Do NPR sponsors get any preferential treatment at NPR? Do they have any special influence over what gets covered?
Those were the questions posed to me by some college students recently. Good questions, I thought.
The short answer is probably not. But how do we know?
First it must be said that there is no contact allowed between sponsors and the journalistic staff. Only the vice president of news, Bruce Drake, has discussions with his colleagues in the development department. There is no mingling, in my experience, between those with largesse and those who need the funding to do the journalism.
But some listeners insist that even if there isn't any direct contact, the pressures then become more subtle and for some, more insidious.
Listeners ask if I sense that NPR is going soft on an advertiser? Do assignments ever get killed because they might upset someone on the development and fundraising side of NPR? I haven't heard of this happening. But there is a rising sense of concern -- both outside and inside NPR -- that it might happen someday.
Going Easy or a Full Going-Over?
In my experience, journalists and managers at NPR don't instinctively go easy on a sponsor in the news, just because it is a sponsor. Sometimes, the opposite occurs. A sponsor who gets in the news can be given a full journalistic going-over, just to prove the point: The reporting can't be bought.
Yet there is an impression, if my e-mail is anything to go by, that many listeners are more nervous these days about sponsors and wonder, as did those students, if there is any undue influence inside NPR.
Here is how the system works... or is supposed to work:
NPR gets its money in a number of ways. First, NPR charges stations fees for its programs such as Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
NPR also takes money from foundations and corporations for general areas of coverage. A complete list of those organizations -- and the amounts they give NPR -- is on the NPR Web site (See NPR Annual Report link below). The details of who gives and how much they give are on pages 24-27.
Too Many Strings Attached?
Foundations and corporations may have broad, general areas of interest and they may give money for coverage in those areas. But NPR can and does reject the money if it feels that underwriters want specific coverage on their pet projects or if there are too many editorial strings attached to the money. This principle is known as the "firewall" between the editorial and the development sides of NPR.
NPR acknowledges this support with underwriting credits. These are the short (no more than 10 seconds each) messages that are aired two or three times each hour. The total length of these messages may not be more than two minutes per hour. This is an FCC regulation that dates back to the early 1970s. It's a lot less than advertising on commercial radio and television, which in prime time, can reach up to 22 minutes per hour.
Round and Round It Goes…
The NPR messages are pre-recorded and placed into the master computer about a week or more in advance of their airing. About 24 hours before broadcast, a list of underwriting credits is sent to senior managers. Those managers are supposed to make sure any underwriting messages that might have a connection to a preceding news report are moved. But while a list of underwriting credits might be predictable, the news is not.
Changes to news programs are frequently made at the last minute.
In the past, that has resulted in the occasional embarrassing messages that are adjacent to news stories on that same underwriter. Some years ago, during the dot-com boom, NPR did a report on the launching of a new IPO (remember them?). Unbeknownst to the news staff, the IPO decided to purchase an underwriting message on NPR. As luck would have it, the computer positioned the message to air immediately after the business segment on Morning Edition.
The news story on the IPO was immediately followed by… yes, "Support for NPR comes from…" Faces were red around NPR. Some listeners wondered if NPR was now delivering the best news stories money can buy. This is especially awkward when a book or movie review is immediately followed by an underwriting message for the same product.
Since then, news management has tried to stay ahead of the messages. Occasionally messages will be dropped because they are adjacent to news stories. To my knowledge, the opposite has never happened: A news story has not been dropped in preference to airing a paid underwriting message.
Most listeners, in my experience, understand that underwriting is a fact of life in public radio. Unlike public broadcasting in other countries, NPR is not supported by the diminishing largesse of governments.
Still Concerned About Wal-Mart
But the listeners' acceptance of the economic facts of life is being tested by the repeated messages from Wal-Mart.
Valerie Johnson is an NPR listener from Laguna Hills, Calif. She called to say that even if NPR's journalism is not influenced by its underwriters, Wal-Mart messages still irk. She also points out that the message on NPR that Wal-Mart is supportive of its employees is hardly a neutral statement of fact.
Johnson is not alone. Increasingly listeners say that they worry that the pressures on NPR may be more than the firewall can withstand.
In my opinion, there are two issues at play: first is the impression held by some listeners that NPR journalism can be bought. But NPR is a mature and robust news organization. It would take more than a few Wal-Mart underwriting messages to corrupt its journalistic integrity. While some might say that the marketplace is simply too powerful to resist, I doubt that is true. As with other reliable journalistic organizations, NPR knows that its credibility is, in the final analysis, the only really currency it has.
Does the 'Firewall' Really Work?
The second issue is whether NPR's firewall is really effective. If NPR were to reject underwriting because the source of the funding is questionable or controversial to some listeners, is that a tacit admission that the firewall is easily breached? Some inside NPR feel that Wal-Mart remains an underwriter like any other -- that it has no influence on how stories are reported. As such, Wal-Mart's money can be used to strengthen the programs on NPR -- just like the hundreds of other companies that support NPR by their underwriting support. But others inside the public radio system tell me that not all underwriters should be considered neutral. Some support does come with more baggage than others.
Many listeners have high expectations of public radio -- certainly higher than they have of commercial broadcasting. NPR specifically is held to a higher standard of behavior in many ways. Perhaps these listeners need to differentiate between the programs and the underwriting. But many think that the high quality of the journalism should be matched by an equally above-board choice in underwriters.
A Correction
In my column of June 2 (See "Pew Study: Journalists and Liberal Bias" link below) I referred to a Pew Poll on journalists' political attitudes. I should have said that the poll found that a majority of journalists describe themselves as liberals and moderates, not just as liberals. My apologies to Andrew Kohut who authored the poll. But my concerns about how this poll might create a chill among journalists in an election year remain.
Listeners can contact me at 202-513-3245 or at ombudsman@npr.org.
Jeffrey Dvorkin
NPR Ombudsman
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