At my request, NPR has released more information than any mainstream media organization on the diversity of its editorial staff and audience. My analysis two weeks ago turned on the question of which baseline to use in measuring progress. Now I have asked six national leaders and experts of different views what they think of how NPR is doing. They responded with great insight, some frustration and dollops of humor. The goal is for NPR to sound like America.

Summary charts are below. The shame is that commercial newspapers, television and radio don't give out the same detail.

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istockphoto.com

Who are "the Christians"?

This beguilingly simple question was provoked by a Morning Edition report in which host David Greene referred to an anti-abortion movie, "October Baby", as a "Christian film." Many Christians objected. They didn't identify with the movie or its message.

"I've been troubled for years that conservative, evangelical Christians have appropriated the name 'Christian' as if Christians holding progressive views don't exist," wrote Theodore Johnson of Basye, VA. "In today's story, the reporter seemed to go along with that fiction by using the word 'Christian' without adding 'conservative' or 'evangelical' or some other words to indicate that these are Christians with one point of view that isn't held by everyone who consider themselves Christians."

Johnson's point is more than valid. But Greene's response was also valid.

"'Christian' is a well-established modifier when describing a genre in filmmaking, as well as a genre in music," he wrote me. "There's an award for Christian music at the Grammys, for example. Amazon and other retailers classify Christian movies as a category for sales."

NPR/Stephanie d'Otreppe

A sample of how other news sources have described the Quran burnings that happened in Afghanistan last month. Each example represents only one instance, and not coverage as a whole.

One month ago, charred copies of the Quran were pulled from a burn pit at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. The responsibility for the perceived desecration of Islam's sacred book fell on U.S. soldiers, triggering anti-U.S. protests that killed more than 30 Afghans and six Americans.

The violence appears to have died down, but a fight over how to describe the burnings has not. NPR reporters and hosts have referred to the incineration as "accidental" in some stories, provoking criticisms from many listeners that they are buying the U.S. military's framing of the event. Other stories refer to simply "the Quran burnings," which others critics charged is irresponsible and inflammatory because it suggests that the destruction of the holy books was purposeful.

Given the confusion that still surrounds exactly what happened, the opposing criticisms are not surprising. NPR doesn't have a policy on how to label the burnings, and, frankly, I am not sure what should be said either. The rest of the mainstream independent press seems to be as lost, best I can tell.

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istockphoto.com

Readers had many thoughts on that artifact of the current cultural wars, namely, political correctness. Below are some of the most thoughtful and provocative, led by Melanie Huff, the Assistant Dean of Students at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where I am currently a visiting professor. She offers some illuminating personal history.

Back in the late 80s when I was in grad school, I ran with an unabashedly liberal crowd whose favorite acronym was PC for Politically Correct. I do not know when the term was coined but it felt fresh and exciting. If we had had a mission statement it would have been to render the world more PC. We devoted much time and intellectual energy to deconstructing all that we encountered for white, male, wealthy, heterocentric exclusivity. PC summed up in two easy letters everything in which we believed.

Our zealousness was fueled in large part by anger at the AIDS epidemic. Several of my friends were active in ACT-UP.

AIDS and the world's reaction to it cast a bright light on many of the decidedly un-PC premises still in place in spite of the civil rights, women's rights and gay rights victories that had been achieved at that time.

The mood then was to view political correctness not as a long-range goal to be achieved through education, but as a concept whose time had come and whose immediate implementation was imperative—people were dying!

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In criticizing a reporter's use of the term "nutcase" last week, I wrote that "political correctness can surely get out of hand," but not in this case. Readers and editors who responded widely agreed. The pushback came on another term: political correctness.

Some readers said my reference to political correctness was itself pejorative. Simply using the term legitimizes the argument that all political correctness is phony and extreme, they said. Among those readers was Keith Woods, the vice president of diversity at NPR and a sounding board I often go to for wise opinion. This time, however, I don't agree with him, so I thought I might put it to you for your opinion. If you are interested in language, logic and issues of diversity, you might particularly find the exchange below interesting, or even worth commenting on.

Woods fired the first shot, but I couldn't wrap my head around his criticism. "You lost me, Keith." I wrote. "I thought I was dismissing the political correctness argument. But maybe I am missing something."

And so he explained more simply for the hard-to-understand:

You DO, in fact, affirm that people were justified in complaining about "nutcase." I've got no qualms with your conclusion. What I'm saying is that by embracing the "political correctness gone too far" frame for even discussing this, you've done damage to such complaints.

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A military aide holds up the Congressional Medal of Honor. The 2005 Stolen Valor Act makes false claims about receiving military medals punishable by up to one year in prison.

Jim Watson/Getty Images

A military aide holds up the Congressional Medal of Honor. The 2005 Stolen Valor Act makes false claims about receiving military medals punishable by up to one year in prison.

Veteran reporter Nina Totenberg hit a nerve for some Morning Edition listeners last week when she asked a lawyer whether or not his client, Xavier Alvarez, was a "nutcase."

Alvarez is a habitual liar. One of his lies—a false claim that he was awarded a 1987 Congressional Medal of Honor—is the subject of a current dispute before the U.S. Supreme Court and in many editorials. The debate revolves around whether such a lie is free speech or a crime punishable by jail time, as Congress stipulated in 2005, when it comes to lying about military medals.

In a story about the case, Totenburg was rightly curious whether Alvarez has a mental illness that caused his behavior, but she didn't state it that way on the air. Rather, she said to us, the audience: "Inevitably I had to ask his lawyer this question: 'So is your client a nutcase?' "

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Panelists testify Thursday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing.

AP/Carolyn Kaster

Panelists testify Thursday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing.

The all-male witness panel at Thursday's House hearing on President Obama's contraception insurance mandate inspired Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, a Democrat from New York, to ask "Where are the women?" A photo of the lineup quickly circulated the Internet—appearing on Twitter and Facebook feeds and landing on women's rights advocacy blogs.

Maloney's question—"Where are the women?"—is a familiar one in our office. As the debate around contraceptive coverage continues, several listeners have written with the same concerns about NPR's coverage.

The All Things Considered segment, "Week in Politics," on Feb. 10 drew the most concern. The weekly segment regularly features Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne and New York Times columnist David Brooks. The two columnists discuss the political wave of the week and, between Dionne's traditionally liberal perspective and Brooks' conservative-leaning views, listeners generally can find something they agree with, including even a compromise.

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A large sign placed in the window of a store in Oakland, Calif. in 1942. The store was closed following orders to persons of Japanese descent to evacuate from certain West Coast areas.

Dorothea Lange/Library of Congress

A large sign placed in the window of a store in Oakland, Calif. in 1942. The store was closed following orders to persons of Japanese descent to evacuate from certain West Coast areas.

Updated 02/14 1:35 p.m. (Click for the latest): More from historian Roger Daniels.

Shortly following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066. In a climate of widespread fear bordering on panic, the order resulted in the incarceration of more than 100,000 people of Japanese descent living on the West Coast. They were uprooted from their homes and isolated in 10 hastily constructed camps, some of them for as long as four years, in what is widely known as the Japanese-American Internment.

Talk of the Nation's Neal Conan hosted a segment last week about Fred Korematsu, a civil rights leader who challenged the executive order at the time. Conan's interview with Korematsu's daughter, Karen, prompted some thoughtful and even evocative replies from listeners, several of whom shared their own personal family stories.

But one listener disliked Conan and Korematsu's use of the phrase "concentration camp" to refer to the sites where people were detained. William Medley from Gallipolis, OH, wrote:

There was a story on a gentleman named Korematsu and his fight against the Japanese internment camps. The story was interesting and I felt a large degree of empathy for the family. It was nice to hear that he was being recognized for his fight against the way the American Japanese were treated.

But then the commentator referred to the Japanese internment camps as "concentration camps." I cannot imagine a more offensive way to portray the situation. To compare the Japanese internment camps to the Nazi or communist concentration camps is beyond offensive to the Jewish community and any reasonably intelligent American. While not Jewish myself, I found it to be terribly offensive. Words have meaning and to diminish the term "concentration camps" is reprehensible.

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Before we begin, a note of warning: the topic we are about to explore may not be suitable for our young listeners.

Heard this before?

These warnings regularly make an appearance on NPR programming as a cue to parents or listeners wary of graphic content that they might want to turn down the dial for a few minutes.

Jennifer Myka, a listener from East Montpelier, VT, wrote to complain about the warning after hearing Morning Edition host Renee Montagne state it before introducing a January 30 story. NPR's Anthony Kuhn reported on a women's group in Malaysia called the Obedient Wives Club that is trying to teach Muslim wives there about sex, including to act like prostitutes, setting off a bit of a furor.

I am writing because I just heard yet another warning to parents about sex in a story. My frustration centers on the fact that, nearly every day, there is a story that includes a bombing, dismemberment, stabbing or shooting. NPR fails to give warnings for any of these stories, yet for reasons that are unclear, there must be a warning for stories involving sex. This is not just a problem with Morning Edition - it is on every program I have listened to. The focus on sex as a subject for which we must protect the tender ears of babes is misguided.

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istockphoto.com

Most of us remember from science class that data, a plural noun, should appear with a plural verb. But in every day usage many of us, myself included, are apt to say "the data is" instead of "the data are."

In an effort to steer us back on track, Robin Taylor, a biology professor and NPR listener from Columbus, OH, offered this request:

I realize that my asking this is probably a lost cause, like asking that all men please go back to wearing hats (or that "pedophile" be pronounce "peed-o-phile" rather than "ped-o-phile," which means lover of feet), but here goes: is there any possibility of NPR treating the word "data" as a plural noun, which it is? The singular is "datum." The form, then, would be "These data are........"

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Bahraini protesters wave their national flag in the village of Sanabis near Manama on Feb. 14, 2011.

Getty Images

Bahraini protesters wave their national flag in the village of Sanabis near Manama on Feb. 14, 2011.

Updated 1/27/2012 6:10 p.m.(Click for the latest): Digital news editor Greg Myre weighs in on Bahrain web headline.

February marks one year since the start of a civil uprising in Bahrain, an island in the Persian Gulf. It was one of many countries to join in the so-called Arab Spring. As part of a recent series on the movement, guest host Linda Wertheimer on Morning Edition introduced a story on Bahrain by correspondent Kelly McEvers by saying: "Only one of the major uprisings has definitely failed, and that's where we'll go next."

In her report, McEvers says, "Bahrain became the one Arab country whose uprising was definitively put down."

Listener Tom Rizzo of Akron, OH, was dismayed:

That declaration is in the past tense, while the uprising in Bahrain is an ongoing event whose conclusion has not yet occurred. In many respects, the 14 February 2011 uprising has been wildly successful in raising the real situation that has prevailed in Bahrain for decades into the world's consciousness. For years and years it was possible to hear no mention of Bahrain in many "mainstream media" outlets in the United States, including NPR.

As a follow-up, Rizzo sent a Tweet noting that the State Department has just issued a travel alert because of potential unrest on the island. "Who's fooling whom?" he asked.

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Yesterday I was invited on air to comment on the state of political journalism for WMRA's Virginia Insight, a call-in show broadcast out of Harrisonburg, VA. Host Tom Graham and a few callers quizzed me on the ethics of political reporting and media bias. Below, you'll find the audio and a few excerpts from my interview.

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A Predator B unmanned aircraft takes off in Arizona. The aircraft patrol the southern border of the United Sates.

Gary Williams/Getty Images

A Predator B unmanned aircraft takes off in Arizona. The aircraft patrol the southern border of the United Sates.

This blog isn't normally the place for a public policy debate, but as privacy is a media issue as much as anything, the letter excerpted below from Harley Geiger from the Center for Democracy & Technology—which advocates for Internet free speech and privacy protection—is worth discussion here. The letter picks up on a recent post of mine on Brian Naylor's NPR story on using drones inside the United States.

Glenn Greenwald of Salon had famously objected to the story. Geiger goes one step further by proposing immediate steps that can be taken to prevent the misuse of by law enforcement and others:

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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (C) walks on the tarmac upon her arrival in Myanmar on Wednesday. Clinton arrived on the first top-level US visit for half a century.

Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (C) walks on the tarmac upon her arrival in Myanmar on Wednesday. Clinton arrived on the first top-level US visit for half a century.

The country many of us knew as Burma, a forgotten backwater for most Americans, is suddenly in play. Long a Chinese acolyte, the military-dominated government last month canceled a huge Chinese-financed dam project, deepened competing military collaboration with India and held a truncated election. This week, it hosted Hillary Rodham Clinton in what was the first visit by a U.S. secretary of state in more than 50 years.

Important news, but here's the rub: What do you call the country?

The U.S. government and many opposition leaders there say it's Burma. A military dictatorship changed the name 23 years ago to Myanmar, which many other nations accept. And the news media has been stuck with marbles in its mouth, divided over equally tongue-tying options: Myanmar "formerly" or "also" known as Burma.

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Gerald "Jerry" Sandusky, center, is placed in a police car in Bellefonte, Pa. on Saturday, Nov. 5.

AP Photo/Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General, Commonwealth Media Services

Gerald "Jerry" Sandusky, center, is placed in a police car in Bellefonte, Pa. on Saturday, Nov. 5.

Like many parents, John De Voy of Redwood, CA, encourages his son to listen to the news. But he didn't appreciate how NPR journalists reported on the Penn State scandal involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. Mr. De Voy wrote:

I've been very disappointed about the number of times I've heard that Penn State coach Sandusky 'raped a boy in the showers.' That's a terrible thing, but it does not have to be stated explicitly over and over again to report the story. My own 10 year old son is learning to watch/read/listen to the news, and that's a good thing. But he does not have to hear about another boy his age being raped. Isn't it more than enough to state that the coach has been accused of 'molesting' boys?

My work often parallels that of other ombudsmen, so I was not surprised that Arthur Brisbane, The New York Times' public editor, was confronted by the same issue. However, in his recent column, "Confusing Sex and Rape," he cited Times readers who had a totally different take from De Voy. They felt that the language in the Times' stories was not explicit enough. They objected to vague phrases like "sexual assault" and "sexual abuse" because they felt it softened the crime and undermined what should be the public's moral outrage. Brisbane agreed that rape should be called rape, which the Times began to do four days into the story.