Two themes dominated our inbox this past week. Audience members weighed in on whether NPR and the rest of public media in the U.S. should be defunded. Others were displeased that NPR chose to mark the 100th day of Donald Trump's presidency by interviewing both Steve Bannon and the head of the Heritage Foundation, suggesting that their appearances on NPR lends unwarranted credibility to their views.
Looking at NPR's coverage of these two very different stories gives us a window into how NPR approaches the delivery of information on complex issues.
Last week the Trump administration made two attempts to weaken the American public media system. First, it tried to fire three board members of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the independent nonprofit organization created and funded by Congress as a way of distancing the mission of public media from the politics in Washington, D.C. Then the president signed an executive order which, among other things, instructed the CPB to tell local stations not to use their federal money to purchase content from PBS and NPR.
CPB is challenging the legality of both actions, and NPR covered both stories.
That same week happened to mark the 100th day of the Trump administration, and two separate NPR shows interviewed two influential conservative figures. Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep interviewed Republican strategist/podcaster Steve Bannon. And All Things Considered host Juana Summers interviewed Kevin Roberts, who leads of the Heritage Foundation, the think tank behind Project 2025, the 900-page document that lays out many of the unorthodox moves made by the Trump administration, including defunding public media.
We've selected two letters on each topic to respond to. Read on to see our analysis and how the coverage of these separate stories is related.
Covering the effort to defund NPR
Robert Sichler wrote on May 1: As a taxpayer I agree that it is time to end government funding for NPR. You can go online today and every story about the current administration is negative. Your reporting is consistently biased which is fine with me, but I don’t want to pay for it. As far as all the local public stations, it’s the same. You can listen every day to any of the local NPR stations and they are all biased towards the left and support democratic party positions. There was a time and place for public funding but I think the time has come and gone.
Hans Johnson wrote on April 15: You do excellent, well-sourced news coverage. Reporters often bend over backwards to feature the voices of extreme right-wing figures on NPR. But in the story today about … efforts to rescind already appropriated funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), your on-air news report included statements by the Trump White House and reference to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. There was NO audio or quote or reference to any elected official who defends the unique and irreplaceable value of public media. … There was no supportive elected official cited to balance the intense criticism. Why not? … Is there any possibility NPR might be bending its standards in reporting and editing to sacrifice balance and fairness in coverage and to exclude some voices from its news stories that perhaps might displease critics?
NPR's policy for covering itself instructs reporters and editors to report the news with the needs of the audience in mind. News executives and others at NPR are not allowed to influence or even see the stories before they are made public. This system ensures that when NPR is in the news, the stories are meant to inform the public, not act as public relations on behalf of NPR.
Media correspondent David Folkenflik reports most of those stories. Lately, he's focused on nailing down the nuts and bolts of a complicated and shifting set of facts surrounding the government's attempts to shrink or eliminate the media organizations it funds.
"You have to be able to unpack it before you can talk about the implications of it," he told me. "It's a legitimate desire to hear the arguments played out."
And there's not just two sides to the debate about whether the U.S. government should fund public media. There are many positions.
"I can tell you from my inbox and my social media feeds, I'm hearing people say why are you … taking public media's opponents seriously, and I'm hearing that people think I'm doing NPR's PR work," Folkenflik said.
He added that he and others at NPR are likely to bring more voices to the story in the coming weeks.
That would be beneficial for the public, because there's been very little reporting across all media on how to accurately or fairly assess bias. Public media's opponents have argued that NPR, PBS and others are biased against conservative viewpoints. They often point to specific stories as evidence that the organizations are fundamentally biased, such as this Valentine's Day Short Wave story about queer animals.
Experts who measure bias in news media say that's a flawed approach. NPR publishes, on average, 1,400 stories or other pieces of content every week, according to an analysis conducted by Brin Winterbottom from NPR's Research, Archives & Data Strategy department. This includes radio stories and reports, podcasts, website stories and videos.
Cherry-picking examples is an unfair and unscientific way to measure bias, said Vanessa Otero, the founder and CEO of Ad Fontes, a media bias research organization. Instead, her researchers look at a broad sample of stories. They repeat their analysis regularly, looking at several factors, including the language selected, the sources quoted and the volume of opinion versus the volume of facts.
For the most part, Ad Fontes rates NPR news products slightly to the left of center. NPR News Now and Morning Edition are both right in the middle. The Code Switch podcast, which covers issues of race, "strong left." Planet Money falls in the middle/balanced.
"It's very important to look at a representative sample of stories. Because everybody's individual sample is skewed," Otero said. "The concentration really matters."
Last year, in response to public criticism of bias, NPR centralized the process for commissioning stories and added additional editors to review stories before publication. Tommy Evans supervises the new team of editors who've been working full force since Jan. 1. He told me that his team makes suggestions or tweaks to about half of the stories it reviews.
"Most, but certainly not all of the edits, are pretty minor," he said. "What we have improved on is NPR showing its work a bit better." Reports aren't always transparent about the reporting they've done, he added.
For instance, NPR hosts and reporters are much more likely now to point out that they asked an individual or agency for comment and did not get a reply.
Evans' team will often suggest changes in language or tone, he said. Most frequently it happens when journalists are reporting outside of their area of expertise.
"Interestingly, we don't find a lot of language and tone issues about politics from the Washington desk, but when other desks veer into politically charged issues, that's where you can find those," he said.
When it comes to reporting on the political challenges to NPR's funding, these nuanced views and facts are important. If audience members are going to participate in the debate, they will need to know about more than just the legal and political maneuvers.
And if NPR doesn't provide that perspective, who will? I appreciate that the ground rules inside NPR for reporting on NPR slow down the process. However, it's crucial that the public understands both the critique of public media and the larger support for public media, particularly for the role it plays in local communities across the country.
Who represents the conservative movement on NPR?
Scott Heath wrote on May 1: It would be a great idea to explain to your listeners/viewers just how horrible and anti-democratic a person like Steve Bannon is. Yes, let people know. But to go to his man cave with a whole crew and platform this felon, as if he needs any more platforming, is, I think, just plain unethical and morally wrong. This man is proud about wanting to destroy everything that is good about the U.S. Tell people about that but don’t just let him spew his lies like he always does!
Susan Choi wrote on April 30: Hi, I have enormous respect for Juana Summers and so it was extra frustrating to have to listen to the Heritage Foundation president not only smear people - calling the lawyers representing Kilmar Abrego Garcia “liars” - but also express actual contempt for Juana Summers with a rude aside when she tried to pivot to a new topic. I was also frustrated that Summers’ challenge to Roberts’ own lies and distortions was so tepid, so that his was definitely the message that got across - I understand that NPR is trying to be balanced, but does that really mean giving the mic to lying, amoral ideologues like Roberts who cannot even conduct themselves with courtesy toward the interviewer? And this day started with my having to listen to Steve Bannon similarly make false statements on Morning Edition. NPR, please do not ‘correct’ for your reputation as an allegedly left-leaning news organization by giving the airwaves to people who actually are liars and who are actively seeking to trash our country. You’re not a ‘left leaning’ news organization, you’re a NEWS organization, which means sticking to factual reporting, not offering ideologues a platform. I’m disappointed. If you join the forces of normalization of Trump’s excesses, where will I turn for information?
NPR's efforts to bring the voices of the current administration to the public are largely invisible. Since Trump was sworn in this year, NPR's team that seeks high-profile interviews has made 303 requests of people in the administration. Many have been asked repeatedly. As of this week, only four of those requests have been granted.
Natalie Winston, executive producer of booking and specials, directs the small team in charge of getting high-profile interviews. Her team brought in the interview with Kevin Roberts, which ran April 30 on All Things Considered.
"I can't think of a better voice to reflect the first 100 days of President Trump's second administration than Kevin Roberts," she told me. "The Heritage Foundation, which he runs, wrote Project 2025, which seems to have served as a blueprint for Trump's second term."
The Bannon interview was arranged by Inskeep and ran earlier that same day on Morning Edition. It was the second time this year that Inskeep interviewed the populist influencer. A longer version of the interview ran on Up First that day. The full interview, with minor edits, ran on YouTube and on NPR's website. And smaller cuts were repurposed for social media.
"As we were looking at the mile marker of 100 days, we wanted to get a broad perspective on how people thought the Trump administration was doing," Eric Marrapodi, NPR vice president for news programming, told me. "I think Steve Bannon is incredibly influential within the MAGA movement. He has an enormous platform, an enormous following, and the things that he says on his show and the positions he advocates for have a way of finding their way into the administration."
While Summers' interview with Roberts was live and thus had to be limited to 8 minutes, the Bannon interview was recorded and offered Inskeep more flexibility to press for clarity when necessary.
In the face of Republican resistance to interacting with public media, NPR has found other ways to bring conservative perspectives to its audience. Shows will often feature sound from other media outlets. Hosts and reporters will describe the viewpoints of the people who refuse to come on NPR's airwaves.
NPR strives for balance and diversity in all of its work. But it achieves it most when the stakes are highest — in politics. That's why it's valuable to hear the views of controversial and influential people like Bannon and Roberts.
Yet the complete story and the full context are important across all topics. To return to the letter writers who commented on NPR's coverage of itself, it's not a virtue that NPR hasn't reported on the complete story of public media. It's just an incomplete story with more to come.
News consumers benefit from the most complete story on all topics, not just politics. Of course, that comes over time, not in a single story. It makes for a well-informed audience, better equipped to participate in the day's debates. — Kelly McBride
The Office of the Public Editor is a team. Reporters Amaris Castillo and Nicole Slaughter Graham and copy editor Merrill Perlman make this newsletter possible. Illustrations are by Carlos Carmonamedina. We are still reading all of your messages on Facebook, Instagram, Threads and from our inbox. As always, keep them coming.
Kelly McBride
NPR Public Editor
Chair, Craig Newmark Center for Ethics & Leadership at the Poynter Institute
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