NPR Struggles to Survive After Self-Inflicted Damage
Maybe it’s because Washington, D.C., has grown into such a heady atmosphere of political power over the last 25 years that the hubris and arrogance has rubbed off on pillars of mainstream news media. Or, maybe it’s just something in the water.
We are today witnessing the very public destruction of National Public Radio (NPR), hemorrhaging its reputation and legacy through self-inflicted wounds.
Insiders have known that NPR has become an unpleasant political environment for any respectable journalist to work in with any sense of pride. It’s a workplace led mostly by people with no broadcast news credentials, an atmosphere of who’s-in politically, and who’s-out.
A conservative prankster recently used an old trick of ambush journalism to catch Ron Schiller, NPR’s fundraising executive, making comments on video critical Tea Party members and claiming the network doesn’t need federal funding. Maybe a glint of hubris momentarily blinded Schiller.
Schiller had no background in broadcasting and came from a job as a university fundraiser in Illinois. He resigned NPR when the video was made public. The Aspen Institute, where he had hoped to work, smartly withdrew a job offer made to him.
An NPR spokeswoman said there is no connection between the video and Schiller’s departure. Incidentally, true to form at NPR, there is nothing to suggest the spokeswoman has expertise in PR or communications other than connections at NPR.
NPR’s CEO Vivian Schiller (no relation to the fundraiser) was the next to depart. She also had no background in broadcast news but under her brief tenure, NPR suffering a series of inexcusable and public embarrassments, including the firing of newsman Juan Williams and Ron Schiller’s fundraising antics.
Dave Edwards, chairman of NPR’s board of directors, said, in part:
“I recognize the magnitude of this news – and that it comes on top of what has been a traumatic period for NPR and the larger public radio community. The Board is committed to supporting NPR through this interim period and has confidence in NPR’s leadership team.”
What is sad in all of this is concern within the community of professional news people that NPR has lost its ethical compass as a news organization.
Rodney Huey, NPR's former VP of communications.
In recent years, NPR has shunned solid broadcast news veterans, preferring to hire journalists with only print background and executives with no broadcast news experience.
Here’s a classic example: In 2003, NPR hired Rodney Huey as vice president of communications. Huey had no credentials in news or the broadcasting business. Quite the contrary, he had worked in PR at Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey, the circus.
When asked at the time about his vision while at NPR, he told a reporter he planned to write a book about clowns. Huey lasted a year at NPR.
Hopefully, as NPR struggles to survive the Schiller-Schiller firestorm, its board will re-evaluate the network’s core purpose as a responsible and trusted broadcast news organization.
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I’m struggling to understand how a PR hiring decision made almost a decade ago has anything to do with ignorant comments made by a fundraiser in 2011. And to suggest that a lack of “seasoned broadcast news professionals” is the source of NPR’s problems is even more tenuous. Broadcast “news” today is a national disgrace that is woefully misinforming the public. You only need to look at actual investment in news operations compared to personality-driven talking heads to figure this out.
This is a tempest in a teacup driven by broadcast news outlets that rely on independent, partisan political operatives who lie their ways into meetings and then selectively edit their video to create the desired effect. NPR has a pr problem, I won’t argue that, but to suggest their news is lesser quality is just wrong. Some of the best and most objective reporting on this very incident is coming from NPR.
“Insiders have known that NPR has become an unpleasant political environment for any respectable journalist to work in with any sense of pride. It’s a workplace led mostly by people with no broadcast news credentials, an atmosphere of who’s-in politically, and who’s-out”
That’s not what I heard.
And for all the miserable ineptitudes of American mainstream journalism, NPR’s gaffes rank pretty low in my book.
And I don’t really think their problems will be solved by hiring those pseudo-news broadcast entertainers. All I know is that when Wolf Blitzer or Katie Couric opens there mouth, I have urges to self-mutilate.
Juan WIlliam departure increased NPR’s stature for insider journalists that I know. The guy is a political hack and his NPR position just provided cover for his propagandantics (TM).