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NPR Issues Rare Retraction
Listeners who tuned in to All Things Considered Wednesday may have heard a strangely vague on-air story retraction that raised as many questions as it answered — especially for those who didn't hear...
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Live Interviews Spark Listener Feedback
Live interviews with newsmakers. If I had to find a thread that runs through a couple of hundred listener emails, tweets and direct communications with my office in recent months, it would be concerns...
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The Startling Statistics About People's Holocaust Knowledge
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The Week In News, In Verse
How do you keep up on all the news?I think many Americans ask that of one another these days. There's BREAKING NEWS every few minutes that seems to leave all previous BREAKING NEWS stories behind.News...
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Why Do Russian Journalists Keep Falling?
Maybe Maxim Borodin was depressed in ways his friends just didn't recognize and threw himself off of his fifth-floor balcony this week in Yekaterinburg, Russia.Maxim Borodin was 32 and a reporter for...
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'Allegedly' No More: Cosby Conviction Marks A New Chapter For #MeToo
Finally, we no longer have to use the word "allegedly."A court of law has delivered a verdict that the court of public opinion seemed to have already reached: Bill Cosby, 80, has been found guilty of...
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Below A Michigan Overpass, Truckers Make A Safety Net
The most heartening photo I've seen in a while is the one this week of 13 trucks: semitrailers, big rigs, parked shoulder to shoulder, you might say, below an overpass in Michigan at 1 a.m. on Tuesday....
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3 Black Teenage Scientists Had A Breakthrough, Then Came The Trolls
Mikayla Sharrieff, India Skinner and Bria Snell should only be proud this week.The 17-year-olds, all juniors at Benjamin Banneker High School in Washington, D.C., created a simple way using copper...
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The 2 Directors Missing From Cannes
The Cannes Film Festival has opened with sizzle and glitz. But when you see photos snapped along the red carpet, you might want to think of two directors whose films have been nominated for the Palme...
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A Closer Look: Parsing Political Interviews
My last column on the burgeoning number of politician interviews on NPR's newsmagazines, many live (and then rebroadcast over subsequent hours), provoked a good deal of response.My essential point...
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You Call That Breaking News?
NPR, like other news organizations, is in a fight for the attention of audiences. That means getting aggressive about putting NPR journalism where readers (and listeners) are. Increasingly, that's on...
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Remembering Tom Wolfe, 'The Man In The Ice-Cream Suit'
Tom Wolfe did not blend in. He was a southerner in New York, a New Yorker in the world, a reporter among novelists and vice-versa, and a man who wore ice cream white suits and peach-pink ties in...
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In The Quest For Comment, Hurry Up And Wait
A story breaks. An NPR reporter writing an online story (not a radio newsmagazine report, where there might be a firmer deadline) attempts to contact a subject of the news. How long is a reasonable...
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Translated Into 'Trumptalk,' History's Famous Lines Would Look A Little...
Sad! Pathetic! Fake News!Have those words crept — or burst! — into your vocabulary in the past couple of years?Any president has an impact on public rhetoric. But the influence of what I'll call...
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NPR Bids Adieu To 5 News Blogs
Very few people these days are going to the landing pages for NPR blogs such as The Two-Way (for breaking news) or Parallels (for international news) to catch up on the day's happenings. If you're one...
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Study Estimates Hurricane Maria Killed Nearly 5,000, But Barely Makes News
On the day this week that Roseanne was canceled because of a racist tweet, researchers from Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health estimated Hurricane Maria caused at least 4,645 deaths in Puerto...
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NPR's Policy On Suicide Reporting Is To 'Be Judicious' With Details
With two suicides this week of well-known Americans, "best practices" for reporting such deaths are again relevant. NPR's reporting has mostly been exemplary, even as it has missed the mark at least...
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When Suicide Is 'Buzzing Around'
I have to talk in an utterly personal way about suicide. My grandmother took her life, and my mother, who struggled against the impulse several times, said, "Suicide puts a fly in your head. It's...
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President Trump Has Some Awfully Kind Words For Kim Jong Un
Politics — and real life — brim with contradictions and insincerities. Sometimes, that's for the best.Winston Churchill despised communism and Josef Stalin. But when Adolf Hitler's Germany invaded the...
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Seeking To Cut Down On Corrections With A 'CQ'
Can NPR reduce the number of monthly mistakes it makes in half, by October? That's the newsroom's ambitious goal.On Monday, referencing an error rate that he called "unacceptable," NPR's standards and...
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Children's Cries Brought Down Walls Of Indifference
The cries of children pierce our hearts. Scientists say they're meant to. They move us to love and protect children. This response is healthy; it's human; and it keeps humanity going.As Dr. Marc...
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For Restaurant Staff, A Rare Chance To Protest The Trump Administration
If Sarah Sanders or Kirstjen Nielsen came to our studios — and I hope some day they will — I would thank them for coming, and be professional and pleasant. But when the mic light went on, I would have...
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Opinion: We Should Turn Down The Volume Of This Hot Summer
I love summer. But when I look at the weather map of the U.S. and see nothing but gold and orange and light red, highs in the '80s and '90s and above across the whole country, it scares me. I do know...
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Source Throws Yellow Card, Sees Gender Bias In Soccer Story
On June 30, NPR's Weekend All Things Considered aired a lighthearted World Cup piece discussing why the Brits use "football" and the Americans use "soccer" to refer to the same game. The subsequent...
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Opinion: An Act Of Bravery At The World Cup
There was a conspicuous act of bravery in the second half of this week's World Cup championship game.The French team, which won 4-2, was bold and deft. Many of its players are immigrants, or children...
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Opinion: Why 'Fact Checking' and 'Reality Check' Do Not Apply to Trump
President Trump does not make "mistakes" in the sense that the rest of us do.We make mistakes, get corrected, make amends, apologize and move on. The president does not.The president may not even tell...
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Opinion: When A Video Isn't The Whole Story
We live in times of instant mass outrage. Someone does something, says something or is seen doing something and they can be demonized with a click. The next time you might be tempted, think of this:In...
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Opinion: Calling The Press The Enemy Of The People Is A Menacing Move
"Enemy of the people" is an incendiary phrase. It's been uttered by some of history's most vicious thugs — Robespierre, Goebbels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao — to vilify their opponents ... who were often...
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Wildfire Reports Ignite Debate Over Climate Change Coverage
Wildfires are ravaging hundreds of thousands of acres of the western United States and Canada this summer, taking lives and homes in California, closing parts of Yosemite National Park to visitors and...
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Freelance Contributor Recycled Sound Bites
NPR said Friday that it discovered that a longtime freelance contributor, Danielle Karson, had recycled sound bites in more than two dozen reports that aired from 2011 until recently. NPR has handled...
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Opinion: Critics Nix Pop Flicks Pick For Oscar Fix
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences got panned this week for changes they announced to their annual awards.Oscar viewership has declined 39 percent since 2014. Lots of people now watch...
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Kessler Interview Puts Spotlight On How To Cover Racist Viewpoints
Sunday's "Unite the Right 2" rally across from the White House was a bust, when just a couple of dozen protesters turned up. But the outrage against NPR over its coverage leading up to the event will...
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'Morning Edition' Resets Its Clock (Again)
Morning Edition listeners will have noticed this week that the newscasts, or headlines, have moved around. Newscasts had aired each hour at 1 minute after the hour and again at 19 minutes and 42...
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Opinion: Please Take Away My Kids' Cellphones At School
It has been a depressing week of back-to-school stories. Parents buying bulletproof backpacks. Schools installing panic buttons and classroom trauma kits. Some teachers in Waco, Texas, kicked off the...
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Opinion: 'National Enquirer' Publisher's CEO Could Testify About Trump And UFOs
The reports that David Pecker, head of the publisher of the National Enquirer, received immunity to testify about payoffs Michael Cohen handled for two women who say they were involved with Donald...
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Regrets Only: When Potential Interviewees Say 'No Thanks'
This office gets weekly complaints about what is perceived to be an imbalance in guests: There are too many Republicans interviewed and not enough Democrats. Or vice versa. Or a partisan from one side...
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Opinion: A Bond Beyond Politics
Republicans, Democrats, soldiers, sports stars, celebrities, conservatives and liberals were among John McCain's pallbearers this past week. So was Vladimir Kara-Murza. John McCain called him, "A...
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Jason Rosenthal: What Does the Loss Of A Loved One Teach Us About Life?
Part 1 of the TED Radio Hour episodeDying Well.About Jason Rosenthal's TED TalkBefore Jason's wife Amy died, she wrote a heartbreaking farewell essay: "You May Want To Marry My Husband." Jason...
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Disclosing Whether Interviewees Signed Non-Disclosure Agreements
Newsrooms aren't perfect. Trustworthy newsrooms, however, make adjustments (preferably quickly) when their errors are pointed out. On Thursday my office heard from two listeners who questioned a...
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Opinion: Stand Up And Speak Out
I don't like anonymous bylines. You can't ask questions of an anonymous speaker or writer, try to poke holes in their story, or get them to prove what they say. You can't guess what they hope to gain...
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NPR Concludes Investigation Into Work Of Freelancer Who Recycled Material
NPR newsroom leaders have concluded their investigation into the work of a longtime freelance contributor, Danielle Karson, one month after they said they had discovered she had recycled sound bites in...
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Opinion: Live And Let Bagel
Gov. Andrew Cuomo won the Democratic primary for governor of New York this week, just four days after his opponent, Cynthia Nixon, ordered lox with cream cheese, red onions, tomato and a sprinkling of...
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Opinion: A Very Winning Play?
The most remarkable play of this college football season may have already occurred.Last Saturday, in the first quarter of the game between the North Texas Mean Green and the Arkansas Razorbacks, Keegan...
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Call The Midwives, But Ring The Doctors, Too
NPR's Planet Money team specializes in making complex economic stories compelling and understandable. That often means stripping stories down to essentials and using anecdotes as a story device (the...
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NPR Doesn't Confer 'Dr.' On Ph.D.s. Here's Why.
Longstanding NPR policy is to reserve the title of "Dr." for an individual who holds a doctor of dental surgery, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatric medicine or veterinary...
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Opinion: Christine Blasey Ford's Moving Testimony
I think a lot of people might have felt a jolt in their souls when Christine Blasey Ford told the Senate Judiciary Committee that one of the most vivid, indelible memories she has of the night she says...
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How NPR decided whose voices to include in stories on the FBI search of...
In the week after the FBI searched former President Donald Trump's home, NPR and other newsrooms faced a common challenge: With the government silent, the loudest voices speaking publicly about the...
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Nina Totenberg is the exception, not the rule, and NPR leaders should say so
Nina Totenberg is a rarity in journalism, a reporter who has spent more than 40 years covering one beat: the Supreme Court. Her tenure is longer than that of any of the current justices sitting on the...
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How to interview vulnerable sources without exploiting them
The most powerful stories in journalism often feature the voices of people with little power. Telling interesting stories about people without big titles, impressive credentials or personal fame is a...
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The audience has a lot to say about coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. We're...
We are almost a month into the horrific and deadly escalation in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and the public editor inbox is overflowing with audience criticisms. More than 100 notes a week...
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