I wanted to respond to Eric Newton's post asking about the business decision to stop charging for transcripts. I thought I would share this blog posting. I have been on vacation, furlough, and am now out in San Diego visiting KPBS.

Eric Newton wrote this post about the transcripts on Aug. 21.
As much as we appreciate the journalism... wouldn't this business story be just a little more helpful with a few actual numbers? Such as... how many people used to use the pay service? ... at $3.95 each, how much did that bring in each year? ... how much did the translation cost NPR each year? ... how much, thus, was NPR losing each year (presuming in the absence of numbers that it was a losing proposition) ... given the debates between content being behind "pay walls" ... what is the lesson here? is it that few will pay for a transcript when the audio is free? Hard to derive meaning from a business story with no numbers... appreciate the public service of releasing the transcripts for free, simply want to know more facts.

NPR's response:
Why NPR.org Scrapped The Fees And Made Transcripts Free

By Bruce Melzer
Director, Digital Media Business Development
August 24, 2009
One of the biggest changes we made with the launch of the new NPR.org was offering free transcripts on the site. Ever since NPR started transcribing its radio programs in 1990, we have been selling transcripts to help defray the costs of producing them. In the old days, we used to mail out copies of the transcripts, a time-consuming and expensive process for all involved. In 2002 we added e-commerce to the transcript operation and were able to drop the prices and deliver the transcripts via email.

Why did we give up this revenue stream? First and foremost, the users expect to be able to come to our site and read the story they heard on the air. As rich as the radio stories are, reading is faster than listening, our users told us. Although we were writing Web versions of many radio stories, a number of stories still didn't have much text. Making transcripts free solved that.

A second reason is accessibility for deaf and hard-of-hearing users. Although NPR has always had a policy of providing free transcripts to these users, we eliminated the need for them to contact us for transcript copies.

There are solid business reasons for making transcripts free. Sales have been dropping over the years. As people search for, discover and share content, offering free transcripts will boost the traffic to NPR.org, traffic that can be monetized with sponsorship. Finally, search engines like text. Many of our stories could not be found by the search engines because they did not have enough text. Now it will be easier for the search engines -- and ultimately the users -- to find and enjoy NPR's stories.

(ACS: Eric asked about the costs and I was told that NPR does not release detailed budget lines to the public about individual product lines.)

POST LAST WEEK
Transcripts of favorite, missed or maddening stories on NPR used to cost $3.95 each, but now they are free on NPR.org.

Previously, NPR charged for transcripts because an outside contractor worked fast to prepare them to be available to the library within a few hours of a piece airing. It was a costly expense which NPR did for the benefit of classrooms and deaf audiences, or anyone who wrote to Listener Services and was willing to pay.

As of the new NPR.org site re-launch on July 27, over 20,000 visitors had gone online to get transcripts.

Now, all you have to do to get a story's text is visit www.NPR.org and click on the transcript link to the right of the audio button, located just below the story's title.

Quotes from these transcripts are for non-commercial use only, and may not be used in any other media without attribution to NPR.

Why now?

"Transcripts were once largely the province of librarians and other specialists whose job was to find archival content, often for professional purposes," said Kinsey Wilson, the Senior VP of NPR's Digital Media department. "As Web content becomes easier to share and distribute, and search and social media have become important drivers of audience engagement, archival content -- whether in the form of stories or transcripts -- has an entirely different value than it did in the past."

NPR took the new website launch as an opportunity to offer free transcripts, according to Laura Soto-Barra, NPR's Senior Librarian.

"We made a decision to go ahead even though NPR pays a considerable amount of money to produce transcripts on deadline," said Soto-Barra. "Transcripts are posted six hours after the shows air, except for Morning Edition's transcripts which are posted four hours after the show is broadcast. We have offered free audio for a long time and we felt that free transcripts were long overdue."

New software allows NPR's staff to receive daily metrics and supply data for "most popular transcripts yesterday", most popular transcripts for the last seven days" and "most popular transcript ever".

Keep in mind transcript coordinators do their best to catch and correct errors on the text. But since there is a quick turn-around time on transcripts, mistakes can occur. If you notice a spelling or typographical error, please email Transcripts@npr.org, where it can be corrected.
Soto-Barra said that NPR transcripts may contain minor or significant errors, ranging from the use of "ex-patriot" instead of "expatriate."

In another example, a transcriber mistakenly quoted filmmaker John Waters as saying of former Manson follower Leslie Van Houten: "She's a yuppie," when what he really said was, "She's not a yuppie."

Transcript coordinators "Dorothy Hickson and Laura Jeffrey do their best to find and correct errors but unfortunately, they cannot proofread every piece," said Soto-Barra. "Librarians and transcript coordinators appreciate when someone calls their attention to errors, particularly when they involve name spellings and use of (unintelligible)."

Transcripts of favorite, missed or maddening stories on NPR used to cost $3.95 each, but now they are free on NPR.org.

Previously, NPR charged for transcripts because an outside contractor worked fast to prepare them to be available to the library within a few hours of a piece airing. It was a costly expense which NPR did for the benefit of classrooms and deaf audiences, or anyone who wrote to Listener Services and was willing to pay.

As of the new NPR.org site re-launch on July 27, over 20,000 visitors had gone online to get transcripts.

Now, all you have to do to get a story's text is visit www.NPR.org and click on the transcript link to the right of the audio button, located just below the story's title.

Quotes from these transcripts are for non-commercial use only, and may not be used in any other media without attribution to NPR.

Why now?

"Transcripts were once largely the province of librarians and other specialists whose job was to find archival content, often for professional purposes," said Kinsey Wilson, the Senior VP of NPR's Digital Media department. "As Web content becomes easier to share and distribute, and search and social media have become important drivers of audience engagement, archival content -- whether in the form of stories or transcripts -- has an entirely different value than it did in the past."

NPR took the new website launch as an opportunity to offer free transcripts, according to Laura Soto-Barra, NPR's Senior Librarian.

"We made a decision to go ahead even though NPR pays a considerable amount of money to produce transcripts on deadline," said Soto-Barra. "Transcripts are posted six hours after the shows air, except for Morning Edition's transcripts which are posted four hours after the show is broadcast. We have offered free audio for a long time and we felt that free transcripts were long overdue."

New software allows NPR's staff to receive daily metrics and supply data for "most popular transcripts yesterday", most popular transcripts for the last seven days" and "most popular transcript ever".

Keep in mind transcript coordinators do their best to catch and correct errors on the text. But since there is a quick turn-around time on transcripts, mistakes can occur. If you notice a spelling or typographical error, please email Transcripts@npr.org, where it can be corrected.
Soto-Barra said that NPR transcripts may contain minor or significant errors, ranging from the use of "ex-patriot" instead of "expatriate." In another example, a transcriber mistakenly quoted filmmaker John Waters as saying of former Manson follower Leslie Van Houten: "She's a yuppie," when what he really said was, "She's not a yuppie."

Transcript coordinators "Dorothy Hickson and Laura Jeffrey do their best to find and correct errors but unfortunately, they cannot proofread every piece," said Soto-Barra. "Librarians and transcript coordinators appreciate when someone calls their attention to errors, particularly when they involve name spellings and use of (unintelligible)."

The emails and calls keep arriving. They want to correct NPR. The newly confirmed Judge Sonia Sotomayor will not be the first Hispanic Supreme Court judge.

That honor, they say, should go to Benjamin Cardozo who joined the court in 1932.

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor at an East Room ceremony at the White House in Washington. May 26, 2009(Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press (c) 2009)

"Your show, and many others, keep referring to Sotomayor as the 'first Hispanic and the third woman' to serve on the Supreme Court," wrote Gedalia Snow Rowe of Washington, NC. "I believe Benjamin Cardozo was the first Hispanic to hold that honor."

Even before Sotomayor was nominated for the highest court on May 26, NPR began discussing whether Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic and concluded she was. Cardozo had some Portuguese ancestors but his family was Sephardic Jewish and he was regarded as a Jewish appointee in 1932, according to NPR Washington editor, Ron Elving. In fact, the term "Hispanic" wasn't even used in the 1930s.

Please listen to this 50-second piece that appeared on All Things Considered on May 26.

Talk of the Nation brought Andrew Kaufman on the air to deal with this question. Kaufman, a Harvard law professor, is author of a 1998 book, Cardozo, considered a definitive biography of the justice.

Here's what Kaufman had to say:

NEAL CONAN: Well, Justice Cardozo took his seat on the High Court in 1932. He was a descendant of Sephardic Jews who emigrated to the United States from England and Holland, but his biographer Andrew Kaufman told us it's complicated.

Mr. ANDREW KAUFMAN (Author, "Cardozo"): The family's legend is that the Cardozos came originally from Portugal. But there is no firm documentation about the particulars, although the name Cardozo is a fairly common name in Portugal and Brazil even today. Many Spanish and - would deny that Portuguese are Hispanic. Many Jews do not regard themselves as ethnically part of the European country they came from."

Kaufman continued, "Many Sephardic Jews, however, do regard themselves as ethnically Spanish and Portuguese. But so far as I know, whether one was Hispanic was not an issue for Cardozo in his day. I don't remember ever having run across the term in contemporary relevant writing.

For more information, check out what Factcheck.org has to say.

By many measures, the Cash for Clunkers is a wildly successful government program. It is a stimulus plan at work. People are buying cars and trying to reduce carbon emissions.

Yes, the program has had a few hiccups but only because it is more successful than anyone envisioned. The $1 billion approved by Congress was supposed to last until Nov. 1 but was gone after a few days due to high demand. Now Congress intends to add another $2 billion.

It's hardly a disaster of Hurricane Katrina proportions in terms of government incompetence.

But that is what NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson said on a live Fox News "Special Report" Tuesday. She was reacting to a video clip of a woman in Philadelphia telling Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) that if the government can't run the clunker program, how could it possibly handle the health care industry?

To watch, click here.

"I thought that woman actually asked a pretty legitimate question. Cash for Clunkers is like a mini-Katrina here," Liasson said. "It's not good to start a government program and not be able to execute it."

Say what?

Nearly 2,000 people died and thousands more were injured or lost their homes during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The Bush administration's inability to help hundreds of thousands of people in New Orleans after Katrina is considered one of the greatest recent examples of government incompetence.

It is inconceivable anyone could compare that disaster to Cash for Clunkers, which simply gives people a voucher worth up to $4,500 to trade in an old car for a newer, more fuel-efficient vehicle.

Emails have been pouring into my office.

"Cash for Clunkers" is an innovative, socially and economically beneficial program that has been slowed only by its unforeseeable degree of success," wrote Tom Gleason of Lawrence, KS. "Hurricane Katrina was an epic tragedy aggravated by government inaction. If Ms. Liasson (on Fox News) finds any basis at all to analogize between the two she needs to go to work for Fox News full time."

Liasson knew pretty quickly that she had crossed a line.

"I said something really stupid, which I regret," Liasson told me. "I should have merely said anytime time the government does something less than competent, it makes it harder to get people to trust them with other programs. People died in Katrina because of government incompetence. I should not have used that as an analogy. I was thinking of an example of government incompetence and I picked one that was too big and egregious. I was over the top in my choice of a metaphor. It was a mistake."

NPR's senior vice president for news, Ellen Weiss, said, "If this had been said live on NPR's air, we would have redone the interview, and we would have acknowledged and apologized for what was said in earlier feeds both on the air and online."

Liasson has been a political contributor for Fox News Channel since 1998 and also appears as a FOX News Sunday panelist. She is also on NPR's staff and, like all NPR journalists, has to follow NPR's ethics code -- which doesn't allow NPR staffers to say something on another news outlet that they couldn't say on NPR.

"The point is I shouldn't have said it anywhere," said Liasson. "I always try to keep the ethics code in mind. It helps me set guidelines and parameters."

Weiss concurred.

"In live situations, both in other media and in front of audiences, NPR staff occasionally say things they shouldn't," she said. "That happens infrequently and we take it very seriously and address it with the individual. But a single episode of mis-speaking can be forgiven, a systemic problem cannot. Mara has acknowledged that what she said was wrong."

Appearing on two networks can be a tricky negotiation --especially as Liasson is often live on Fox. Whether Liasson likes it or not, making a gaffe on Fox reflects poorly on NPR -- as many listeners have let me know. Liasson should think about NPR's ethics code every time she appears on Fox.

Continue reading "The Katrina Analogy: A Real Clunker" >

On July 29 All Things Considered ran a fascinating interview with Jeremy Renner, star of a new movie, The Hurt Locker, about American soldiers who defuse bombs in Iraq.

To set the stage, host Madeline Brand, used a 30-second clip from the movie.

Mr. JEREMY RENNER (Actor): (As Staff Sergeant William James) Right here is a perfect vantage point outside the blast radius to sit back and watch us clean up their mess.

Unidentified Man #1: You want to go out there?

Mr. RENNER: (As James) Yes, I do.

Unidentified Man #1: I could stand to get in a little trouble.

Mr. ANTHONY MACKIE (Actor): (As Sergeant JT Sanborn) No, man, this is (BEEP). You got three infantry platoons behind you whose job it is to go Haji-hunting. That ain't our (BEEP) job.

Mr. RENNER: (As James) You don't say no to me, Sanborn. I say no to you, okay? You know there are guys watching us right now. They're laughing at this, okay, and I'm not okay with that. Now, turn off your goddamn torch because we're going."

David Carr of Zionsville, IN wondered why NPR bleeped out two words but not "goddamn," which he found offensive.

"Whatever it bleeped out could not possibly be as bad as what it left unbleeped," wrote Carr. "The uncensored language is a violation of the 10 Commandments and HIGHLY offensive to many Christians. I am astonished at the insensitivity of NPR. If I want to listen to Howard Stern, I know how to turn the dial."

It was easy for NPR editors to bleep out the other two well-known swear words that never make it on the air. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) guidelines make it crystal clear. The guidelines define profanity as "language so grossly offensive to members of the public who actually hear it as to amount to a nuisance."

Using "god damn it," for example, is not "legally profane" according to the FCC.

But taking the Lord's name in vain -- although not all see it that way -- is more problematic for all mainstream media.

"God Damn is more complicated, especially because of the juxtaposition here to the other bleeped words," said Chris Turpin, ATC's executive producer. "Usually we don't bleep God Damn --there is no legal reason to do so -- although we realize there are some in the audience who find this exceedingly offensive."

What NPR did in this case was to send out a warning to its public radio member stations alerting them to potentially offensive language. "So they can make a decision about how they want to handle it based on their prevailing community standards," said Turpin.

It turns out that NPR rarely airs those words god and damn together. A search showed 52 references in transcripts of the phrase "god damn" all the way back to 1990. When there's no space between the two words (as in goddamn), there were 163 references since 1990.

But it did make me wonder how other news organizations handle these words.

When I asked CBS' standards & practices editor, I got back a succinct email: "No gd on cbs," wrote Linda Mason.

"As a general rule, we would not permit 'GD' to be used on our air," wrote NBC's David McCormick, who is the network's standards & practices editor. "We would bleep one or the other....usually the first word."

The Washington Post used the words "goddam" only twice in recent years. Post guidelines urge great caution in dealing with words or material that is profane or obscene, urging that it not be published except in cases where it's essential (such as quoting from a court case on obscenity).

The New York Times has used the words 9 times in the past year -- five were a direct quote from Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright's famous speech.

ThomsonReuters' policy makes sense to me:

Obscenities

Use them only if they are in direct quotes and if the story would be seriously weakened by their omission. Obscenities, if retained, must not be euphemized or emasculated by the use of dots. In general we should not quote mindless obscenities from the person in the street or, say, an athlete or soldier but should consider using them if people prominent in public life use them in a context that gives their remarks great emphasis or throws in question their fitness to hold office.

In the case of The Hurt Locker, it was gratuitous to keep in the swear words. It all could have been avoided by using a different clip from the movie. Out of a two-hour movie, there had to be something else so that NPR didn't have to bleep it or offend.

Turpin said that studios usually offer a limited range of video, "most of which only work when you see the video. This was the option that worked on the radio and gave a sense of the movie."

That said, why needlessly offend listeners? Bleeping out "goddamn" would have been so easy and lost nothing.