We wanted to share the following note from Michele Norris, which she sent to our staff and stations today. Listen for Michele's personal message this afternoon on All Things Considered.

Hello everyone,

I need to share some news and I wanted to make sure my NPR family heard this first.

Last week, I told news management that my husband, Broderick Johnson, has just accepted a senior advisor 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.

Given the nature of Broderick's position with the campaign and the impact that it will most certainly have on our family life, I will temporarily step away from my hosting duties until after the 2012 elections.

I will be leaving the host chair at the end of this week, but I'm not going far. I will be wearing a different hat for a while, producing signature segments and features and working on new reporting projects. While I will of course recuse myself from all election coverage, there's still an awful lot of ground that I can till in this interim role.

This has all happened very quickly, but working closely with NPR management, we've been able to make a plan that serves the show, honors the integrity of our news organization and is best for me professionally and personally.

I will certainly miss hosting, but I will remain part of the ATC team and I look forward to contributing to our show and NPR in new and exciting ways.

My very best,

Michele

Various media reports in the last two days have revealed that Lisa Simeone is serving as a spokesperson and activist with Occupy DC. There have been some inaccuracies in the reporting that we'd like to correct.

It has been reported that NPR had a role in the decision made by the management of the public radio program Soundprint to end its relationship with Lisa Simeone as the program's host. This is not true. Soundprint is an independent public radio program that is not produced by NPR. NPR had no contact with the management of the program prior to their decision. We learned about it after the fact, through media reports.

Other than Lisa's role as host, Soundprint and WDAV's World of Opera are completely unrelated. As we indicated last night, we are in conversation with WDAV about this matter. We fully respect that the management of WDAV is solely responsible for the decision making around Lisa's participation in Occupy DC and her freelance role with WDAV's program.

Sesame Workshop

By Dave Edwards, Chair of the Board, NPR Board of Directors

After a rigorous national search, I'm pleased to announce that we have secured a veteran public media CEO with a successful record of leadership, innovation and public service as NPR's next President and CEO. Gary Knell has devoted the past 20 years to growing his organization, Sesame Workshop, into a dynamic, international enterprise that uses the power of media to help millions of children worldwide reach their highest potential. He begins work at NPR on December 1.

I know I speak for the entire NPR Board when I say that we have found exactly the right leader for NPR. A longtime public radio listener, Gary brings three decades of experience as a mission-focused media executive to NPR. Since taking over as CEO of Sesame Workshop in 2000, he elevated the organization's public profile, growing its programming, revenue and public support. He championed a powerful multimedia strategy to improve the lives of children, families and communities. He brought solid leadership decision-making to the internal operations of the company that stands behind one of the most successful, beloved and recognized brands in television.

With his success navigating a non-commercial organization through an increasingly challenging and complex media environment, Gary's leadership will be a huge asset as NPR and our Member stations seek to become even more essential on every platform of communication.

Though it might not be immediately obvious, Sesame Workshop and NPR have much in common – outstanding, relevant programming and content that increases understanding among people – produced by talented people who are motivated by a dedication to excellence and mission. We look forward to building a bright future under Gary's leadership.

Update at 5:10 pm ET, October 3: For more on Gary, listen to David Folkenflik's interview on Sunday's Weekend All Things Considered and Monday's reports on Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

Monday's story on Morning Edition concerning conversion therapy prompted a swift and enormous reaction. Thousands of people tweeted, posted their views on Facebook and otherwise expressed their opinions about the story, most of them critical.

Thursday evening, NPR's independent Ombudsman published a thoughtful review of the story's merits and shortcomings, and our Acting SVP of News shared this statement:

The issue of conversion therapy, and the experience of those who undergo it, is newsworthy and we stand by our decision to report this story. As journalists, it is our job to feature the experiences of people all across the spectrum—political, religious, and sexual — and to allow their experiences and views to be fully enough shared so that they can be understood. We don't want to shy away from stories like this one that are controversial.

Nonetheless, we could have done a better job on this story. Though we stated at the end of the piece that conversion therapy harms gay people and people who find it beneficial are very rare, we should have addressed those questions earlier and in greater detail so that listeners could hear the stories of Rich Wyler and Peterson Toscano with that context in mind.

We also unintentionally left the impression with some listeners that the establishment psychological community only began to discount conversion therapy in the last few years. Though some therapists disagree with that mainstream view, it has been widely held for many years.

Finally, we should have mentioned in the story that both of the men profiled - in the wake of their therapy - organized their professional lives around their respective experiences and profit from their activities.

Margaret Low Smith
Acting SVP of News

The following letter to the editor was submitted to Politico for consideration for publication (update: the letter was posted at Politico on July 26):

In a recent Politico piece, "Juan Williams on NPR" (July 21, 2011), the former NPR contract journalist mischaracterized our news organization and called into question our journalistic standards.

NPR is a newsgathering organization devoted to in-depth reporting and exceptional storytelling. NPR is fair and open-minded about the issues, stories and people we cover. We have no agenda. Editorial decisions are made independently in the newsroom, and are never influenced by funders or donors. Dialogue is at the core of our programming and our mission to promote a deeper understanding of our world. According to a 2010 Pew survey, NPR was the only news organization in the country whose credibility ratings have increased consistently since 1998. Our programming and our journalists have earned every major journalism award. Our correspondents operate from 17 foreign news bureaus and 16 domestic, while many other media organizations are slashing their newsrooms. All of our content is free and accessible everywhere in the U.S. For all these reasons and more, our digital audience doubled in the past two years, and 27 million people and counting tune into our broadcast programming on NPR member stations every week.

We stay on the story when others have moved on. We cover what commercial media tends to ignore. Our member stations are over 900 strong – they are rural and urban, East Coast, West Coast and everywhere in between. They bring listeners important news from their own community, the nation and the world – as well as music not available on commercial radio. They are there to keep people informed during emergencies.

We believe that NPR and our member stations are an antidote to many of the problems our nation is having with public discourse. We provide fact-based perspectives and civil debate, not just in Washington but all over the country. We represent ideological diversity and encourage discussion. Our reporting reflects these values every single day – in the civility of our programming, the range of opinions we reflect, the professionalism of the people who produce this work, and the breadth and depth of stories we tell.

What we broadcast and publish at NPR is the work of journalists who go out and learn the facts, and challenge them and each other. Their work is systematically and repeatedly vetted by a team of skilled editors and producers.

We are proud of our programming, our reporters and our ideals. We stand by our work and will continue to work with our stations to produce and present world-class journalism that serves the public.

Dana Davis Rehm
SVP, Marketing, Communications and External Relations

November 18, 2010; Washington, D.C. – Today, good judgment prevailed as Congress rejected a move to assert government control over the content of news.

The proposal to prohibit public radio stations from using CPB grants to purchase NPR programming is an unwarranted attempt to interject federal authority into local station program decision-making. Furthermore, restrictions on the authority of CPB – a Congressionally chartered, independent non-profit organization – to make competitive grants to NPR, or any other public broadcasting entity, is misguided.

For more than forty years, the federal government has provided financial support for public broadcasting – to serve the public interest with essential educational, news and cultural programming that commercial interests neglect.

America's independent, locally governed and managed public radio stations have always had the freedom to make programming decisions based on the needs of their audience and local community. The separation between funding and funders and content decisions is a widely respected, long held and fundamental standard of a free press.

In an increasingly fractious media environment, public radio's value in fostering an informed society has never been more critical. Our growing audience shows that we are meeting that need. It is imperative for federal funding to continue to ensure that this essential tool of democracy remains available to all Americans and thrives well into the future.

Many have offered their perspectives on our recent decision regarding Juan Williams and the way we handled it. Thanks for coming to our blog to hear from us directly.

Last week we ended Juan Williams' contract based on unique circumstances. As we've said in other venues, his comments on Fox News on October 18 were the latest in a series of deeply troubling incidents over several years. In each of those instances, the episode was discussed with him. He was asked to respect NPR's standards and to avoid expressing strong personal opinions on controversial subjects in public settings, as that is inconsistent with his role as an NPR news analyst. After this latest incident, we felt compelled to act. Reasonable people can and do disagree about the timing: whether we should have ended our relationship with Juan earlier, on the occasion of other incidents; or whether this final episode warranted immediate termination of his contract.

We deeply regret how we handled the process that followed our decision — including not meeting with Juan Williams in person. NPR President and CEO Vivian Schiller has taken personal responsibility for the way this was handled, and we've apologized for our mistakes. We're reviewing what happened, and we will learn from it.

In recent days, we've been asked how NPR and our stations are funded. There's a lot of misinformation in the media and blogosphere about how and where we get our support.

1. Dues and programming fees from our member stations, corporate sponsorship, and grants/gifts are NPR's primary sources of revenue.

2. NPR, Inc. has received no direct operating support from the federal government since 1983, though about 2% of our annual budget typically comes from competitive grants that are federally funded.

3. Federal funding is critical to public radio as a whole. NPR stations receive federal funding via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), and public radio as you know it today will not be possible if that is cut. A reduction or elimination of federal funding for public broadcasting will hurt individual public radio stations.

You can find a detailed overview of how (and where) NPR and our stations get our funding in our "About" section: http://www.npr.org/about/aboutnpr/

In the meantime, thanks for taking the time to read this post.

On Wednesday night we gave Juan Williams notice that we are terminating his contract as a Senior News Analyst for NPR News.

Juan has been a valuable contributor to NPR and public radio for many years and we did not make this decision lightly or without regret. However, his remarks on The O'Reilly Factor this past Monday were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.

We regret these circumstances and thank Juan Williams for his many years of service to NPR and public radio.

The answer is they can – if they are assigned to cover the events.

But news staff and others covered by NPR's ethics policy should not go.

We've received enormous attention from media of all kinds today about our communication to NPR staff on this question. More press than our coverage of the war in Afghanistan or our investigation of the military's treatment of those suffering from mild traumatic brain injury.

Some people are asking why staff shouldn't attend, since these events are just good fun? How serious could rallies led by comedians be? They are asking whether we sent a similar memo to staff about the Beck's Restoring Honor rally or any other recent rallies on the mall in Washington, D.C., such as the One Nation rally.

We didn't get questions from staff about the Restoring Honor and One Nation rallies, because it was obvious to everyone that these were overtly political events. It's different with the Colbert and Stewart rallies; they are ambiguous. But their rallies will be perceived as political by many, whatever we think. As such, they are off limits except for those covering the events.

For our part, we're curious about what other news organizations – The New York Times, CBS, ABC, NBC and The Washington Post – are thinking about whether their own ethics policies are consistent with their staffs' attendance at these events. If we find out, we'll post it here.

Below are the internal memos that sparked all the attention. Let us know what you think about our decision.