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Being The Best At Anything Demands Looking Beyond Conventional Wisdom

Being the best at doing anything does not come easily, or please everyone all the time. NPR has, and continues to be attacked for being too liberal and too conservative in its views. It is clearly both — something 20 million American listeners find enlightening.

Washington

America’s Most Listened To Radio News

Member stations who carry NPR news and information programming extend world and national news content to their own local communities — providing a rich mixture of news not available elsewhere in broadcast media.

Those who regularly follow our nation’s best broadcast news service, National Public Radio [ NPR ], know that trying to deliver comprehensive coverage on what matters most to people in their daily lives is complicated.  At times, nearly any subject can become critically important — as opposed to always being entertaining. But not everything worth knowing is of critical importance — for part of journalism’s role is to hold up a mirror to society so the rest of us can see how we’re doing.

Simply The Best, Seven Days A Week

NPR is good at what it does in part because it delivers news and information critical to our lives or our nation. News, the important kind that cuts to the marrow of issues to expose wrongs, explains unwanted realities, illuminates hypocrisy, and celebrates success, is as oxygen to democracy. In a nation whose journalistic establishment is withering and uncertain, NPR serves as an essential, perhaps critical breath of fresh air.

Without relevant, probative and credible news a free peoples cannot long survive. Without shared information and experiences, those isolated their communities can easily turn insular, suspicious and self-serving. One of the most important sociological lessons in the last century is  the uniting of our nation in times of great distress. Journalism plays a critical role in telling us about ourselves, our problems, our accomplishments and our shared values.

Knowing what matters most is not easy in 21st century America. The reasons are many, the causes complex. But everywhere there is fear in newsrooms. Journalism is under attack, or being intentionally decimated for its entertainment value by broadcasters and opportunists. NPR is not only an exception, it has prospered in an enveloping seas of failing news organizations. NPR is succeeding by way of responsible journalistic standards, being accountable, demanding the best of its reporters, writers and readers. And by applying proven editorial controls to both content and style.

Journalistic Quality

Good journalism is hard work, often difficult to explain, and all-too-often not well appreciated. Some things are complicated and defy simple explanation.  Weak journalists avoid what’s complicated, but good ones go after it like a dog after a bone. Some issues, the one’s which may seem complicated but really are not, demand clear explanation. Not everyone knows how to do this today — for being trendy, sensational and opinionated are what draws readers and listeners.

National Public Radio excels at doing both — and nearly everything in between. Being the best at doing anything does not come easily, or please everyone all the time, so NPR has critics just like the rest of us. NPR has, and continues to be attacked for being too liberal and too conservative in its views. It is clearly both — something 20 million American listeners find enlightening. The list of things that it isn’t is fairly long — although not being exploitive, polarizing, or shallow are among the most important to listeners from coast to coast.

News Operations

National Public Radio

NPR is a complex amalgamation of journalism and entertainment programming as well as the operator of a satellite radio distribution system used by several public radio content distributors. Where it excels — and delivers an immensely important public service — is in its news and information programming.

One of NPR’s two drive-time news and information programs is called All Things Considered, a useful title for a news broadcast that reaches far and wide to report on stories big and small, complex and simple, expository or revelatory. NPR news programs explore the totality of information relevant to and of interest to Americans largely starved of wide and deep information about their world, nation and local communities.

The Personalities

All Things Considered

Robert Siegel
Michele Norris
Melissa Block

Morning Edition

Steve Inskeep
Renée Montagne

It’s sister broadcast, Morning Edition, shares the same voracious appetite for exploring issues large and small, important, trivial, interesting and engaging. Both programs are carried by most of the 797 public radio stations in the United States. NPR programming is also delivered over the web by some public radio stations.

Standards, Discipline, Quality

What’s so important about these broadcasts, and NPR’s unique niche in electronic media, is its journalistic qualities, its discipline and the willingness to take on the difficult and obscure stories usually left to the nation’s increasingly troubled newspapers.

The NPR news programs follow their newspaper competitors in other ways including in-depth coverage, feature stories, news analysis and opinion, the arts, science, sports — you name it and at one time or another nearly every constructive, reasonable or probative type and style of journalism has been featured.

Achievements

Today, Morning Edition and All Things Considered rank second and third in terms of their weekly listenership. Just last year, the NPR news programs enjoyed a 9% rise in overall listenership. These are impressive, and well deserved numbers, but best of all, the John Eggerton study published in Broadcasting and Cable in 2005 noted that NPR was cited as the most trusted news source in the U.S.

For good reason. Journalistic quality matters in our lives, our nation, our communities and to our future.

All you need to do to find the best broadcast news in 21st century America — is dial up your local public radio station.