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Media Matters
December 10, 2003
If You Can Read This on a Computer, NPR Wants You!
By Jeffrey A. Dvorkin
Ombudsman
National Public Radio
Many listeners want to hear a story that they may have missed. They go to the NPR Web site (www.npr.org) to listen again. But when they go to the site and click on a story, something happens before they are allowed to listen. It's called "streaming underwriting," and a number of listeners just don't like it.
"This Web Site Brought to You by..."
Rob Tyrka is one of many who object to sitting through an ad for Microsoft or Starbucks:
I stopped listening to the... broadcast after hearing too many commercials -- sorry, "enhanced underwriting." I can't tell you how disgusted I am that you're putting promos on your webcasts. I guess you didn't need my contributions after all.
Maria Thomas is vice president for NPR Online. She has responded personally to every complaint I have forwarded to her:
The underwriting placements you're hearing are part of a test we're running to help raise revenues to support the cost of npr.org's operations. Those costs -- especially the process of cutting, encoding, storing and serving audio on demand -- are incremental to the budget of NPR. We want to continue providing, without cost, a time-shifting service to NPR listeners, but supporting eight years of audio on demand and continuing to build our archive is an expensive undertaking. We must find ways to support the cost of the online operation. The contributions you may make to public radio go directly to your station, not to NPR. While they do support indirectly the cost of NPR's radio programs, the cost of creating, developing and maintaining npr.org was never rolled into those fees as a separate service.
We need to explore various revenue streams and are experimenting with online underwriting (we conform to the same guidelines that govern on-air underwriting), commerce and, in the future, subscription models. The underwriting messages on the site now are the first of our online underwriting placements. We hope users will understand that these messages are inserted to help support our growing costs, which will allow us to continue to provide the valuable time-shifting service for free. We also hope that listeners will continue to support their local NPR stations (that) rely heavily on individual contributions.
Maria Thomas is right, in my opinion. NPR needs to provide this service, but it needs to do it without aggravating the listeners.
"Hark the 'Herald Tribune' Sings, Advertising Wondrous Things…"*
Perhaps it's just the season, but some listeners wonder if NPR is becoming overwhelmed by commercialism (*Tom Lehrer's lyrics come to mind). There are specific complaints about stories on the economy.
When NPR's Kathleen Schalch reported in a newscast that "the buying binge, triggered by the latest round of tax cuts, appears to be tapering off," listener Pete Smillie objected:
This statement can only be intended to mislead, and it
is grossly inaccurate. There was no consumer buying
binge as a consequence of tax cuts. It is propaganda.
Not news. Not fact.
But NPR business editor Les Cook thinks otherwise:
When the GDP revision came in, third quarter growth was revised upwards from 7.2 percent to 8.2 percent. Even the lower number represented a doubling of the growth rate from the preceding quarter. Heavy consumer spending was a major factor in the accelerating growth rate. Most economists cited the tax cuts as the reason consumer spending was so strong. There was some debate about whether the stimulus would last or whether the faster growth rate would translate into a higher level of job creation, but I can't think of a single economist who denied a link between tax cuts and spending.
ISO Computer-Literate Listeners Only?
NPR's Noah Adams was speaking last week in Muncie, Ind. at Ball State University. He was asked why the ombudsman's column is not available to people without computers? A good question for which there should be an answer.
Noah mentioned that his recent series on low-wage workers in America has given him a fresh perspective on how the other half lives. One of the listeners he met in Muncie told him that contacting NPR seems to be limited to those who have access to e-mail.
All Things Considered has a regular program segment where the hosts often say,
"It's Thursday, the day we reach into our e-mail bag to read from some of your letters."
Does this mean that NPR is only interested in the opinions of listeners who own computers and have access to e-mail? Noah says (and I agree with him) that NPR is, in effect, telling listeners who wish to use the postal service not to bother.
A few years ago, an edict went out from NPR management asking me not to put NPR's postal address at the end of this column. The reasons were good at the time (odd things were being sent through the mail). But the role of public radio and the ombudsman is to remain public and accessible to all our listeners -- not just those who have computers.
Letters do get through, so the mailing address is not exactly a state secret.
NPR should revisit this policy. It worked well back then when there were legitimate safety concerns, but now seems at odds with the goal of listener accessibility.
Noah's reminder is timely and sensible.
Listeners can contact me at 202-513-3245 or by e-mail at ombudsman@npr.org.
Jeffrey Dvorkin
NPR Ombudsman
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