The This is NPR blog discloses that All Things Considered host Michelle Norris’ husband Broderick Johnson has taken a top position with the Obama Campaign. “After careful consideration, we decided that Broderick’s new role could make it difficult for me to continue hosting ATC,” Norris explains in a published memo: Given the nature of Broderick’s position with […]
It seems that NPR listeners are grumbling again about the network’s practice of calling President Obama “Mr. Obama,” rather than using “President” on a consistent basis. “A number of listeners have written in recent weeks complaining that NPR reporters refer to President Obama as ‘Mr. Obama’,” notes NPR ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos. But “since the mid-1970s […]
The answer: a leaked sex tape. It’s been making the rounds of the blogosphere this week. And if you keep your NPR affiliate on all day long, or load your iPhone up with This American Life and Planet Money podcasts, then this is the sex tape you’ve been waiting for. Or not. OK, it’s not […]
College Radio Day has come and gone, but I’d like to add a historic footnote to the festivities. College radio broadcasters in the 1960s convinced Congress to fund radio as well as television in the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. Without that campaign, it is unlikely that NPR would exist. The story is beautifully told […]
It appears that NPR is smarting from charges that it has given the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City and elsewhere short shrift when it comes to coverage of the demonstrations. We’ve noticed some discontent in this area, and so has NPR’s ombudsman in his latest post, citing one complaint from a listener […]
NPR ran a story this morning on npr.org about yesterday’s Occupy Wall Street/Brooklyn Bridge arrests. The piece, bylined as “NPR STAFF AND WIRES,” noted that 700 OWS protesters were arrested for marching on a bridge road. The problem, as this YouTube video indicates, is that the cops appear to have led the demonstrators onto the […]
There aren’t very many subjects that NPR listeners won’t fight about, including tinnitus, circumcision, and Yellowstone Park bears. But when it comes to abortion—now that’s when you get the 300 comment threads. I’ve got to concur, however, with NPR listener Marcia Bryant of Cleveland, Ohio, who complained about a NPR Morning Edition story calling an obstetrician […]
NPR is not taking scholar Jay Rosen’s charge that the network has engaged in one of the “lowest forms of journalism” lying down. “Rosen is a journalism professor whose provocative positions on media responsibility and new media have often succeeded in shaking up a sometimes hidebound profession,” notes NPR Ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos. “But this time he […]
NPR’s Ombudsman has a new post promising “massive 9/11 anniversary coverage” this weekend. It mentions a listener who has protested the network’s use of the phrase “terror attacks.” “Terror did not attack us on September 11th, terrorists did,” she wrote to NPR. Terror does not have hands with which to use box cutters. Terrorists do. […]
NPR’s new ombudsman Edward Schumancher-Matos is cranking out a slew of interesting posts, of late. Among them: Is “entitlements” an appropriate word to use in news stories describing social security? “A pension is not something you are entitled to, it is something that belongs to you,” one listener wrote to NPR in response to numerous […]
