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NPR Public Editor by Poynter's Kelly McBride

When I worked at a commercial newspaper, readers occasionally criticized our decision to accept certain advertising. Often it was the ads for guns and strip clubs in the back of the paper that drew the loudest objections. Once an ad director told me: “If it’s legal, we’ll take your money to advertise it.”

NPR has a very different approach. The FCC prohibits public media from advertising products in a way that makes you want to go out and buy them. No prices, no comparisons, no incentives (on the radio, podcasts follow different rules).

Perhaps because of these loftier standards, NPR audience members have higher expectations. Rarely a month goes by that someone in the audience doesn’t offer a critique of NPR sponsors. Sometimes we hear the word “sellout.”

While that may be harsh, it’s understandable that consumers of public media would raise an eyebrow when they hear a sponsor message from a company that’s the subject of perpetual social criticism. Why would companies that endure public scrutiny for their bad deeds want to advertise on public media, if not to bathe in some of that NPR goodness?

Today, we are addressing two letters, both calling out a dissonance between NPR’s mission and the messages from companies that seem to cause a lot of harm.

A third audience member critiques some imprecise wording on an issue we’ve addressed before: how to describe George Floyd’s death. (hint: He was murdered.)

Read on for our suggestions, which address the necessity for NPR to manage a rising chorus of doubt.

Here are a few quotes from the Public Editor's inbox that resonated with us. You can share your questions and concerns with us through the NPR Contact page.

Hypocrisy in sponsorships

Sylvia Shriner writes: I've been listening to your station since the 1980s, and your coverage has become more and more corporate over the years. I understand how it has been a struggle to keep a news business afloat and that your public funding is always being threatened by conservatives. However, I am appalled to see your headline on the front page of the website (Sept. 9, 2021) proclaim, "To Avoid Extreme Disasters, Most Fossil Fuels Should Stay Underground, Scientists Say," and in the next breath run a commercial for Chevron!

Debra Connor writes: I listen almost exclusively to NPR when I am driving. So I was surprised and shocked to learn today that Facebook is a supporter of NPR. I appreciated the total disclosure but feel that Facebook is antithetical to the mission of NPR as its algorithms intentionally are designed to serve up clickbait that is creating even more division in our country. I realize that NPR is publicly funded but isn't this just letting Zuckerberg whitewash the many bad things Facebook does by supporting such a good thing as NPR? I would like more information on how NPR makes its decisions on who to accept support from.

Listeners are increasingly skeptical of NPR’s corporate sponsors, for exactly the reasons that both of you have articulated.

Roughly 35% of NPR’s annual revenue comes from corporate sponsorships, which when it comes to the radio are subject to tighter FCC restrictions than the advertising that you find in commercial media. Sponsors can’t sell you things. They can’t advertise prices or induce you in any way. They can offer slogans and value-neutral descriptions. Those rules eliminate a lot of advertising, including all political messages as well as most drug company ads.

There are two dozen different ways sponsors can get their message to the NPR audience. Podcast rules allow for some price information and often include special discount codes. You can see and sort public media podcast deals here.

Beyond following the letter of the FCC regulations for broadcast sponsorships, NPR has a system set to vet potential underwriters. It starts with National Public Media, NPR's sponsorship subsidiary. I talked with Gina Garrubbo, NPM president and CEO, and Bryan Moffett, NPM COO.

Here are just a few of the guardrails:

Journalists don’t read sponsor messages on air. Instead, a staff of talent is dedicated specifically to that task.
While NPM is willing to hear a pitch from almost any company, there are a few that know not to try, including intelligence agencies, companies heavily influenced by hostile foreign governments and cigarette companies.
When a company’s message is too close to a news topic, NPR editors can veto it. For instance, if you listen to any non-NPR podcasts, you’ve probably heard Facebook’s campaign in which the company announces that it is in favor of reforming the laws that govern the internet, even section 230. NPR said no to that particular message from Facebook.
In addition to rejecting specific messages, NPR staff can manually prevent sponsor messages from appearing next to stories, like the example of the Chevron ad and the science story about the study recommending that fossil fuels stay in the ground. But because news content is kept separate, someone on the news staff must spot the incongruity.
Reporters and hosts disclose when a sponsor is the subject of news.

Yet even with these standards in place, listeners and readers are dubious. What more can NPR and NPM do? Blacklisting a company with a tarnished reputation from sponsorship opportunities is problematic, because so many companies find themselves the subject of negative news coverage. One could argue that credit card companies, fast food companies, banks, airlines, oil companies, social media platforms, entertainment services and many retailers all pollute our minds, bodies and environments. Journalists themselves sometimes chafe at the idea that harmful and sometimes disingenuous companies contribute to NPR’s bottom line.

There are no easy answers. Dwindling trust in news media is bound to generate larger and larger waves of doubt. Sponsor messages are going to awaken the doubter within. The challenge before NPR is to innovate new paths of transparency and accountability.

Perhaps an archive of sponsor messages and the dates they ran would be helpful. In addition to publishing a static list of sponsors in the annual report, maybe a public database of sponsors would generate more transparency. If news consumers could sort through every sponsor message, they would gain a more accurate picture of the many companies seeking to reach NPR's audience.

It may not be enough to maintain high standards. In order to keep a position of trust, NPR may have to create new ways to let the audience in on those standards. — Kelly McBride

Ambiguous wording

Vincent Colavin writes: This article states: "The shooting came three months after George Floyd died while white Minneapolis police officers restrained him." George Floyd was murdered by those police officers; [former officer Derek Chauvin has] been convicted. Saying he died while being restrained makes it sound like they were incidental to his death. What is the justification for the ambiguous and blameless wording?

Yes, the ambiguity in that phrase is unnecessary. As we wrote in an April newsletter, “Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. With the Hennepin County jury’s conviction on Tuesday, journalists are liberated to write that sentence.” NPR reported at the time that Chauvin had been “found guilty of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.”

Journalists were definitive in saying it, too. All Things Considered host Ari Shapiro, speaking with California Congresswoman Karen Bass in April, said, “At this point, people are so familiar with the details of how Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd.”

The story in question that you’ve linked is from The Associated Press, which, as you say, used ambiguous wording. It would’ve been good for NPR to edit this sentence to make it more clear and precise. — Kayla Randall

The Public Editor spends a lot of time examining moments where NPR fell short. Yet we also learn a lot about NPR by looking at work that we find to be compelling and excellent journalism. Here we share a line or two about the pieces where NPR shines.

A pointed and on-point critique

Readers enjoyed Reanna Cruz’s withering critique of singer Jesy Nelson’s song “Boyz” for NPR Music’s #NowPlaying. In just a couple of paragraphs, Cruz makes the perspective clear with pointed precision: This song is Not Good. Writers don’t need a ton of words to be perfectly scathing and entertaining in a review. And in this case, some of those words are “toothless lyrics,” “nondescript vocal” and a riff “stuttering as if someone accidentally hit their elbow on the keyboard, glitched the instrumental and spliced it in random places.” As others have said, well done. — Kayla Randall

The Office of the Public Editor is a team. Researchers Amaris Castillo and Kayla Randall make this newsletter possible. Illustrations are by Carlos Carmonamedina. We are still reading all of your messages on Facebook, Twitter 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

Kelly McBride, Public Editor

Kayla Randall, NPR

Amaris Castillo, Poynter Institute

The Public Editor stands as a source of independent accountability. Created by NPR's board of directors, the Public Editor serves as a bridge between the newsroom and the audience, striving to both listen to the audience's concerns and explain the newsroom's work and ambitions. The office ensures NPR remains steadfast in its mission to present fair, accurate and comprehensive information in service of democracy.

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