Programs/Content

New NPR ethics code discourages outside contracts

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NPR journalists must seek management approval to sign work contracts with other media outlets, and most such requests will not be granted, according to a comprehensive revision of the network’s ethics guidelines approved unanimously by the network’s board Feb. 24. The board reaffirmed the network’s desire to regulate moonlighting such as the ongoing appearances of former NPR news analyst Juan Williams on Fox News — a gig that led to his firing in 2010 and an extended hullaballoo exploited by Fox and Republican partisans. Publication of the NPR Ethics Handbook concluded a 15-month process that the Board initiated after Williams’s dismissal. The guidelines specify that a news employee must get written permission “for all outside freelance and journalistic work,” a continuation of NPR’s previous policies.

Programs/Content

Keillor’s fundraiser for Obama revives complaints of bias

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Like many entertainers, Prairie Home Companion host Garrison Keillor has never tried to hide his liberal political leanings, but his decision to host an Obama re-election fundraising party in his Minnesota home last week worked the conservative blogosphere into a lather about NPR’s political bias. Yet NPR has no control over Keillor or his nationally syndicated weekly program. And there’s no guarantee that his program’s distributor, the Minnesota-based American Public Media Group, could heel its star vaudevillian if it tried to neutralize him politically. Keillor owns his production company and is responsible for the show’s content. APMG took a measured stance by endorsing Keillor’s First Amendment rights as an individual.

People

Blogger gets the hots for NPR’ers, Maine pubcaster appears on Family Feud, and more…

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Despite the phrase “a face made for radio,” a blogger has started appraising crush-worthy folks in public radio. Babes Of NPR features public radio hosts, reporters and producers whose photos inspire a swoon or a snarky comment from the site’s North Carolina proprietor. Morning Edition’s Steve Inskeep is “the thinking man’s David Hasselhoff.” Peter Breslow, a senior producer for Weekend Edition, is likened to actor Ted Danson. And Joe and Terry Graedon, hosts of The People’s Pharmacy, “look like they might be fun to take home from the middle-aged hippie swingers potluck.”

Babes of NPR was launched after a photo of NPR reporter Ari Shapiro popped up on the Facebook page of creator Katie Herzog. “I thought, ‘That guy is really good-looking, especially for an NPR nerd,’” says Herzog, who works for an academic press in Durham, N.C.

The blog started getting attention from people in public media.

AIR

NPR increases pay rates for outside producers

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NPR and the Association of Independents in Radio unveiled a new payment structure for news reports Jan. 1, raising rates 7.5 percent for station-based and indie radio producers, effective immediately. NPR adopted a three-tiered compensation system and established standard rates for tape syncs. “NPR’s decision to increase rates, which comes at a time of tight budgets, is intended to reflect our commitment to the vital network of station-based and independent reporters whose contributions enhance our programming every day,” NPR interim news chief Margaret Low Smith said in an email. Reaching agreement took nearly a year of negotiations with AIR and internal consultations at NPR, according to AIR President Sue Schardt.

Tech

NPR app for motorists gets radio from the Web as well as stations

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Some new Ford cars will let their drivers shout “hourly news!” or “topics!” and choose public radio programming either on their local stations or through a smartphone streaming audio from the Internet. Bringing in webcasts and on-demand streaming gives drivers a vastly greater range of listening options and could make it even easier for them to hear public radio without help from their local stations. That ability is already within reach for drivers who have a smartphone and a cable or adapter to connect it to a car stereo. But coupling a smartphone with the new NPR app to Ford’s SYNC AppLink system may help popularize web audio listening, a scenario that dismays some pubradio station leaders. Regardless, some station execs are also praising NPR for taking the lead as the first news organization to develop a dedicated in-car app that showcases its programming.

People
Daniel Faulkner and Mumia Abu-Jamal

State drops death penalty for commentator Mumia Abu-Jamal

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Mumia Abu-Jamal, the onetime radio journalist, activist and convicted killer whose planned jailhouse commentaries were dropped by NPR after an outcry 17 years ago, is off of death row. However, he’s likely to stay in prison the rest of his life, without the possibility of parole.  Abu-Jamal is now jailed at State Correctional Institution Mahanoy, west of Allentown in eastern Pennsylvania. Philadelphia’s district attorney, Seth Williams, said Dec. 7 [2011] the death penalty was a just punishment for killing a city policeman 30 years ago, but he wouldn’t prolong the legal struggle by asking again for execution. Twice the courts had ordered execution, and appeals saved him — to the relief of his partisans and to the outrage of those of Officer Daniel Faulkner.

People

Dave Creagh, 60, producer and station exec ‘in vanguard of public radio pioneers’

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Dave Creagh, an early All Things Considered executive producer who went on to lead other programs and major-market stations throughout his influential 22-year pubradio career, died Dec. 16 at his home in Blowing Rock, N.C., following a short illness associated with treatment of a cancer diagnosed in November. He was 60. “Dave was in the vanguard of public radio pioneers who laid the foundations for a vital communications network,” said John Dimsdale, Washington bureau chief for American Public Media’s Marketplace and a former colleague at NPR. “Over his career, he established high standards for engineering, journalism, production and station management.

System/Policy

NPR rooted in stations that still require federal dollars

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When Gary Knell officially started work this month as NPR’s president, he probably found no shortage of ideas about what he should do with an organization that has recently survived bad headlines, turmoil at the top and a near-death experience with federal funding cuts. But he would be well advised to ignore some of those recommendations. Some say NPR should simply forgo federal funding, which accounts for 2 percent of its annual budget. Receiving even that small amount, they say, leaves NPR vulnerable to accusations of political bias in its news coverage. How much easier it would be, they argue, if public radio would give up the federal dollars and ignore the occasional outbreaks of criticism from Capitol Hill.

System/Policy

Western stations ask for new election to fill McTaggart’s seat on NPR Board

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When a candidate wins re-election but withdraws from service before taking office, does the electorate get another chance to vote? Given the irregular turnover after NPR Board elections this summer, station leaders in Western States Public Radio think so. After American Public Media President Jon McTaggart won re-election to a three-year term and resigned before taking the director’s seat, WSPR objected to the NPR Board’s decision to appoint a replacement rather than hold a new election. The resolution said its complaint involved procedure, not McTaggart or the board’s selection to succeed him, Marita Rivero, g.m. of television and radio at Boston’s WGBH. Managers attending the regional association’s meeting, Nov.

People

APM chief McTaggart, seen as competitor, leaves NPR Board

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American Public Media’s president, Jon McTaggart, won re-election to the NPR Board this summer but won’t be taking the seat after all. McTaggart resigned from the board at NPR’s request after an outside legal analysis determined that his promotion to president of APM and Minnesota Public Radio presented a potential conflict of interest with his service on the NPR Board. Since his first election to the board three years ago, McTaggart had been promoted from chief operating officer to chief exec of American Public Media Group, the parent company of APM/MPR. That put him uniquely and simultaneously on the boards of the two largest producers and distributors of public radio programming. Marita Rivero, v.p. and g.m. of WGBH’s television and radio stations, will fill the NPR Board vacancy instead.

System/Policy
Lisa Simeone

News leaders draw hard line on employees’ public comments

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Update, Nov. 10: The NPR Board postponed considering the ethics policy scheduled for its Nov. 10-11 meeting. Spokesperson Dana Rehm said work was not complete on two of the three ethics documents. “Management and the board determined that the best course of action would be to release the guiding principles of NPR’s journalism, the handbook and the employee code of conduct at the same time so we’re in a position to confidently answer everyone’s questions about which principles apply to whom,” Rehm said.

People

Knight-Batten Award, 2011

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NPR social media specialist Andy Carvin received a Knight-Batten Award for innovation in journalism. Carvin, whose job as the network’s senior social media strategist this year evolved into round-the-clock tweeting of Arab Spring protests, received a Knight Batten Award of Special Distinction honoring his pioneering use of Twitter in newsgathering. The Knight-Batten awards panel chose Storify as this year’s Grand Prize winner and honored three other innovators with Special Distinction Awards. The panel selects winners for innovative uses of new technologies in newsgathering and civic engagement. Carvin and his “Twitter community” were both cited for the award.

People

News and Documentary Emmys, 2011

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It’s been a very good Emmy season for indie documentaries on PBS. POV received four of the six statuettes credited to PBS in the National Academy of Television Arts and Science’s Sept. 26 Emmy announcement. Two went to Food Inc., putting it at the top of the documentary and long-form informational programming categories. In a likely first for a Web-based service run by a radio network, NPR Music was honored by the Television Academy for the Project Song video “Moby” as one of two News & Doc Emmy winners for innovation in arts, lifestyle and culture coverage.

System/Policy

Party backs GOP nomination debate at OPB in March

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Oregon Public Broadcasting will produce and provide to NPR and PBS stations exclusive coverage of a Republican presidential debate from its Portland studios March 19, 2012. The 90-minute debate “will come at a critical time in the campaign” before anyone sews up the GOP nomination, OPB President Steve Bass predicted in a memo to stations. “Super Tuesday is on March 6, but delegate counts indicate that it will not be possible for the nomination to be won by any candidate by then. Political observers believe that the nomination contest could very likely go into the late spring.”

The Republican National Committee has officially sanctioned the debate, which “virtually assures the participation of the front-running candidates,” Bass said. OPB is partnering with the Oregon GOP and The Washington Times to present the debate.

Programs/Content

Knell: familiar with dynamics

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NPR’s next president already knows how a strong production house can continue to work with pubcasting stations — and also expand its reach with non-broadcast distribution partners. For nearly 12 years Gary Knell has managed one of PBS’s prize program providers, Sesame Workshop, which made cable deals and vastly enlarged its audience on the Web while keeping the first play of its primo content on PBS. Knell, like his NPR predecessor, Vivian Schiller, as well as recent PBS leaders, wants to play the major original productions in as many venues as possible, though with the member stations continuing to hold an exclusive broadcast window. “It’s radio-first distribution,” Knell told Current, “Then it should be made available more broadly, tweeted and smeeted,” he said, coining a word for additional varieties of social media. “We’ve got to make sure that we’re all over all that stuff.”

Under David Britt, Knell’s predecessor as president of the Manhattan-based production institution, the Workshop negotiated an end to PBS’s exclusive rights to its flagship program, Sesame Street, and in 1999 released older episodes to a cable venture — Noggin, a cable net co-owned with Viacom’s Nickelodeon.

People

CPI hires four, Abumrad gets $500K MacArthur fellowship, three join FCC panel, and more…

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Ellen Weiss, the NPR News chief who took the network’s blame for the Juan Williams affair, has joined the Center for Public Integrity as its executive editor as of Oct. 3, the watchdog newsroom announced. The center is headed by one of her predecessors at NPR, Bill Buzenberg. “Ellen Weiss is one of the best and most creative news executives in the business,” he said in a news release. CPI hired three other top editors, including Christine Montgomery, the center’s new chief digital officer, who was managing editor of PBS.org for two years while it expanded and then sharply reduced its online-news plans.

Quick Takes

NPR back as a House target: Draft bill seeks ban on aid

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The draft for the House Appropriations Committee’s fiscal year 2012 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill, introduced Sept. 29 by subcommittee Chair Denny Rehburg (R-Mont.), would prohibit CPB from funding NPR and requests a report from CPB on how to remove NPR totally from federal funding by 2014. Under the bill, CPB would receive the already-appropriated amount of $445 million for that year, including $6 million for digital projects. Other agencies in the draft bill would fare worse for the year that began Oct. 1.

People

Gary Knell, Sesame Workshop c.e.o., hired as NPR president

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Gary E. Knell, president and c.e.o. of Sesame Workshop for a decade, will start work Dec. 1 with the same titles at NPR, the network announced today. The NPR Board voted unanimously to hire the widely experienced leader of a comparably prominent, esteemed and successful public media institution who had preparatory stints as a legislative aide and in private media and public TV. An NPR spokesperson said Knell would take a reduction pay. His Sesame Workshop compensation came to more than $746,000, NPR’s David Folkenflik reported today [Mark Memmott’s blog].