
In my opinion, Fresh Air’s producers should have allowed Conan’s question and Bamford’s answer to stand. After hearing Fresh Air, listener Ralph Dolgoff wrote to complain that it sounded as though Conan was giving Bamford a pass on this issue. In fact he didn’t.
But as Mr. Dolgoff writes:
I value the civil discourse you want NPR to stand for. Sometimes (and I know it is not always possible to predict such things), guests may have agendas which are not based on the best of motives.
And speaking of agendas, a second example:
On Morning Edition, on May 24, host Bob Edwards interviewed actor Jamie Lee Curtis. Aside from being a comedic film actor, Curtis is a spokesperson for a number of high profile commercial ventures. On Morning Edition, she was there to represent the Ford Motor Company, urging parents to bring their children to any nearby Ford dealership and register them in the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s ID database, so they can be more easily tracked in the event they are abducted or kidnapped.
Aside from the repeated references to Ford, the interview was notable for never questioning Curtis about her statistics that “750,000 children a year are reported missing.”
Curtis further claimed that, “many, many, many of them are taken by strangers.”
She was never asked how many children, or where these numbers come from. Or how many are taken by a parent in custody disputes. Or how many are eventually returned to their families.
It was, in my opinion, a free pass for dubious statistics and the Ford Motor Company.
In fact, the number of children abducted by non-custodial parents is closer to 364,600 according to the FBI. Another 5,000 are abducted by acquaintances. Random abductions are closer to 200 a year. Some sources (The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children itself) place the possible number even lower — at around 30.
Ninety-five percent of missing children — and there are 40,000 reported to police daily — return home after 72 hours.
All of this is shocking enough. But nowhere near the dubious assertions made by Jamie Lee Curtis on NPR.
After listening to the interview with Curtis, one would think that there is an epidemic of child abductions in America when the opposite is true. But the listeners wouldn’t know that from the Morning Edition interview.
NPR interviews are, for the most part, respectful and civil. That is as it should be.
There are more than enough places on the radio and television dial where “interviews” are conducted without regard to the listeners’ intelligence or to the facts themselves. NPR’s listeners appreciate the thoughtfulness and intelligence behind the interviewing techniques.
But occasionally, and as appropriate, NPR interviews need to be vigorous debates where assumptions are closely questioned. Anything less is a disservice to the listeners and an example of incomplete journalism.
Many listeners often assume that a respectful silence on the part of an NPR host implies agreement.
And that’s not a journalistic interview. It’s a bullhorn for politicians or celebrities who are paid by their sponsors to appear in public.
