"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.

"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."

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

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."

In researching this topic, I found a few examples but not enough to demonstrate that this is happening "across Israel." The story needed that kind of context.

Then there is the matter of who Frankel interviewed. Aside from two anonymous vigilantes, the only voice listeners hear is that of a 16-year-old Jewish female who stereotypes Arab boys as "wild. They're bad boys."

Listeners didn't hear from any Arabs or from any inter-racial couples who are dating. Nor did they hear from the police or any other Israeli or Palestinian government officials who, presumably, are aware of this phenomenon. (Frankel did a similar piece for The Times of London and did quote a Jewish woman who said the vigilantes, not her Arab boyfriend, are the problem.)

"In retrospect," said Jenkins, "we probably should have insisted Sheera talk to an Arab boy about what was going on, though the response would have been a predictable condemnation as both Arabs and Israelis view such vigilante actions by a few as reprehensible."

Edward Wasserman, a journalism ethics professor at Washington and Lee University, said for the story to be effective listeners needed to know the vigilantes' motivations. We can make assumptions, but they were never explained.

"Are they religious zealots? The overall impression is that their concern is fundamentally racial/ethnic, and the 'bad boys' characterization is just an expression of their general conviction that Arabs are degenerates," said Wasserman. "Overall, it's as if somebody cruised small-town Virginia with a small group of half-wits with rebel flag tattoos and a pick-up truck who heckle biracial couples, and made no effort to determine whether the group is a solitary bunch of losers."

Or maybe the vigilantes are part of a bigger and more troubling cultural response to dating between Arabs and Jews. "But we don't know, do we?" said Wasserman.

Then there is the use of anonymity. Frankel did not use the real names of "David" and his driver, "T.S." This gives them the freedom to not be held accountable for what they say.

Allowing them anonymity violates NPR's policy, which is to use anonymity as a last resort and only if identifying someone would jeopardize their life or livelihood. NPR's policy on anonymous sources is one of the strongest and most impressive in the industry and is a credit to why people can trust NPR. Rarely is anonymity used.

Frankel says that she had to grant anonymity to get the story.

"They claim that there have been threats made against them in the past -- both from couples they have attempted to interfere with, and from Arab men in neighboring communities who consider them a nuisance," explained Frankel, who began freelancing for NPR several months ago.

"The anonymity should have been explained as per NPR rules," said Jenkins. "Sheera says she promised anonymity because 'In this case, he ["David"] said he felt personally threatened and would only agree to let me go on the ride-along if I promised him anonymity. In the future, I will explain NPR's policy and press harder.'"

This story was not so critical to better understanding the Arab-Israeli conflict that it deserved an exception to NPR's policy. Nor was it so urgent that it could not have been held while the reporter did more work to answer questions that NPR editors should have noticed.

I asked over two dozen people to listen to Frankel's story, and all agreed it had the kernel of a good story. But all said the piece didn't work for various reasons, including that it dehumanized Arab men and didn't give listeners a chance to hear directly from people impacted by the vigilantes.

Kristin Szremski, of the group American Muslims for Palestine, best summed it up. "I think Sheera Frankel did a good job in bringing this topic to the public but there are ways in which the piece could have been put into context and given deeper meaning," she said.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

So it made sense in late July for NPR to develop a series of reports on natural gas -- especially since the potential of natural gas was a surprise to NPR editors and to reporter Tom Gjelten, who was assigned to the project.

"For me the relevant context were the concerns about energy independence and climate change," said Gjelten, who covers national and energy security. "The intriguing question I set out to explore was whether the potential of gas from shale rock could be a 'game changer' as far as the overall energy picture."

The three-part series, which aired Sept. 22-24 on Morning Edition, gave an overview of how technology has dramatically altered the natural gas industry, explained the industry's structure, and described how unsuccessful it had been in getting breaks from Congress in the current climate change legislation.

But the series had a flaw.

The reports did not thoroughly address environmental and public health concerns about extracting natural gas using a technique called hydraulic fracturing or "fracking." This involves drilling down a mile below the surface, then shooting a million gallons of water, sand and chemicals to break up the shale and release the gas.

I was inundated with phone calls and emails about the series. Many from people in Pennsylvania and New York state, who live atop the Marcellus Shale Formation, which is rich in natural gas and stretches from western New York state through Pennsylvania to Ohio and West Virginia.

Before new technologies were developed for fracking and horizontal drilling, it was uneconomical to extract gas from this area. In recent years, however, small energy companies have opened hundreds of drilling sites in this region.

None of those who contacted me complained about natural gas as an energy source. Nor did listeners object to the basic reporting in the series. They did insist, however, that NPR left out an essential part of the story.

Via email, phone and commenting online, they said NPR should have included at least one piece about the negative side effects of natural gas drilling, such as accidents, broken pipes, leaking containment wells and toxic water spills from containment ponds. Listeners also said NPR should have mentioned that state and federal laws do not require companies disclose the chemical formulas used in fracking because they are protected as trade secrets.

"You can't have a major three-part series on natural gas and never mention in more than a few lines the environmental hazards," said Judy Abrams, of Ithaca, NY. "All of us kept waiting for the other side of the story. The extraction process is extremely dirty. Fracturing is done with water laced with chemicals."

In fact, while the series was running, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection ordered one natural gas company to stop all well fracking in Susquehanna County after three separate spills in less than one week. The company was told to address safety concerns after spilling 8,000 gallons of a toxic mixture into a wetlands area and a creek causing a fish kill.

After a lengthy rule-making process, on Sept. 30 New York State environmental officials issued regulations on gas drilling to address concerns about the impact on New York City's drinking water.

Some NPR listeners were quick to accuse NPR of shilling for the natural gas industry. These listeners drew a connection -- a false one in my view -- between the series and a sponsorship campaign that began on Sept. 17 by an industry lobbying group, America's Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA). The perceived connection was reinforced by ANGA sponsorship banner ads appearing on the series' web presentation. (More on the sponsorship issue in my next piece.)

Much of the intense criticism came after Gjelten's first piece on Sept. 22, which garnered 255 comments, mostly negative. "If one went to a public hearing and listened to the natural gas representatives, they would sound like that first piece," said architect Buck Moorhead, of NYH20, an anti-drilling group in Manhattan."No acknowledgement of cumulative negative impacts of toxic chemicals on our drinking water, air quality and public health."

But NPR editors said the intent behind the series was not to provide a one-sided report. Gjelten, the lead reporter, said he set out to do an overview of the shale gas industry and its potential impact on America's access to energy.

"Our stories focused on the prospect that recoverable natural gas reserves are far greater than imagined even a few years ago due to the potential of shale gas," said Bruce Auster, NPR's national security editor, who worked on the gas series. "This is a big development, with implications both for U.S. energy security and climate change. So this was the focus of our stories."

Yet, he said NPR recognizes that there are downsides to extracting natural gas from shale. "That is why we raised the water contamination issue on the air in the final segment of the series," said Auster. "We also offered a detailed examination of the issue in a separate web piece. And NPR aired -- in May -- a separate piece on precisely this issue. We feel that the level of coverage was appropriate."

After the reaction to the first day's story, Gjelten did a web piece on environmental concerns about fracking. It was posted Sept. 23. On the last day of the radio series, Sept. 24, Gjelten gave a brief description to Morning Edition listeners of some of the environmental concerns about how fluids are used to fracture the shale. (This was recorded before the series aired.)

"The concern is that that might cause some contamination of drinking water supplies," Gjelten said. "There are chemicals that are used in that water. Now, the natural gas people say that that can be dealt with by tight regulation, very close monitoring of the pipe itself and the dispose of the wastewater. But that is a concern."

That mention covered two minutes out of 24 devoted to the series on-air. (Gjelten also briefly mentioned environmental concerns in the Sept. 23 piece.)

His more detailed online piece about environmental issues was commendable, but it highlights the limitations of NPR's online content. While about 7 million listen to Morning Edition each day, Gjelten's online piece received only 5,432 page views after three full weeks, according to NPR's audience research department. (It would have helped if on-air hosts had alerted listeners to Gjelten's online piece.) Research shows there were 69,782 page views for the entire series.

The initial goal of the series was ambitious. Brian Duffy, then NPR's project editor, said NPR wanted to explore how new technology was opening up once cost-prohibitive energy reserves; environmental fears, and the geo-political implications in Europe, where the new technology could reduce its near-total dependence on Russia for natural gas.

But once the series reached the air, listeners heard almost nothing about the last two elements.

During the planning process, Duffy asked the Science Desk to assign a reporter for the environmental piece, but was told no one was available. Duffy said he reached out to ProPublica, a non-profit online investigative news outfit, which has reported extensively on water contamination in drilling areas. But nothing came of it. Nor could he find a Europe-based reporter free to cover the geo-political angle.

UPDATE: ProPublica's managing editor, Steve Engelberg, called to say that while nothing came of talk about partnering with NPR on the natural gas series, it wasn't because of any lack of interest on ProPublica's part in pursuing the story or working with NPR. "We'd love to work with NPR," he said.

ProPublica has published 41 stories and worked with WNYC exploring the environmental concerns surrounding natural gas.

What drew many listener complaints was that the topic was billed as a series. NPR's listeners then had a reasonable expectation that they would learn about all important aspects of the issue in a multi-part report.

"It made it worse that there were three parts," said Ken Campbell, radio manager for public radio station WSKG, in Binghamton, NY, which sits atop the Marcellus Shale formation. Campbell fielded complaints from local listeners who are personally concerned about the impact of gas drilling. "That rubbed it into our listeners that their concerns were ignored because it was covered so extensively but with a limited point of view. With that much time you'd think they would cover all aspects."

The ultimate question is: Did this series give a reasonably complete and balanced view of issues concerning domestic drilling for natural gas?

The answer is no. While it did draw attention to an energy source that is not widely known, NPR failed to provide a full picture of the implications of the latest natural gas drilling technology -- and that would include failing to cover the geo-political aspects.

The environmental concerns are real. According to ProPublica, courts and state and local governments have documented more than 1,000 cases of water contamination associated with natural gas drilling. Someone who heard only the radio stories, however, would have learned little about this aspect. Moreover, the fact that NPR ran a story about the environmental concerns in late May does not excuse leaving this aspect out of the series.

"Should we have covered the issue more thoroughly? Certainly," said Duffy, who left NPR's news department in late August. "This was a situation where we couldn't get all the bases covered because we had furloughs [caused by NPR's budget cuts] and vacation issues and changes in personnel. The story absolutely did need an environmental component. I won't disagree with that. It's a shame we just couldn't provide it."

But it's not too late. C Hagstrom made a good suggestion in a Sept. 23 comment. He lives in the ground zero area of Pennsylvania gas development.

"I can tell you first hand that there are real problems with the current approach to development," wrote Hagstrom. "NPR has the chance to do the right thing by running a piece that covers the downside to a very invasive and potentially harmful environmental process."

NPR has vast resources within the 800-member public radio stations. Some stations in areas with shale gas are already diligently covering the environmental and economic aspects of the story. WSKG producer Crystal Sarakas, for example, has done several programs on the topic and follows it closely. WNYC has covered this extensively and so has WDUQ in Pittsburgh.

Since NPR could not devote one of its own reporters to this aspect of the story, NPR should have reached out to one of its station partners to work together on this series. This approach also would have dovetailed with NPR CEO Vivian Schiller's intention to create a stronger and more connected network, by tapping into the knowledge and talent at public radio stations.

Here's a U.S. Department of Energy primer on modern shale gas.

Why now?

"We've actually been working on this for a while," said Ellen Weiss, NPR's senior vice president for news. "But the truth is that through the Knight education, we have been training and encouraging our staff to use social media and this has raised all sorts of new questions. Many of these questions are addressed in our ethics code, many aren't. So I decided to pull together a small working group and develop some guidelines to help the staff."

These guidelines are mandatory for everyone in News, Programming, Digital Media, Communications, Legal divisions and officers of NPR, according to Vivian Schiller, NPR's CEO and president.

"And anyone using NPR-issued equipment or writing from their NPR email address (or providing that address for response) must also adhere to them," Schiller wrote in an email to staff. "But even if you fall outside those boundaries, you'd be smart to review the guidelines and follow them. NPR is first and foremost a news organization, which means staffers from Finance to Facilities represent the face of NPR's journalistic integrity."

Mark Stencel, managing editor for digital news, also wrote on Thursday about NPR's social media habits.

What do you think? I've already picked up grumblings among some staff -- who are not in news --who feel some parts of the guidelines are too restrictive and infringes on their right to a personal life outside of the office.

But I'm afraid I come down with Schiller on the need for NPR to at all costs protect the network's most valuable asset -- its credibility.

You might also want to read Michele McLellan of the Knight Digital Media Center's take on NPR's social media guidelines versus the Washington Post's. Here's something on the New York Times as well. This is clearly new territory and new organizations are tredding carefully.

NPR News Social Media Guidelines

Social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter have become an integral part of everyday life for millions of people around the world. As NPR grows to serve the audience well beyond the radio, social media is becoming an increasingly important aspect of our interaction and our transparency with our audience and with a variety of communities.

Properly used, social networking sites can also be very valuable newsgathering and reporting tools and can speed research and extend a reporter's contacts, and we encourage our journalists to take advantage of them.

The line between private and public activity has been blurred by these tools, which is why we are providing guidance now. Information from your Facebook page, your blog entries and your tweets -- even if you intend them to be personal messages to your friends or family -- can be easily circulated beyond your intended audience. This content, therefore, represents you and NPR to the outside world as much as a radio story or story for NPR.org does.

As in all of your reporting, the NPR Code of Ethics should guide you in your use of social media. You should read and be sure you understand the Code.

What follows are some basic but important guidelines to help you as you deal with the changing world of gathering and reporting news, and to provide additional guidance on specific issues. These guidelines apply to every member of the News Division.

First and foremost -- you should do nothing that could undermine your credibility with the public, damage NPR's standing as an impartial source of news or otherwise jeopardize NPR's reputation.

* Recognize that everything you write or receive on a social media site is public. Anyone with access to the web can get access to your activity on social media sites. And regardless of how careful you are in trying to keep them separate, in your online activity, your professional life and your personal life overlap.

* Use the highest level of privacy tools available to control access to your personal activity when appropriate, but don't let that make you complacent. It's just not that hard for someone to hack those tools and make public what you thought was private.

* You should conduct yourself in social media forums with an eye to how your behavior or comments might appear if we were called upon to defend them as a news organization. In other words, don't behave any differently online than you would in any other public setting.

* While we strongly encourage linking to NPR.org, you may not repost NPR copyrighted material to social networks without prior permission. For example, it is o.k. to link from your blog or Facebook profile to a story of yours on the NPR site, but you should not copy the full text or audio onto a personal site or Web page. You may accomplish this through the NPR API or widgets that NPR provides to the public under the same terms of use as apply to anyone else.

* Remember that the terms of service of a social media site apply to what you post and gather on that site. The terms might allow for material that you post to be used in a different way than you intended. Additionally, law enforcement officials may be able to obtain by subpoena anything you post or gather on a site without your consent -- or perhaps even your knowledge.

* Remember the same ethics rules as apply offline also apply to information gathered online.

* Journalism should be conducted in the open, regardless of the platform. Just as you would do if you were working offline, you should identify yourself as an NPR journalist when you are working online. If you are acting as an NPR journalist, you must not use a pseudonym or misrepresent who you are. If you are acting in a personal capacity, you may use a screen name if that is allowed by the relevant forum.

* You should always explain to anyone who provides you information online how you intend to use the information you are gathering.

* When possible, clarify and confirm any information you collect online by later interviewing your online sources by phone or in person.

* While widely disseminated and reported, material gathered online can be just as inaccurate or untrustworthy as some material collected or received in more traditional ways. As always, consider and verify the source.

* Content gathered online is subject to the same attribution rules as other content.

* You must not advocate for political or other polarizing issues online. This extends to joining online groups or using social media in any form (including your Facebook page or a personal blog) to express personal views on a political or other controversial issue that you could not write for the air or post on NPR.org.

* Your simple participation in some online groups could be seen to indicate that you endorse their views. Consider whether you can accomplish your purposes by just observing a group's activity, rather than becoming a member. If you do join, be clear that you've done so to seek information or story ideas. And if you "friend" or join a group representing one side of an issue, do so for a group representing the competing viewpoint, when reasonable to do so.

* Realize that social media communities have their own culture, etiquette and norms, and be respectful of them.

* If you are writing about meetings and gatherings at NPR -- always ask first if the forum is on or off the record before distributing information or content about it.

And a final caution -- when in doubt, consult with your editor. Social media is a very dynamic ecosystem so don't be surprised if we continue to revise or elaborate on our guidelines at a later date. In the mean time, we welcome your feedback.

Simon's $300,648 salary was included in a survey of Washington, DC-area salaries printed in the Washington Post on Sept.7. Doherty said she had considered re-starting her lapsed membership with her local station, WAMU, until she saw Simon's salary.

"I considered rejoining until the Washington Post article Labor Day weekend about local salaries," wrote Doherty, of Silver Spring, Md. "If NPR can afford to pay that kind of salary to on-air talent, then surely you can share some of your riches with local NPR affiliates. They don't need my $50. I wonder how much Mr. Simon donates to HIS local public radio station, which is also WAMU."

So I asked Simon. Does he give to WAMU?

"I don't mind saying--in fact, I'm proud of saying--that my wife and I belong to: WBEZ, WAMU, WNYC, KCRW, KPCC, and KCPW," said Simon. "I also, in the course of a year, usually join any local public station at which I make an appearance, and I make something like 20 a year (so soon I will re-join OPB, KPLW, GPB, etc.)

And as for his salary, here's what Simon has to say:

"I am grateful for the salary that I earn and feel that it is merited by the popularity of our program, the audience our show generates, the number of interviews, essays, and reported pieces that I do, and whatever value I have to NPR that may contribute to our relationship with the public," said Simon, who joined NPR in 1977.

"There are a few other people in public radio who earn more, both at weekly and daily programs," he continued. "Most everybody in commercial broadcasting earns a lot more. I try to be worthy of my salary each and every week, as well as the trust of the audience. I am grateful to each and every person who contributes to public radio and has helped make possible the really blessed professional life that I have been able to enjoy and, I hope, share with millions of listeners."

Readers might be interested in this piece in the Columbia Journalism Review that notes CBS anchor Katie Couric is paid the equivalent of what it costs to produce two NPR shows, Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

Adding this at 3:45 p.m, which was posted today: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller takes a pay cut:

MORE ON SIMON
Some listeners were disturbed by Simon's interview on Sept. 5 with novelist Lorrie Moore about her new book, "A Gate at the Stairs." In the interview, Moore read a section in her book where a character fantacizes about driving a steak knife through former Bush operative Karl Rove. After that she and Simon laughed.

Simon was laughing most directly at the absurdity of her punclhine, in a fictional story, but still he shouldn't have laughed. And he knows that. He apologized to listeners on Sept. 19. Here's a clip of the apology:

He also posted an apology under the comments section of the original interview.

Here's Simon's comment posted on Sept. 7:

"If I thought for a moment that Lorrie Moore was making a serious appeal to harm anyone, I would have made that the center of the interview. She was writing a passage satirizing overheard conversation in a small, smug, mostly liberal college town. The remark about Karl Rove--and the instantaneous admission that it was wrong--are part of that satire. I'm sure Ms. Moore has her own political convictions. But people should not infer what they think they are from an isolated satirical passage in a novel. In any case, I doubt they would include physically harming anybody in any case. The irony (hope I'm using the word correctly) here is that liberals should be touchier about this section than conservatives--it satirizes the kind of person who say they oppose war, but seem to countenance verbal violence."

From the transcript:
Ms. MOORE: Is this Sarah Vaughn on the stereo? Sure is. Man, listen to her scat. (Soundbite of music) And you say you don't believe in such a thing as black culture? I don't. Ever heard Julie Andrews scat? I don't believe in gay culture or white culture or female culture or any of that. It's just so dream world, baby. Ever heard Julie Andrews at all? Hey, you don't need blue eyes if you've got blue earrings.

I didn't know what they were talking about most of the time, but sometimes in recalling certain remarks, the context would clarify them. Certain phrases like a dusting of sand would float across my mind and heap to a sort of glass. I'd seen scat, and now here it was as an admirable thing.

Vaughn takes autumn leaves and turns it into "Finnegan's Wake." Is that your argument? Yeah, kind of an Irish one over beer. I'm drinking beer. When we were in France, the French customs officials looked at us in a bewildered way. But look, they said, as if they were pointing out something we'd failed to notice. You are white and your son is black; how can this be? As if it defied science or as if we had never regarded our own skin color before. And I had to say in English and in anger: This is what an American family looks like.

The rest of the world doesn't understand the ungovernable diversity of this country - diversity made even more extreme by capitalism and by Karl Rove. I was once in a restaurant and saw Karl Rove sitting across the room and for five minutes I thought: I could take this steak knife and walk over there and change history right now. And, well, as you can see, I chose to stay a free woman. Would anyone care for a timbale?

(Soundbite of laughter)

The Two Way did two more postings on the story on Sept. 16. Talk of the Nation discussed ACORN that same day.

Fessler did a second report for Morning Edition on Sept. 17 -- a week after the videos appeared online -- about how ACORN was dealing with fallout from the videos.

"Hindsight is 20/20 and it's always better to be out in front of a story than behind it," said Steven Drummond, NPR national editor. "But the idea that we were intentionally late, that's ridiculous. No one likes to play catch up. At the end of the weekend, it was clear this was a story that moved beyond being an Internet prank to raise broader, serious concerns."

While the videos are certainly riveting, in the age of Internet hoaxes it was critical for NPR's credibility to verify that the videos were real.

"There are many, many aspects to this story -- large number of them political," noted Fessler, who joined NPR in 1993. "I think it's important that we not rush on air things that need to be checked out. Those videotapes could have been completely phony, and initially ACORN did charge that they were doctored."

Christopher Martin, a journalism professor at University of Northern Iowa, points out that the mainstream media needed initially to be wary of the videos.

The videos were posted on a conservative website (same would be true if videos were posted on a liberal website). Videographer James O'Keefe was not well-known at the time the videos emerged, nor were his motives in what amounted to a private sting operation against ACORN. Also, the videos were edited, so there was no way of knowing what, if anything had been excluded.

"Who knows what journalistic standards went into creating this?" said Eric Deggans, media critic for the St. Petersburg Times on CNN.

Initially, for example, O'Keefe, 25, did not publicize that he and his actress partner, Hannah Giles, 20, were thrown out of ACORN's Philadelphia office, which also called the police. That said, O'Keefe did capture ACORN employees in Baltimore, Brooklyn and Washington, DC on camera trying to help the pair with their supposed plans to carry out illegal activities.

It was clear the videos were real before Fessler's first report aired the evening of Sept. 15.

But according to a research study released Wednesday on press coverage of ACORN, NPR and others in the mainstream media had reason to be cautious. The report outlines -- using empirical data compiled by academic researchers -- how successful the right has been in going after ACORN.

"What we found is there had been a concerted campaign for several years against ACORN by conservative media and some Republican politicians and it came to a head in October 2008 as a campaign issue," said Martin, the Iowa journalism professor who co-authored the study "Manipulating the Public Agenda: Why ACORN was in the News and What the News Got Wrong." Martin's co-author was Peter Dreier, a professor of politics at Occidental College. Neither is connected to ACORN nor did they take outside funding.

The study notes the Republican National Committee in May 2009 launched a website, stopacorn.gop.com, targeting the group.

The study evaluated 647 stories about ACORN by 15 major news organizations, including NPR. The data portion of the study looked at stories from 2007-2008, but the analysis included ACORN news developments through August. More than half (55 percent) of the 647 stories included allegations of "voter fraud" by ACORN.

Martin said the media did a terrible job of fact-checking allegations against ACORN.

Most of the news media coverage about ACORN was one-sided and repeated conservative and Republican criticisms of the group, said the study, "without seeking to verify them or provide ACORN or its supporters with a reasonable opportunity to respond to allegations."

A common mistake in the mainstream media, the study said, was to confuse voter registration fraud with voter fraud. Registration fraud involves collecting names of people who aren't eligible to vote. An example of voter fraud would be helping people vote more than once.

ACORN is being investigated for voter registration fraud, but there is no evidence of voter fraud, a far more serious charge.

"The mainstream media rarely acknowledged that those two things were different," said Martin. "They tended to use voter fraud when meaning voter registration fraud, so those issues were confused."

NPR did well in the study. "NPR spent a lot of time on the voter fraud story, sometimes providing important background on the story's history," said the study.

"We meant that NPR, more than any other news organization we studied, had a higher percentage of its stories covering the theme or narrative of ACORN's voter registration work," said Martin. "That is, not talking about it in terms of voter fraud allegations, but in terms of work ACORN does in assisting in the registration of voters."

The study's message is that journalists were too quick to buy conservative condemnations of ACORN without checking facts. News reports also rarely gave ACORN credit for its successes during the last four decades helping low-income people register to vote and get higher minimum wages and better housing. (Martin believes conservatives are anti-ACORN because the group helps low-income people and minorities who are not likely to vote Republican.)

The conservative media's campaign against ACORN, as documented by Martin, may well be one reason why the mainstream media was slow to pick up or trust biggovernment.com's story.

Even if Martin's study correctly documents an effort to discredit ACORN with the help of unquestioning journalists, that doesn't mean that the news media should automatically disregard claims made by interest groups with conservative (or any) agendas.

This issue should remind journalists that claims from any interest group should be checked out and then reported -- if proven to be credible. Obviously, not every group or claim deserves scrutiny, but the ACORN situation certainly meets the test of an issue of public importance.

ACORN may or may not deserve all the criticism heaped on it. But in this case, ACORN deserved intense -- not halting -- scrutiny from any reputable media organization. The same is true for the groups that have raised allegations against ACORN. Allegations need to be checked out -- not just repeated.

For all ACORN stories on NPR, click here.

"Clark has been described as a person of interest, not a suspect, in Le's death," read an AP story posted on npr.org at 10:32 a.m. "New Haven Police Chief James Lewis said police were hoping to compare DNA taken from Clark's hair, fingernails and saliva to more than 150 pieces of evidence collected from the crime scene."

Randy Lilleston, a supervising editor for NPR digital, was the first editor to spot the AP story. The question became: should NPR use Clark's name even though news organizations commonly identify someone associated with a crime only if they are arrested or charged?

"The answer clearly was yes it was appropriate to identify him because the police chief had openly and publicly identified him," said Lilleston, "and because in my opinion it was very newsworthy." In the Hatfill and Jewell cases, information was leaked to the media by unnamed sources. By contrast, Clark's name was announced at a well-attended press conference with the police chief.

Mark Memmott, who blogs on NPR's The Two-Way, posted an item at 8:45 a.m. about Clark's release. After that, a discussion ensued among NPR editors about the appropriateness of using Clark's name.

"Richard Jewell was very much in my mind," said Stuart Seidel, deputy managing editor. Seidel sent an email to all news staff at 12:19 p.m. explaining that NPR would continue to use Clark's name, but anyone reporting on the story must mention that Clark had not been charged and was released after questioning.

Are those caveats enough? In this case, it's now a moot point. Clark was arrested for Le's murder Thursday.

Even so, the question remains whether the press should publicize the name of a "person of interest." In this case, the police chief's televised press conference was pretty close to an arrest and could hardly be ignored. But in general, I'd say not. The potential damage to someone's life is so great, as is the margin for error when police are under intense pressure to come up with suspects in high-profile cases. Jewell said the media went after him "like piranha on a bleeding cow."

Both Jewell and Hatfill won generous financial compensation for the pain and disruption they endured. But it's unlikely the money compensated for the loss of the lives they led before each became a "person of interest."

''There are parts of the old Richard that aren't there anymore,'' Jewell told The New York Times in 1997. ''Who's going to give me back my old life? Who's going to give me back the trust, the trust that I used to have in people?'' Jewell died in 2007 at 44.

But there's another twist to Clark's case that is likely to come up repeatedly. Because the AP is fed automatically to NPR's news website, Clark's name appeared on npr.org -- though not on the homepage-- before NPR editors even had a chance to talk about whether to use it. The AP autofeed appears under NPR's News section on the right under AP Latest Headlines.

However, before the Clark story got more prominent play on NPR's homepage or The Two-Way, editor Lilleston had both seen and approved it.

"The automated feed of AP copy is not especially prominent on NPR.org," said Mark Stencel, NPR's managing editor digital news. "That said, we, like many news organizations that use those feeds on their sites, are somewhat -- but not entirely -- at the mercy of AP's editorial decisions. Like many of those same news organizations, we signal our own editorial thinking with the prominence and emphasis we give those reports. There are times we will post wire stories only after NPR has independently confirmed the details."

Autofeeds certainly increase the possibility of something being published that NPR might not be prepared to publish.

Just ask the Cleveland Plain Dealer. It had decided to not run the controversial AP photo of a dying Marine. But the AP slide show wound up on the Plain Dealer's website as part of an automatic feed. Only hours later did someone from the paper realize the mistake.

The same thing happened for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Houston Chronicle, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Evansville (Ind.) Courier & Press.

The lesson to be learned here? If a news organization wants to have its own editorial standards, even in this era of Internet publishing, it will have to be eagle-eyed about everything posted on its website -- and will have to make sure that everyone on the staff understands what those standards are.

(In October 1996, I wrote about the media frenzy surrounding theJewell case for American Journalism Review.)