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An Open Letter to Bob Edwards
March 31, 2004
By Jeffrey A. Dvorkin
Ombudsman
National Public Radio
Dear Bob,
You won't be surprised when I tell you that I have received a lot of e-mail about your departure from Morning Edition. More than 5,000 and climbing. Almost every one is a protest against your leaving. There is a lot of sadness in these e-mails, sadness and anger over the lack of a clear explanation of why this is happening. Your note to the listeners, posted on the NPR Web site has helped to calm some of that anger, but not all of their misgivings.
As NPR's Ombudsman, this issue is one of the most intense I've encountered. It's way up there. Bob, this is a huge outpouring of public opinion. To put it into some perspective, it's fewer than what I received about NPR's Middle East coverage; more than the fallout after Terry Gross interviewed Bill O'Reilly.
Almost every one pointed out that their lives just won't -- just can't -- be the same after you leave Morning Edition at the end of April. Listeners feel that NPR has let you down and let them down at the same time.
I am a devoted listener of Morning Edition. Much of the reason I listen to the show every weekday morning, without fail, is that I can count on hearing Bob Edwards conduct a newscast that is serious, comprehensive and credible -- leavened with adult humor and irony. Apparently the geniuses at NPR believe people are looking for something else in a news program. Some people may be, but those people don't listen to NPR.
Bob, that e-mail from listener Karyn Severson is pretty typical, if somewhat restrained compared to others.
The official explanation from NPR
left many listeners wondering what is meant precisely when it is decided to "freshen up" a program.
Even those who said that perhaps some change might just be good for you and for Morning Edition wrote with a spirit of real love and support. All seem to understand that their new world -- and yours -- will take some getting used to.
You and I have talked from time to time about what makes the Morning Edition listeners so passionate. Sure, a lot of it is you, especially your calming presence at a time of commercial radio hype and that wonderful baritone. All the males who ever come near a microphone had larynx envy for those "pipes" of yours. But of course it's more than that. And it's more than just habit, although it's almost impossible to understate how habit works for radio listening.
What you have done -- perhaps from the beginning -- is to communicate something essential about radio. It is, in almost every way imaginable, the most personal, even intimate of all media.
We've talked about the writing on Morning Edition, about when a script just doesn't work (that doesn't happen very often, thankfully). But when you read a script that does work -- that is to say when it connects with the listeners both intellectually and emotionally -- we know something happens inside the listeners' heads. They start to actually imagine what you are talking about -- they can see what you are describing.
Your gift to the listeners was to take that well-crafted script and allow the listeners to be complicit in the act of imagination. They felt they were actually THERE -- in Vietnam, in Israel, Nicaragua and everywhere in the United States where a public radio reporter turned on the microphone to describe what is going on. I know because they wrote to tell us that is what happens when they hear your voice.
You also have the gift of being the agent for the listeners whenever you interviewed someone who seemed hesitant or reticent or unwilling to open up.
I remember one interview where the sarcasm wafted out of the radio when, after a patently false answer, you used only one word in response. You simply said, "Really..."
I thought I could hear your eyebrows rise in skepticism. So did about 30 or so listeners who wrote to tell me the same thing.
That quality is going to set a very high standard for whoever comes next.
So a lot of people are sorry to imagine life post-Bob. So am I. Listeners may not always like what they hear but they knew that they could trust you and the staff of Morning Edition to try to make sense of it all.
On a personal note, your departure raises another problem. I'll have to break in another host who may not have been as patient with my badgering as you are.
I hope the next host or hosts will have at least one of your most remarkable qualities -- the dedication to the joys of spoken American English. I hope I'll still be able to hector you whatever your new role will be.
You and I have talked about how difficult change is at NPR. I think that changes in public radio are often hard and painful because they happen so infrequently.
NPR journalism -- for all of its reputation for so-called liberalism -- is a very conservative culture, in my opinion. Change happens slowly, if at all. Journalists like to observe and report on dramatic changes, but they hate things to change around them. Most of all they hate change to happen to them. I know you wanted life to go on as it has for the past 25 years. But some change was bound to happen.
It may be cold comfort to you and to the listeners, but managing change in journalism -- especially in public radio -- is one of the most daunting tasks imaginable. But I won't be extending too much sympathy to NPR management. Virtually all of the e-mails take management to task for this and for what listeners perceive to be the official and somewhat lame explanation.
Whether the change will be good for you, for Morning Edition and, most importantly, for the listeners won't be known for some time. But it is an astonishingly good program, thanks in no small way to you and to the staff that puts it together every night. My guess -- certainly my hope -- is that because of you the program is likely to go from strength to strength.
This is as tough a situation as I've seen in public broadcasting. It's tough on you, the other staffers at NPR, on the NPR member stations and on the listeners especially.
But it could be worse: As tough as it is for everyone, it is nothing compared to bringing home and re-assigning a foreign correspondent. They have seen a lot of dreadful things, perhaps too many. Nothing back home can compare. Everything stateside seems so one dimensional after life as a foreign correspondent.
Program hosts, you may be glad to know, have a much higher success rate at finding their new legs and learning some new tricks compared to the correspondents. Just ask Linda Wertheimer, Danny Zwerdling, Susan Stamberg or Noah Adams. I think they sound just fine and so do the listeners.
I know you will sound fine too. You may not feel fine for a while, but that too will pass.
We'll all be listening for you, and I promise to badger you as I have in the past.
Best,
Jeffrey
PS: Listeners can contact me at 202-513-3245 or at ombudsman@npr.org.
Jeffrey Dvorkin
NPR Ombudsman
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