NPR: NPR Ombudsman

May 5, 2008

RACIST COVERAGE?

SEAN BELL UPDATE: May 20, 2008
Charges filed against a group of officers involved in the Bell shooting.

Last week, I was at a two-day workshop on how to better cover race and ethnicity. There won't be a column this week, but I am including an email that a listener sent me about race and the Sean Bell story. Bell was a young, unarmed African-American who New York City police killed hours before his wedding. On April 25, the three officers were acquitted. One officer was white; the other two black. Should NPR have mentioned the race of the officers?

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April 11, 2008

SHOULD NPR LINK TO VIOLENT ANTI-MUSLIM VIDEO?

Without YouTube or LiveLeak, the world might only hear or read about the disturbing new anti-Muslim, Dutch video, "Fitna."

Now just about anyone can see the 17-minute movie that some consider more inflammatory in Muslim-majority countries than the Danish cartoons that sparked riots in 2006.

In the pre-Internet world, the so-called mainstream media played the role of gatekeeper: determining with authority what the public did and did not need to know. Much more editorial censorship existed. But now the public can get any information it wants through the Web -- with or without the news media's guidance. Everything -- in good taste or bad -- gets out in cyberspace.

One issue that arises for NPR is whether the network should provide direct links to potentially offensive material it reports on.

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February 13, 2008

FT. DRUM, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING and ANONYMOUS SOURCES

-- Alicia C. Shepard

NPR reporter Ari Shapiro received a mysterious-looking white envelope with no return address on Feb. 5. Its contents would help soldiers at Ft. Drum in New York.

"As soon as I opened it, I knew what it was," he said.

Inside was the kind of document that is a reporter's dream.

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January 9, 2008

WELCOME TO MY WORLD

--Alicia Shepard

Within the last day or two, an NPR correspondent or host has probably made a mistake on air. I don't know what it was, but I'm quite sure it happened.

Why? Because journalism is an imperfect craft and despite the highest standards and best intentions, mistakes can happen whether stories are produced under tight deadlines or even when the pressure is off.

No matter how hard we work to report accurately and fairly, we journalists- at NPR and across the news media- can and do get names wrong, make mistakes in news judgment, miss stories and sometimes fail to make that extra phone call. Errors of commission or omission can happen no matter how hard NPR journalists work to get you breaking news, help put the day's events in context or tell stories that may mesmerize you in ways that leave you smiling in delight.

After a year-long hiatus, NPR's Office of the Ombudsman is back in business with a weekly Wednesday column, radio appearances and talks. As the new ombudsman, my goal is to work with NPR staff to make its journalism more transparent and help explain to listeners the often seemingly mysterious way news decisions are made at NPR.

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