Edward Schumacher-Matos
Edward Schumacher-Matos is the ombudsman for NPR. His column can be found on NPR.org here.
Having spent more than three decades as a reporter and editor in the United States and abroad for some of the nation's most prestigious news outlets, and having founded his own newspapers, Schumacher-Matos has a deep understanding of the essential role that journalists play in upholding a vital democracy. He also intimately understands the demands that reporters and editors face every day.
Immediately prior to joining NPR in June 2011, Schumacher-Matos wrote a syndicated weekly column for The Washington Post and was the ombudsman for The Miami Herald. Earlier, he founded four Spanish-language daily newspapers in Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and the Rio Grande Valley; served as the founding editor and associate publisher of the Wall Street Journal's Spanish and Portuguese insert editions in Latin America, Spain, and Portugal; and reported for The New York Times as Madrid Bureau Chief, Buenos Aires Bureau Chief, and the paper's NYC economic development reporter.
At The Philadelphia Inquirer, Schumacher-Matos was part of the team that won a 1980 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident. He began his varied career covering small towns for the Quincy Patriot Ledger south of Boston, and as a "super stringer' for The Washington Post, in Japan, South Korea, and New England.
For nearly the last four years, while writing his Post and Herald columns, Schumacher-Matos was also at Harvard University. He was the Robert F. Kennedy Visiting Professor in Latin American Studies at the Kennedy School of Government; a Shorenstein Fellow on the Press, Politics and Public Policy; and director of the Migration and Integration Studies Program. He is a member of the International Advisory Board of IE University Graduate School of Business in Madrid and the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at the University of Southern California. He also is active in the Council on Foreign Relations, the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, and the Inter American Press Association.
Schumacher-Matos received his Master of Arts degree in International Politics and Economics from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts, and his Bachelor of Arts degree in Politics and Literature from Vanderbilt University. He was a Fulbright Fellow in Japan.
Growing up in a military family, he volunteered to join the Army during the Vietnam War. His service in Vietnam earned him the Bronze Star. He was born in Colombia and came to the United States as an immigrant child.
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NPR ran five stores on the giant pandas in Washington's National Zoo during its coverage of last month's government shutdown. It then ran a sixth story on them last week. What gives? Does anyone in the rest of the country really care about the capital's pandas? An NPR editor responds. -
NPR's national political correspondent Mara Liasson is also a contributor to Fox News. Some listeners complain that she has a conservative bias. A review of her work finds otherwise. -
Images on Al Jazeera of brutalized Americans in Iraq understandably still trouble some listeners, but NPR's acceptance of sponsorship support from the new Al Jazeera America fall well within free speech and ethical standards. Al Jazeera itself brings a valuable international voice into our living rooms. -
Here are some preliminary responses to your comments on the ombudsman process, on sourcing and on the length of my review of an NPR investigation into foster care for Native American children in South Dakota. Many of you wondered what NPR should do next. That is not for me to say, but one officer from the Native American Journalists Association has a suggestion. I also answer a grandmother quoted in the series who called me with a concern about truth. -
A cost-cutting, face-saving move by the Post to replace its independent ombudsman with what sounds like a customer care representative is sadly shortsighted. It contributes precisely to the decline in public trust that lies behind the travails at the Post and all American news media. NPR in polls confronts the same trust malady. The press grows in power, yet sheds ever more controls. Editors will never investigate themselves. The public rebels. -
A look at the proportion of Republicans and Democrats speaking on air in relation to the "fiscal cliff" offers an insight into political bias by NPR. The finding? A pretty even balance, despite a slight Republican tilt in the numbers. But further dissection welcomed. -
Metaphors can be great for framing the urgency of a problem, but what do you do when the image isn't accurate? If you are the president or a Republican Congressional leader, you keep hammering with the metaphor anyway. It's all Ben Bernanke's fault. -
Paul Delaney, Mike Honda, Rhonda Levaldo Janet Murguía, Charles Murray and Michael Schudson give their views on how NPR is doing against different measures. They respond with insight, frustration and even humor. The goal is for NPR to sound like America.
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After a series of messy mishaps, NPR isn't doing badly when it comes to racial and ethnic diversity in its coverage and staffing. Management is trying to do better.
