Alleged Killer?
Jay Starkman has had it with NPR after listening to coverage of Maj. Nidal Hasan, who has been charged with killing 13 people at Ft. Hood on Nov.5.

"I can't take you any more! NPR is so PC, it insists on calling Hasan "alleged" and the name of his unnamed contact abroad is an "alleged" terrorist," wrote Starkman, of Atlanta, GA. "Wake-up! This was a TERRORIST act on U.S. soil, not unlike Timothy McVeigh." [McVeigh was behind the Oklahoma City bombing which killed 168 in 1995.]

Another listener from Louisville, KY wrote: "Is there one shred, scintilla, mote, or nit-sized piece of evidence that Major Hasan did NOT shoot those people? If you have one, please share it. If you don't, please delete the word "allegedly" from your stories about him. If he is found not guilty because he was insane, that still does not mean he was not the killer, obviously."

I understand the frustration because, to listeners, it may seem clear that Hasan is responsible for murdering 13 men and women who have families. But in the United States, since our country's founding, a person is legally considered innocent until proven guilty.

Until Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty, for example, the press referred to him as the alleged mastermind of the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time. Right now, short of a confession or conviction in a court of law (rather than a court of public opinion), Hasan is still considered innocent.

Journalists use the word "allegedly" both to protect the suspect and honor one of the most important underlying premises of our nation's legal system. They also use the word to protect their news organizations.

There are plenty of cases where someone was accused of a crime and it seemed obvious that they did it, and then it turns out they didn't.

Slate has a good explainer on why journalists use allegedly.

Intelligent? Liberal?
This week NPR's audience research posted a "word cloud" online that indicated what terms come up most when listeners were asked to describe NPR and their local public radio stations. Informative, interesting and intelligent came up most. But so did liberal. Fair, objective, balanced and accurate weren't used as often. Take a look.

Annual Reports Updated Online
Some of you have been asking NPR to update its annual reports online. Citing the need for transparency in an organization that has the word "public" in its name, I have been making the same request for almost a year (until recently the latest report posted online was for 2005). And now the latest reports are online. What you will find are a list of sponsors and donors, shown by categories of how much they spent for fiscal years 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Rahm Emanuel is a man whose name bedevils news organizations.

Of course, he is President Obama's two-fisted chief of staff. So, when he's quoted or mentioned on radio, TV, or print, reporters and anchors generally identify him on first reference as Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

But for some reason -- most likely his unusual first name -- news organizations are conflicted on how to identify Emanuel on the second reference. Standard news editorial practice across the board is to give a person's full name on first reference and only the last name on second reference.

But not for Emanuel.

Oddly, several news organizations refer to him on a second reference as "Rahm Emanuel." NPR has just decided to make that a policy after correspondent Nina Totenberg referred to Emanuel three times by his first name only on-air.

Here's what Totenberg said on All Things Considered Nov. 13 in an interview with host Michele Norris about the announcement that White House counsel Gregory Craig was leaving the post. Totenberg first mentioned that Craig's status had been the subject of numerous White House leaks, which she attributed to Rahm Emmanuel (using his full name), then added:

"Was it Rahm not wanting to have another power center? Was it their personalities? Was it Rahm seeing the GITMO stuff as a distraction from the president's agenda? You know, these are very different animals. Rahm is someone who above all else, sees his job as winning. And Greg Craig has some very passionately held views on human rights and foreign policy and there was a conflict."

(Totenberg also never gave Emanuel's title so some listeners may have wondered who 'Rahm' was.)

When I asked her about this seemingly familiar reference to Emanuel, Totenberg said, "In Washington, and elsewhere, Rahm is known as Rahm , not because I know him, which I don't." (Though she says she has met him.)

The use of only Emanuel's first name concerned former reporter and editor, Bill Choyke, who used to cover the Supreme Court years ago with Totenberg.

"Just finished listening to Nina's story on the departure of Gregory Craig, and I was taken aback by her repeated reference to Rahm rather than the last name of the White House chief of staff," wrote Choyke. "Is this accepted referencing by NPR? I could not tell whether it was intended to portray the reporter as an insider or as a sign of disrespect to the chief of staff. Either way, it was not the way that I recall how impartial reporting should be done."

Choyke is right. NPR's senior vice president for news, Ellen Weiss, said it was a mistake -- and not NPR's style -- for Totenberg to refer to Emanuel only by his first name.

"While this is a breach of style rules," said Ron Elving, NPR's Washington editor in an email, "it's understandable that in an unscripted two-way conversation, any reporter would refer to 'Rahm' rather than Emanuel. I realize it sounds chummy and that's why it's not our style (exceptions made for a handful of entertainers and sports figures such as A-Rod or Kareem or Magic).

"But Nina, who is not social friends with Rahm Emanuel, is like anyone -- she uses the name that someone is recognized by," continued Elving. "And no one, absolutely no one, refers to Rahm Emanuel as Emanuel, or Mr. Emanuel, or Chief of Staff Emanuel. Therefore our style for him will have to be Rahm Emanuel, both names on first reference and second reference."

I checked around and with the help of NPR's librarian Janel White, we discovered that Emanuel may be the news business' exception to the rule on second references.

Here's the breakdown on how Emanuel is identified on other news outlets on the second reference:

CNN -- alternates between full name and Mr. Emanuel
Fox News -- full name
MSNBC -- alternates between full name and Mr. Emanuel
NBC -- alternates between full name and Mr. Emanuel
ABC -- Emanuel
CBS -- Emanuel
PBS -- full name
Washington Post -- Emanuel
New York Times -- Mr. Emanuel

If it were up to me, NPR would not have a special rule for Emanuel (he'd just be Emanuel) -- as it does for U.S. presidents.

Almost every day some astute listener's ears perk up when someone from NPR refers to the president on second reference as Mr. Obama. Many call and say that it's disrespectful to use "mister" and that NPR would never have said Mr. Bush on second reference for the previous president.

But in fact, NPR journalists did. It's been NPR's style since the mid 1970s to refer to the president of the United States as President X on the first reference and Mr. X or "the president" on the second reference.

The Office of the Ombudsman has received an influx of emails claiming NPR falsely reported that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has 3 million members in an Oct. 6 story.

But they are not correct.

In an All Things Considered story about Apple Inc. dropping out of the chamber, NPR reported that "The chamber still boasts some 3 million members -- and a powerful checkbook."

Soon after, emails began arriving and are still arriving.

"On Oct 6, NPR repeated the chamber's claim that they have 3 million members," wrote Steve Ozanne from Falcon Heights, MN. "The chamber has now admitted that they only have about 300,000 members. Please make sure in the future that you don't support their inflated claim of a much larger membership than they really have. An update would be nice, pointing out the inflated claim and the actual numbers."

This may be a case of semantics.

The U.S. Chamber says it represents 3 million businesses when it lobbies on Capitol Hill, according to J.P. Fielder, director of media relations.

The chamber counts about 300,000 local, metro and state chambers and trade organizations as direct members, said Fielder.

The emails we received largely were opposed to the Chamber's position against climate change legislation.

The Chamber's stance prompted a few big-name businesses to withdraw their membership. Apple Inc. was one. Because the Chamber spends millions of dollars lobbying on behalf of businesses, Apple Inc. pulling away from this organization is a news story.

NPR should have said the "U.S. Chamber of Commerce represents 3 million businesses." This would have alleviated any concern that either the Chamber or NPR was inflating membership numbers.

-- Caitlin Huey-Burns
Office of the Ombudsman, intern

Interested in hearing what Vivian Schiller, NPR's president and CEO has to say about Dan Schorr, pledge drives, the hard-to-follow public radio system, funding, iPhone apps and more?

Here's a link to an online conversation that Schiller did Tuesday with WashingtonPost.com.

One person asked Schiller about Dan Schorr, who at 93, still does a weekly commentary and appears on Saturday to talk about the week's news with Scott Simon on Weekend Edtion Saturday.

Derwood, Md.: Why do you keep Dan Schorr around? His analysis is reliably faulty, liberally-biased, and mean-spirited (yeah, I guess I'd feel the same way after what Nixon did to me). But still -- he really knocks down any credibility you have of being 'unbiased', especially since he is a part of the news wing, not entertainment.

This is a question I get from time to time from people asking when NPR will have a conservative commentator to balance what they see as liberal commentary from Schorr.

"The only way to answer is that Dan is a news analyst - not a commentator - and that he isn't representative of any one side of the debate," said Ellen Weiss, NPR's senior v.p. for news. "In other words, we don't expect him to naturally side with the left. But rather to take a position based on his reporting. In those cases where we are looking for a conversation or commentary that spans left to right, we bring together people who are happily identified with one side or the other."

An American Jewish Committee study nine years ago revealed that American Jews, for the most part, are undisturbed by mixed marriages.

But the same can't be said for Jews in Israel. A 2007 poll found that more than half of Israeli Jews equate intermarriage with "national treason."

NPR ran a story on Morning Edition last month about a Jewish vigilante group in Israel. It centered on a 31-year-old Jew named "David" (not his real name) who along with others patrolled a deserted parking lot in the settlement of Pisgat Ze'ev near Arab-majority East Jerusalem trying to keep young Jewish women away from Arab men. Freelancer reporter, Sheera Frankel, went along.

Missing from the story, however, was an explanation of the kind of societal racism -- on the part of both Jews and Arabs -- that might have helped listeners better understand what's behind the vigilantism.

Racism is a daily fact of life in Israel, as it is in any multi-ethnic society. The story told a tale of one small aspect of the seemingly eternal conflict between Jews and Arabs. But it failed to put that tale into the broader context of how Jews and Arabs perceive each other, which is a major factor in why the conflict perpetuates.

"The point of the story was to shed light on a group of self-styled vigilantes who were both racists and sexists and who were trying to prevent normal youthful fraternization that crossed racial lines," said foreign editor Loren Jenkins. "The story wasn't racist but it depicted racists -- the settler vigilante groups -- and their racist actions in hunting down bi-racial couples."

But many listeners found the story racist, offensive, one-sided and said that it promoted stereotypes and did little to further understanding of the region.

"The story never addressed the racist reasoning behind the vigilantes' efforts, nor did it attempt to elicit the thoughts and feelings of the young couples being harassed by the vigilantes," said Lynn Hirshman, of Black Hawk, CO. "There definitely needs to be some balance here."

Continue reading "Jewish Vigilante Story Misses the Mark " >

Today is the 30-year birthday of Morning Edition. Yesterday NPR's content management system turned 7. Thought some might find the histories interesting -- that is my sole reason for posting this. ACS

MORNING EDITION HITS 30
This comes from Ellen McDonnell, executive director of news programming. She joined NPR the same year Morning Edition was started. Here's what she wrote:

"30 years ago Morning Edition was born. The earth didn't move. Robert Siegel did 8:30 a.m. from London for our A segment. Robert probably did 8:30 from London every day that first year!!!

Linda Wertheimer did a political preview. Robert Krulwich and Neal Conan helped fill the two hours, which included several weather reports. I started that day as a news writer for Carl Kasell, Jackie Judd, Mary Tillotson, and Pete Williams.

So much has happened to create the program that (M.E. executive producer) Madhulika Sikka brilliantly defines as your daily dose of "wonk and whimsy."

NPR Digital Media's Seamus Turns 7

Seamus ( the nickname for the CMS, or content management system) was born 7 years ago on Nov. 4. "In CMS years, that makes Seamus 560 years old," reports Dan Jacobson, who played a key role in Seamus' development.

Here is Jacobson's quick history of how Seamus came to be:

December 1999
Digital Media (then called NPR NewMedia) was largely a site of static HTML pages. The rundowns and music buttons were the only dynamic parts of the site and they were built using ColdFusion and SQL Server (all on one very taxed machine). This was also the month that I was hired as the first on-staff developer for NPR NewMedia.

June 2000
NPR NewMedia launches NewsEditor, the first very early version of what later becomes Seamus. This system handled news content and was designed to offer a local/national news page for NPR Member stations. NewsEditor was built in ATG Dynamo (Java-based technology) using an Informix database.

March 2002
Due to a series of events, we saw an opportunity to rebuild our two systems into a single, consolidated system. We put together a comprehensive set of documentation, designs, use cases, etc. for what we wanted this new converged CMS to be. This included some editors (some of whom are still in the department today). From this documentation, a small (very small) team of developers spent the next six months developing the CMS. The technologies of this first release included ATG Dynamo/Java, a lot of JavaScript and CSS and an Oracle database.

November 4, 2002
After a long 6-month development cycle, exactly seven years ago Nov. 4, this CMS launched and became the cornerstone of NPR NewMedia. Sure, there were a few hickups and stripped stories after the initial launch, but things stabilized relatively quickly and our new converged system was underway. This became the first real version of what would later be called Seamus. At this time, however, the new CMS was accurately called "CMS".

After this historic launch, we have extended Seamus to include things like Podcasts, the API, topics, personality bios, a full music site, a range of audio formats, station content, AP feeds, and more. We have also completely gutted the entire system more than once.

Today, Seamus is now built in Java/JSP with a MySQL database a far cry from the proprietary technologies from 2002. Surprisingly, we are still using some of the same JavaScript and CSS code from the initial launch - code that was largely built by me and Michael Yoch.

It wasn't until 2006 that I initiated a department-wide contest for the renaming of our CMS. We received dozens of submissions from the entire NPR Online staff (that is what it was called at the time). Of those submissions, the tech team voted on the names and boiled it down to two finalists. The winning entry (Seamus, obviously), submitted by our own Stephanie Oura, narrowly beat out "Cosmos", submitted by Todd Holzman, by a single vote.

As Ombudsman, one of my roles is to appear on local public radio stations, especially when listeners can call in with questions about NPR's journalism. Recently, I learned first-hand how easily it is to be misinterpreted.

I appeared on WAMU's The Kojo Nnamdi Show in Washington, DC on Oct. 20. Thirty minutes later I got this response:

"I was outraged by your comment today on the Kojo Nnamdi program that NPR should have more people like Glenn Beck who represent a certain point of view not heard on NPR," wrote Stefanie Weldon, of Silver Spring, MD. "The reason he isn't heard on NPR is because, like Holocaust deniers, flat-earthers and Creation Science proponents, NPR used to understand that not all points of view deserve airing. You apparently disagree and think racism, sexism and mendacity have a place at NPR. Until you convince me otherwise, not one penny of my money will go to pay your salary -- I guess that means not one penny of my money will go to NPR."

Usually I am the one examining those on air, and now I know how it feels to be on the other side of the mic, where it is perceived that I did something wrong.

First I want to explain that when listeners donate, the money goes to your public radio station -- and not directly to NPR. The donations are used in a variety of ways -- including but not solely --to pay for NPR content. So I hope that Weldon will continue to donate to WAMU.

After sending her an email, I went back and listened to the broadcast.

"When Glenn Beck is on NPR, I can be assured there will be a lot of emails," I said on WAMU. "I feel like, 'Hey you should hear what Glenn Beck has to say. Like it or not, he's influential.' "

That quote does not indicate that I think Beck should be on NPR every day, nor do I think that sexism, racism or lying have a place on NPR. But if Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs, Sarah Palin or any other prominent conservative firebrand is making headlines, NPR should report that as part of the news -- not to promote them but to include when putting news in context.

The same goes for prominent liberals such as MSNBC's Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow.

NPR media reporter David Folkenflik referenced Beck in an Oct. 14 report on All Things Considered on the Obama administration taking on Fox News. Folkenflik did not quote Beck. But he did explain a Beck-event that angered the White House:

"For example, Fox's Glenn Beck last month described Cass Sunstein, a Harvard law professor and head of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, as 'a man that believes that you should not be able to remove rats from your home if it causes them any pain.'

Sunstein's allies say his beliefs are a bit more nuanced than that. But Republicans were making related claims, and the next hour, Fox News aired a story by James Rosen in which the reporter told viewers: 'Rats could attack us in the sewer and court systems if all of Cass Sunstein's writings became law.'"

I've said it before, and I will reiterate it. NPR is a mainstream news outlet. Its duty is to inform the public of all that is going on -- and that means airing voices and stories that many listeners might not like or agree with.

If Beck or any other prominent commentator, from either the right or the left, is making news and seriously influencing the political process, then their actions should be reported on NPR. That doesn't mean I think someone like Beck should replace David Brooks as the conservative voice on Friday's news roundup.

But listeners deserve exposure to all sorts of voices discussing a wide range of perspectives on NPR -- not just those that are palatable to them.

Ironically, Beck is discussed more on NPR than heard from. The last time NPR listeners actually heard his voice was March 23, on All Things Considered.

The National Association of Black Journalists is questioning NPR's commitment to diversity after NPR let go one of only two African American males in newsroom management.

Greg Peppers, the executive producer for NPR's newscast unit -- which has the largest NPR audience -- left his position on Oct. 16 after joining NPR in the 1980s. That unit puts out 37 newscasts a day, seven days a week. News reports say Peppers was fired, but NPR's policy is not to release information on personnel matters.

The same week, NPR announced the retirement of Walt Swanston, an African-American woman, who has been NPR's director of diversity since 2003. While it looked conspiratorial, it wasn't. She is retiring for health reasons.

In reaction to Pepper's leaving, NABJ president Kathy Y. Times wrote that her organization "is saddened to learn that National Public Radio has fired one of its few remaining black managers."

According to NABJ's figures, of the 68 people on NPR's corporate team, only eight -- or 12 percent -- are people of color. Four African Americans. Two Hispanic Americans. One Iranian American. One of South Asian descent. (NPR says those figures are incorrect but acknowledges there is a problem.)

"It is NABJ's belief that actions speak much louder than your words," said the NABJ letter on Tuesday. "It is not enough to provide internships for young people or hire them into entry-level positions. Diversity must also be reflected among the managers who decide what news gets covered and who gets to cover it."

NPR's President and CEO Vivian Schiller reacted Thursday by publicly releasing NPR's staff composition for the first time. Of the 34 people NPR identifies as executive and upper management, only 4 -- or 11.8 percent -- are people of color, according to NPR figures.

"I couldn't agree more that NPR must increase the diversity of its staff -- particularly in management and editorial," wrote Schiller in response to NABJ's letter. "I am on the record with the media and our employees, stations and board in acknowledging that NPR must take a leadership position in diversity, just as we do in high-quality journalism and digital innovation." (NPR's Diversity Policy.)

Out of 754 employees, NPR has 506 management, editorial, production and on-air positions. Of these, 114 -- or 22.5 percent -- are staff who self-identify as people of color, according to Schiller's response. More than 22 percent of the 58 programming managers are people of color.

NABJ noted that the minority population in the U.S. is about 32 percent.

At NPR, 27.3 percent of the 754-person staff are people of color, according to Schiller's letter, which might seem to nearly mirror the U.S. population. But NPR's figures also show what most staffers at NPR already know -- the highest percentages of people of color are in clerical (64.2) and administrative (30.9). Here's the chart.

Out of 32 million people listening to public radio -- not just NPR -- on 800 stations, 12 percent are African Americans and 10 percent are Hispanics, according to Arbitron for spring 2009. [These are corrected figures as of 12:15 p.m. 10-30-2009]

For NPR's flagship programs -- Morning Edition and All Things Considered -- the listenership is lower. Five percent of the audience listening to those shows is African American and 4 percent of the audience is Hispanic, according to NPR-provided data (That compares with an audience share of 18 percent African American and 25 percent Hispanic for all of radio).

NPR needs to do better in diversifying its staff, especially in management. Another concern not addressed by NABJ or Schiller is that the only on-air African American male is Juan Williams, who is not a staff employee. Over a year ago, NPR's management put him on contract as a news analyst.

The lack of diversity within NPR's management was apparent to me when I first joined NPR in October 2007. Since then, there have been diversity meetings, committees, surveys, and they all conclude the same thing: NPR must focus on diversifying its staff, especially if NPR wants to better reflect the population and continue to expand its audience.

Schiller recently put together yet another new committee to explore how to better diversify the staff. She joined NPR only 10 months ago, and I hope she has more success.

A news product that doesn't accurately reflect the changing demographics -- including ethnicity, age, socioeconomics, gender, sexual identity and politics -- of the country loses its relevance.

Continue reading "NPR and Diversity-- NABJ Says NPR Must Do Better" >

Live radio is tricky. Some times reporters talking 'live' say things they instantly regret.

Just ask NPR political editor Ken Rudin, who appears on the Political Junkie segment every Wednesday on Talk of the Nation. He said something this week that resulted in a flood of instant criticism.

Rudin told listeners he thinks the Obama administration is unwise to take on Fox News. The administration has gone to war against the network calling it a mouthpiece for the Republican Party.

Rudin compared the administration's boycott with Fox to President Richard Nixon's enemies list. During the Watergate scandal, the Nixon administration compiled a list of enemies. Its official purpose was to "screw" Nixon's political enemies. Notably NPR's Dan Schorr was on it.

Here's what Rudin said:

"Well, it's not only aggressive, it's almost Nixonesque. I mean, you think of what Nixon and Agnew did with their enemies list and their attacks on the media; certainly Vice President Agnew's constant denunciation of the media. Of course, then it was a conservative president denouncing a liberal media, and of course, a lot of good liberals said, 'Oh, that's ridiculous. That's an infringement on the freedom of press.' And now you see a lot of liberals almost kind of applauding what the White House is doing to Fox News, which I think is distressing."

Thursday, Rudin apologized, admitting he'd made a "boneheaded mistake."

"Comparing the tactics of the Nixon administration --which bugged and intimidated and harassed journalists -- to that of the Obama administration was foolish, facile, ridiculous and, ultimately embarrassing to me," wrote Rudin. "I should have known better and, in fact, I do know better. I was around during the Nixon years. I am fully cognizant of what they did and attempted to do."

As he noted in his apology, what the Obama administration is doing is a "far cry from illegal and unconstitutional activities."

While it was a dumb thing to say, I applaud Rudin for quickly apologizing. Journalists are going to make mistakes -- not intentionally but they will happen. Acknowledging them goes a long way to maintaining credibility.

Juan Ensalada of Denver was critical of NPR's natural gas series that ran on Morning Edition in late September; he was one of many listeners who considered it favorable to the natural gas industry. (See my piece evaluating the series.)

But when he looked at a related story on NPR's web site, he was downright suspicious.

What bothered him was a banner ad for America's Natural Gas Alliance placed at the top of the page, next to stories in the natural gas series.

ANGA bills itself as an education organization representing leading independent natural gas companies. It is currently involved in a major new advertising campaign in big-city newspapers and on TV and radio, including NPR, promoting natural gas as a "clean" energy source.

"Clearly this looks like a MAJOR conflict of interest -- that NPR took underwriting money to influence journalism," wrote Ensalada. Many others questioned the ad placement.

Ensalada is correct about one thing: It didn't look good to have the sponsorship banner on the same web page as the series.

But despite his skepticism about NPR's motives, there was no "pay for play" here.

ANGA began a sponsorship campaign on NPR's website on Sept. 17 to run through Dec. 31. It is online only, meaning that no sponsorship messages appear on NPR-produced radio programs. (If you hear ANGA ads on air, it may be because a non-NPR program or a local public radio station is running the spots independently of NPR.)

The sponsorship message was vetted to make sure it fit NPR's standards for corporate underwriting and was approved, according to John King, in corporate underwriting.

"The sponsorship deal was negotiated months before the series ran and was scheduled to appear periodically on our business pages," said Kinsey Wilson, Senior Vice President and General Manager, NPR Digital Media. "There is no relationship between editorial decision-making and corporate underwriting."

Tom Gjelten and Peter Overby, the two reporters on the natural gas series, said they were unaware of the ANGA sponsorship while they were reporting their stories. "I'd also say it's no surprise they would do this," Overby said. "Corporations and interest groups often use NPR funding credits to buff up their images."

It also may be worth pointing out that sponsors are not able to sponsor individual stories. They just sponsor topic areas or program areas, or in special cases, provide support for long-term projects like NPR's Planet Money or StoryCorps.

NPR, and other legitimate news organizations, insist there is a "firewall" between the editorial and business/advertising departments.

This is how a firewall works: NPR's corporate underwriting team sells, in this case, banners that appear on the web in broad topic areas, and guarantees the purchaser a set number of "impressions," i.e. someone viewing a web page will see the banner. (If a banner is sold for NPR's homepage, NPR can guarantee about 750,000 page views per day. The number is much smaller for most individual pages inside the NPR web site.)

People in NPR's news department are not involved, directly or indirectly, in the sale or placement of messages on the radio or the web site.

"Our ad server [a computer] makes the second-to-second decisions on what banner to show on a given page view," said Bryan Moffett, Director of Digital Sponsorship Operations. "It's more complex than a simple rotation. But it's fair to say ads rotate. It's also important to remember that at any given time, hundreds of people are on our site looking at content. So what you see may not be what others see, as the ad server is making these decisions every second."

After I saw the ad periodically on the natural gas series site, I brought it to NPR's attention. Even if there were no direct cause and effect (i.e. ANGA bought ads and NPR decided to do the series, which is not the case), a viewer could reasonably perceive a conflict-of-interest.

The ad was hand-pulled from appearing on the series as of Oct. 8 at 11:35 a.m.

"Editors don't have the visibility into which ads are running where and when," explained Wilson. "And sponsorship doesn't know in advance that stories are going to be published. That's part of the church/state separation [the firewall]. Add to that the volume of ads and stories coursing through the site and I think you can appreciate how difficult it is to catch such a juxtaposition in advance."

In some cases, such as during elections, Wilson said, NPR can intentionally position or exclude sponsor messages. NPR would not, for instance, let a political campaign try to buy all the possible banner ads on the politics pages.

"But it's not practical in every instance" to monitor the ads and content, said Wilson. "So, in the spirit of the web, we also rely on the audience to help us identify these issues, as they did in this case."

This incident demonstrates two lessons for NPR. One is that, in this era of polarized politics and public skepticism about the news media, some in NPR's audience are quick to perceive, and accuse NPR of, a conflict of interest.

A second lesson, related to the first, is that NPR needs to work harder to protect its reputation by avoiding actions that could reinforce perceptions that access to its news gathering is for sale.

In this case, NPR had every right to accept underwriting ads from the natural gas industry, as long as they met the criteria. It is a fact of life that underwriting is now a important source of income for NPR.

However, NPR could have -- and should have -- made sure beforehand that underwriting ads for the natural gas industry did not appear on the same web pages as those carrying stories in the natural gas series.