A listener was offended by a Fresh Air program in which host Terry Gross interviewed actor Idris Elba. There were repeated warnings that the interview would contain objectionable language.

"I listened to the interview and was shocked that most profanity was bleeped out during the interview with the exception of the word 'nigger.' Why was an exception made for such a controversial word?" wrote John Davis. "To make matters worse, during the interview Terry Gross asked Idris Elba what he felt about the use of the word, he explained that he felt it wasn't appropriate and the word -- still -- wasn't bleeped out during the program."

Davis added: "The word 'nigger' did not play an essential role in the Terry Gross interview. Please consider whether it is worthwhile to offend your listening audience for a non-essential aspect of a program. Bleeping out a word will maintain context so that semantics is not lost on the listener. Hence, most listeners will receive an authentic experience (to the extent possible) while the chance of offending listeners will be minimized."

Dear Mr. Davis:
First, it's important to point out that WHYY in Philadelphia produces Fresh Air and has complete editorial control over that show. NPR's role is to distribute Fresh Air, which must agree to follow NPR's ethical guidelines.

That said, I wondered how NPR might treat the use of the word 'nigger' on any of the NPR-produced news shows -- All Things Considered, Morning Edition, the Saturday and Sunday Weekend Editions, Talk of the Nation and Tell Me More.

I asked Ellen Weiss, the senior vice president for news, and this is her response:

"In this case, the word is part of a scene from The Wire that was played during the interview -- and Terry gave a warning -- which is often how we treat the same situation. We don't ban the word, but we recognize that it is charged language and we handle it in different ways depending on the context:

1. Sometimes we send a notice to stations ahead of time to let them know the word is airing and where.
2. The host always gives a verbal warning.
3. If we feel it is being used in a highly derogatory or offensive way, we may beep it.
Again, we handle it as appropriate."

Ombudsman:
I understand that you thought airing the word was offensive, and I respect that. But I think in this case, it was appropriate for Terry Gross to ask Idris Elba, who is black, to discuss how he felt about this particular racially charged word. It fit within the context of their conversation and I don't feel it needed to be bleeped out.
END

Continue reading "Using the 'N' Word" >

Each time the Taliban commander cracks a leather strap against the forcibly restrained Pakistani girl, she lets out another blood-chilling wail.

The flogging occurs more than 30 times, according to a YouTube video.

It is excruciating to see and hear, and some NPR listeners objected strongly when Morning Edition did a story on April 7 that aired the anguished screams of a teenager whose alleged crime was appearing in public with a man who was not her husband.

"This is the kind of gratuitous exploitation of someone's personal terror and helplessness that I would expect from those less concerned with the story than with the ratings," emailed Lael Isola. "Thanks for that bit of horror that will stay in my mind today."

Another listener was equally offended.

"It was completely unnecessary to air the footage of that poor girl's screams," wrote Christina Brown. "Worse still was the plug that they were about to be heard. I am sure the full story of her beating was terrible but I was no longer listening. I was disappointed to see NPR stoop to such sensational journalism tactics."

The young Pakistani was said to be 17. NPR correspondent Philip Reeves' piece explored the video's impact in Pakistan's Swat Valley, where the local government was working on a peace accord with the Taliban (that accord was ratified after the piece aired.) Some Swat residents feel their leaders should have nothing to do with the Taliban; others want their government to make peace with them.

Either way, many in Pakistan were appalled by the video.

"The video of the girl's flogging angered and disgusted many Pakistanis, particularly women," Reeves told me in an email. "There have been many, many unfilmed incidents from Swat of atrocities by the Taliban, including beheadings. But this incident drove home the brutality of the Taliban's vigilante in a manner that others did not. It made a huge impact at a crucial time when the country and the international community are debating whether Pakistani authorities should be making peace with the Taliban, or attempting to eradicate them with force."

Could Reeves' piece have been as effective without the audio of her screams?

I think not. To my mind, the screams define the word flogging in a way that saying or printing the word never could. They create an authentic, intimate experience of what a flogging might actually be like. One winces each time the strap smacks across the young girl's body -- even though she is fully clothed.

The use of the screams in the piece does what good journalism should do: Put the listener there. Her wailing makes the listener see and feel something that, most Americans, thankfully, will never experience.

"That may be painful to the listener, but this is a story with significant implications," said Bob Steele, a DePauw University journalism professor. "The story was produced in a thoughtful way. They used enough of the natural sounds of the woman being flogged to capture the moment, but they didn't overuse it."

Steele also pointed out that the video was made public in Pakistan, and had a huge impact on Pakistanis, particularly those living in the Swat Valley. Because the United States is so intensely involved in Pakistani affairs, American listeners needed to hear it -- not just hear about it.

NPR's goal was not to be sensationalistic, as some charged. The audience hears only the final product -- and isn't privy to the discussion beforehand. Reeves and his U.S. editor did not reflexively add the audio for the shock factor. There was deliberation behind the decision.

"I did indeed put a lot of thought into whether the video might upset people," said Reeves, who is normally based in New Delhi. "I also thought about it in the context of other 'difficult' audio that we often gather in areas of conflict, such as the terrible weeping of relatives who have lost loved ones in a suicide bombing. I have many times used that kind of audio before --with restraint -- and have never received a complaint, even though the pain it conveys, and the crime it describes, is immeasurably greater."

Reeves thinks many women living in Swat would be upset with NPR if it didn't run the video.

The other complaint was that NPR should have given listeners a stronger warning about the cruelty they were about to hear. They wanted NPR to say: "Warning. You are about to hear an actual flogging."

But Morning Edition substitute host Ari Shapiro did warn listeners when he began the 4 1/2-minute piece with: "In Pakistan, a brutal beating caught on video has ignited a ferocious debate. The Taliban flogged a teenage girl. You will hear the footage in a moment."

I always advocate in favor of warnings with enough time to prepare listeners where warranted. In this case, while the warning could have been more explicit, it did alert the listeners that something unsettling was about to be aired.

My issue with the piece was that Reeves talked over the screaming, using parts of it as background sound. The audio was much too powerful, and needed to be heard by itself.

"In any radio story it's always good to have a 'nat' sound," said Nafisa Safarova, a radio reporter from Uzbekistan who I asked to listen to the piece. "In this case, the reporter could use a shorter bite. It fits the opening, but there was no need in fading and bringing the sound up again. Because it's not Beethoven to play and keep the music under your narration. It's a screaming child. You describe the flogging, give a brief 'nat' sound and go to the next graph."

Reeves said that time was a factor in his decision to narrate over the screams.

"I was eager to ensure that I had space to convey a key point -- which other reports had overlooked -- that a fair number of Pakistanis were horrified by the video but still want peace-making to continue in Swat," said Reeves. "So I opted to post the sound and track (the script) over it. I actually thought I was being restrained by keeping the section on the video fairly brief, and not making further use of the sound later in the piece."

What makes NPR's storytelling so powerful and compelling is the adroit use of sound. In this case, the story would have been much weaker -- and less effective -- without the screams.

END

Listening to public radio station WFAE in Charlotte, N.C., Gerry McGreevy was dismayed when he heard an NPR story about banks, followed by an underwriting credit from Charlotte-based Bank of America.

He accused NPR of violating its own ethics code and damaging its credibility.

On March 30, All Things Considered ran a story "Under Scrutiny Banks Avoid Sports Deals." It discussed how the nation's largest banks also spend lavishly on sports marketing. But with the bailouts, they are considering walking away from potential moneymaking deals.

The NPR story primarily focused on Bank of America which spent an estimated $44 million to advertise during televised sporting events --more than any other bank last year, according to Nielsen research. In the piece, the bank defended the practice.

"For every dollar we spend on sports marketing, we get 10 dollars back in revenue and three dollars in earnings." said BofA CEO Ken Lewis. "This is not wasted money, it's money that drives business results."

This piece was followed by a WFAE funding credit promoting Bank of America. It is easy to understand why McGreevy thought this looked bad.

"Nowhere in the introduction, or elsewhere in the story did I hear the all important disclaimer that Bank of America (specifically mentioned in the piece) was a sponsor of NPR programming," wrote McGreevy. "The fact that you reported the story, and the facts presented therein are all okay with me, but the piece seemed more like a PR piece, aiming to alleviate public outrage for tax payer monies being spent on corporate sponsorships for non-essential, often lavish and elitist marketing/sporting events.

"The fact the NPR neglected to acknowledge that many of the subjects of the story were also benefactors, violates the very policy NPR touted as proof of its journalistic integrity. I am ashamed and angered by this neglect. Shame on you NPR."

I looked into this situation, and here is my response:

Dear Mr. McGreevy,
NPR did not in this case violate its code. What happened is you wandered into the complicated land of public radio. Let me explain.

Public radio -- both nationally and locally -- depends on corporate underwriting to help support its budget (in addition to listener support and federal grants.) WFAE solicits underwriting credits from local sponors, such as Bank of America, to support it. NPR -- completely separately from WFAE -- also solicits corporate underwriting to help fund its $160 million annual operating budget.

The 15-second Bank of America funding credit you heard was aired by WFAE. Bank of America is not an NPR underwriter.

So what happened is that an NPR-produced story bumped up against a locally produced funding credit slated to run on WFAE from March 23 to April 24. There's no way this was avoidable.

"We don't coordinate funding credits with NPR because I don't know what the program rundown for ATC is going to be," said P.K. Donson, who handles underwriting credits for WFAE. "So I can't coordinate my local credits with national programs. That would be really difficult."

I agree with you that it looks bad, and that perceptions can undermine credibility. But in this case, it was an unfortunate coincidence.

Some visitors to NPR's website have noticed their posted comments have disappeared-- an absence they believe reveals volumes about the organization's editorial policy.

"Your 'moderators' have again censored my freedom of speech, using glaring double standards," write ones regular NPR.org user. "(They) are clearly crossing the lines between moderating and censoring a particular poster."

Yet often it's the posters who are in violation of ethical standards- not the moderators.

When creating an NPR community account, users are encouraged to read discussion guidelines which specifically state that NPR reserves the right to remove offensive comments, such as personal attacks. While technical glitches can sometimes be blamed for making comments disappear, most blog posts are removed because they violate those guidelines.

Comments can also be taken down as a result of complaints from other NPR.org users, who file abuse reports when they feel a post is inappropriate. If the digital team receives three reports for the same comment, the post is automatically removed and reviewed internally for adherence to the guidelines.

"Usually this happens because a user has posted something particularly offensive and the community has reacted to it appropriately," says Andy Carvin, NPR's 'social media swami.' "Sometimes, though, people will file abuse reports simply because they disagree with someone else, so we end up returning these comments to public view."

When a post is taken off the site, it is replaced by a removal notice. Users have the option to appeal to NPR if they feel they are unfairly censored, and comments can be re-posted after a moderator's evaluation.

To date, NPR.org hosts 82,000 members. Yet according to Carvin, only 1-2 percent of the roughly 1,500 posts-per-day are deleted. That includes observations which are removed if they are irrelevant or stray from a particular news story page.

Nevertheless, we do not live in an ideal world without machine failures, software glitches or Internet hang-ups. So the second culprit for disappearing comments is technical error, which sometimes causes posts to vanish and later reappear. Carvin says these instances are software bugs and developers are working to correct them.


Still have questions? You can read NPR's community FAQ page to find out more.

Chantal de la Rionda
Office of the Ombudsman

It is always awkward for any news organization when it comes to covering good news about itself.

NPR faced that situation last week when it announced on All Things Considered that its audience had grown to a record 21 million listeners per week -- a healthy 9 percent increase over the previous year.

Reporter Tovia Smith tempered the positive news with the bad. Increased listenership isn't translating into increased revenues.

"NPR says funding is down from most of its major sources, including corporate underwriters, foundations and the network's own investments," said Smith.

Then she added more bad news for the network. "NPR recently laid off 7 percent of its staff and cut two daily news shows," said Smith. "Now, with an $8 million budget gap still projected for this year, officials say more cuts are coming."

I heard from a few folks inside NPR who felt uncomfortable with the self-promotion, followed by bad news that some said sounded like an appeal for money -- especially during pledge week at some stations.

Smith also did a 52-second spot for NPR's newscast unit that produces news on the hour and half hour.

"I cannot imagine The Washington Post or The New York Times printing a story about their increased circulation," emailed a staffer, who asked that their name not be used. "The business about our $8 million shortfall--was that a veiled plea for donations?"

The Post and The Times last week both wrote stories about themselves. But it was all bad news. The Post just offered its fourth round of early retirement packages since 2003 -- the second this year. And The Times laid off 100 people and said most staff would have to take a temporary five percent salary cut.

The difference is that the papers both ran the stories on inside pages. When NPR does a story on All Things Considered, there is no sticking it inside. It's the equivalent of running the story on the front page.

Managing editor Brian Duffy, who assigned the story, said he was motivated by how much listeners care about NPR.

"We owe them a full and fair accounting of news good and bad about its fortunes," said Duffy in an email. "My thinking was that NPR does a very good job of being transparent about the bad news--layoffs, cutting shows. I felt it was appropriate to report on the good, as well, but insisted that it be couched in the context of [NPR CEO Vivian Schiller's] address to the staff last week about the continuing financial challenges we face."

Laura Bertran, who edited the piece, is well aware of the difficulty of the assignment.

"As a media editor, I find it a legitimate story that NPR and other non-profit media organizations are doing better in this environment than some of our for-profit brethren," said Bertran. "I understand someone might say it's self-congratulatory or poor us, but neither was our intent. Our motive in reporting on NPR is to serve the listeners."

The ATC piece was 2 minutes, 20 seconds. A longer piece could have explored the broader difficulties in the news industry and mentioned NPR as a part of it, instead of focusing solely on NPR.

In this case, airing both the ATC story and a 52-second news spot throughout the day was excessive coverage by NPR on news about itself.

Kelly McBride, an ethics expert with the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank, disagrees. She says the news media, in general, don't do a good enough job of telling the world its good news.

"We do a HORRIBLE job covering our successes," she wrote in an email. "Horrible. And there are consequences: 1.) The public thinks all we do is screw-up. 2.) Folks under-appreciate the role of good journalism. 3.) No one even recognizes good journalism when they see it. 4.) And we tend to under-estimate our own ability to change the world."

How do you think NPR should handle reporting news about NPR?

Continue reading "How Should NPR Cover Itself? " >