A Study of National Public Radio

[W]hen founded two decades ago,National Public Radio defined itself as an independent alternative to mainstream commercial broadcasting. Unlike the corporate giants, NPR would “promote personal growth rather than corporate gain,” and “not only call attention to a problem, but be an active agent in seeking solutions,” according to the network’s 1971 mission statement.

To this day, public radio fundraisers urge listeners, “Get the facts as you really can’t get them on commercial television” (WBUR, 10/21/92). And on many occasions, National Public Radio provides its listeners with exactly this—fuller, deeper news and a wider range of views.

CBS turd Bob Schieffer , who has long wasted  the public’s time on Face the Nation, uses the same Beltway bias as NPR, but in a private corporate media shill this  is to be expected.

But a detailed study of All Things Considered and Morning Edition over a four-month period suggests that NPR does not routinely reach this goal. Though there are notable exceptions, NPR’s regular coverage mirrored that of commercial news programming: NPR stories focus on the same Washington-centered events and public figures as the commercial news, with the White House and Congress setting much of the political agenda. NPR’s sources often paralleled those of Nightline and other network public affairs shows, with a similar tilt toward government sources and politically centrist or conservative think tanks and publications. While NPR’s special series and cultural reporting reflected considerable diversity, its day-to-day coverage of politics, economics and social issues, as well as its regular commentaries, did not come close to reflecting the ethnic, gender or class composition of the American public.

Nothing ever changes when the system itself doesn’t change.  America lives and suffers (along with the world) for its insistence of living under a pathological capitalism. 

This study reviewed transcripts of all weekday broadcasts of All Things Considered and Morning Edition from September through December 1991. The sample included 2,296 stories, which featured 5,507 quoted sources. Government officials were 1,414 (26 percent) of all sources. Journalists, writers and academics made up 22 percent, with other professionals (lawyers, scientists, political consultants, etc.) representing 15 percent. Ordinary citizens, including “on-the-street” interviews as well as people interviewed as workers, young people or seniors, constituted 10 percent of sources. Public interest advocates and representatives of organized citizen groups were another 7 percent.

Only 21 percent of NPR’s sources were women—just 3 percentage points more than FAIR found in a 1990 study of Nightline’s guests (Extra!, Winter/90). And in some cases, this number dropped precipitously. Women, for example, made up only 5 percent of the sources interviewed in sports coverage.

While it is not easy to identify the race/ethnicity of sources on radio, NPRdid feature several reports that looked at issues of special concern to communities of color. On All Things Considered (10/ 14/91), for example, Chippewa educator and writer Ted Mato explored the devastating effects of government-run boarding schools on Native American children. Both All Things Considered and Morning Edition featured a week-long series, “The Great Divide,” on the legacy of affirmative action (9/16-20/91).

On the other hand, NPR’s commentators were overwhelmingly white. Ninety-six percent of the regular commentators used during this period were white; none were African-American, Latino or Native American.

One-third of NPR’s segments addressed international events and two-thirds addressed U.S. domestic affairs. Of the domestic stories, 29 percent were about political issues, 24 percent dealt with social issues (e.g., sexual harassment or affirmative action) and 13 percent covered economics. Another 29 percent was cultural and arts reporting.

Domestic coverage focused primarily on Washington and secondarily on the East Coast. The Northeastern states, from the District of Columbia to Maine, were the site of 59 percent of domestic stories (excluding those, like book reviews, that had no geographic location). By contrast, the Midwestern states, where about 27 percent of the U.S. population lives, were the location of only 10 percent of domestic stories. (Although Puerto Rico was in the midst of an important referendum campaign on the island’s relationship with the U.S., only two stories were filed from there—0.16 percent of domestic coverage.)

Like commercial broadcasters, NPR’s international coverage concentrated on Europe (55 percent of international stories) and downplayed events in the Third World. Only 12 percent of NPR’s international coverage dealt with Asia (excluding the Mideast), 8 percent with Latin America and the Caribbean and 6 percent with Africa. These three regions together account for more than three-fourths of the world’s population.

Newsmakers

Government officials accounted for 26 percent of all NPR’s sources, more than any other category. Like commercial media, NPR treated government officials as the most important kind of newsmakers; their travel, meetings, statements, etc. became the main hooks for stories. They helped determine which events were selected as newsworthy as well as what was said about the events.

For example, in coverage during the month prior to the Mideast peace talks in Madrid, 12 of the 26 Morning Edition stories on the talks lead with a quote from a Bush administration official; six of the stories began with a quote from Secretary of State James Baker. By focusing on the secretary of State’s travel plans, anticipated meetings, etc., the stories allowed Baker to frame himself as “honest broker” between two feuding neighbors, an interpretation that is disputed by participants in the talks.

Obviously, the Mideast peace process deserved considerable attention. But the large number of stories (130—more than were reported on Africa and Latin America combined) may have reflected administration media efforts as well as an “objective” judgement of newsworthiness. Bush and Baker were quoted inNPR more often about the Mideast peace process than on any other single issue (21 times; in 19 stories, their comments provided the lead quote).

Major events in other countries that were not promoted actively by Bush or Baker received far less attention. For example, the peace talks in El Salvador, which ended more than a decade of civil war, were covered in only six stories. In the absence of Bush or Baker signaling its importance, the crisis in Somalia received only two stories—even though, according to Morning Edition’s own sources (12/18/91), Somalia was experiencing the most severe malnutrition in the world, and many thousands had already died.

At times, NPR did break with commercial news conventions, as when it covered the Haitian coup extensively despite the fact that Bush and Baker did not champion deposed Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Overall, however, priorities in foreign reporting trailed the Bush administration foreign policy agenda. The issue raised here is the need for journalists to exercise independent, critical judgement in telling the American public what’s significant in the rest of the world.

Beltway Bias

Washington-based stories dominated NPR’s domestic reporting, accounting for 28 percent of coverage. Sixty-one percent of the domestic political stories were reported from Washington. Top administration officials or members of Congress provided the lead quote in more than half (53 percent) of all Washington-based stories.

Beltway bias—the tendency to allow Washington officials and establishment pundits to set the news agenda—affects not just the selection of stories, but also the slant taken on stories. A striking case of this occurred during the Clarence Thomas hearings, when NPR’s Noah Adams interviewed ubiquitous Beltway pundit Norman Ornstein (All Things Considered, 10/14/91).

Adams began, “Jesse Jackson said this weekend that—talking about the hearings—’a whole definition of how to treat women in the workplace will come out of the moral authority of one black woman,’ and I’m—and I’m sure that’s true, but my question is, what will happen to Congress? Is Congress done some harm with this process?” The interview never returned to Jackson’s broader point about the impact of these hearings on the nation, not just the next congressional election.

Like commercial media, NPR usually seemed to assume the neutrality of government sources, sometimes repeating partisan charges of those in government, regardless of documentation or merit.

For instance, on two consecutive days, Nina Totenberg broadcast charges by Republican Sen. John Danforth that Anita Hill’s accusations against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas were politically motivated (Morning Edition, 10/8-9/91). On the second day, she aired his specific—but undocumented—charges against named organizations:

It’s going to be a field day for the interest groups, for the so-called Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, People for the American Way. Their American way is the way of lynching. It’s going to be a field day for all the groups ginning up all the phone calls and all the pressure on senators. It’s going to be a field day for all the scurrilous little rumors. It’s going to be a field day for people who slip the unmarked envelopes over the transom or under the door. Oh, it’s going to be a field day. Read all about it. Tune in tomorrow.

The groups named were not quoted in response to these unsubstantiated charges in either segment. Ralph Neas of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights was interviewed briefly a week later—after the Senate had confirmed Thomas.

Formal Balance

NPR followed the mainstream news convention of using White House or congressional happenings as the hook for stories, then interviewing a leading Democrat or a leading Republican to convey an opposing point of view.

Of the 616 high-ranking political figures quoted—including White House, Congress, Cabinet members, key department heads, ambassadors, etc.—57 percent were Republicans or high-ranking Bush administration members, and 42 percent were Democrats. (The difference most likely reflected a Republican White House. President Bush and Secretary of State Baker alone accounted for 88 appearances.)

The attention NPR paid to formal balance norms can be seen by counting lines in printed transcripts. Thus, a 10-line statement by Baker is followed by nine lines from Senate majority leader George Mitchell. (A line of transcript is approximately four seconds of airtime.)

Coverage of Congressional hearings usually included statements of comparable length by the leading Republican and Democratic committee members. Despite conservative accusations that Nina Totenberg’s reporting during the Clarence Thomas hearings was biased to the left, a tally of sources used by Morning Edition during the hearings revealed that Republican and Democratic sources were quoted 17 times each. Similarly, Anita Hill’s and Clarence Thomas’ statements each amount to exactly 20 lines of text. (Hill made three appearances, Thomas four.)

This attention to formal balance, however, did not necessarily give the listener access to the range of debate within Congress. The assumption, often erroneous, is that the leadership of the two parties represent the range of congressional views on the issue at hand. Nineteen Democrats and 14 Republicans in Congress were used as sources more than five times, but no members of the Black Caucus, Hispanic Caucus or Women’s Caucus made that elite list.

By balancing Republican officials against Democratic ones, NPR also tended to frame political debate as something that occurs within the government, not among the public. Organized public interest advocates made up only 7 percent of sources on NPR—roughly the same as revealed in comparable studies ofNightline and MacNeil/Lehrer. The number of activists from any one movement is small. Leaders from racial and ethnic communities accounted for 1.5 percent of all sources; organized labor constituted 0.6 percent; the women’s movement, 0.4 percent; environmental activists, 0.3 percent; gay and lesbian activists, 0.2 percent

Political activists also talked for a relatively short time—an average of six lines in transcripts, about 24 seconds – making it difficult for them to change a frame already set by establishment newsmakers. While activists and citizens groups constituted 7 percent of total sources, they were only 3 percent of sources who spoke at length.

News Shapers

If sources who are directly involved in a news event are news makers, then the experts who explain and interpret those events can he considered “news shapers.” (See Lawrence Soley, The News Shapers.) In mainstream media, news shapers are mostly think tank analysts, academics, former politicians and journalists.

NPR makes regular use of the same news shapers as commercial media, giving precedence to those from either conservative or centrist/establishment institutions. This center/right skew is perhaps more significant on NPR than in other media, because the radio network gives its news shapers more time to express their views—74 percent of sources interviewed at length on All Things Considered and Morning Edition were news shapers.

The tilt to center and right can be seen clearly in the selection of experts from think tanks. The think tank most frequently quoted byNPR was in transcripts, the centrist Brookings Institution, while other centrist think tanks were among the 10 quoted two or more times byNPR: the Carnegie Endowment, the Woodrow Wilson Institute, the Wisconsin Project (which deals with nuclear nonproliferation issues).

Conservative think tanks of various stripes were also well-represented among those quoted more than once: the pro-business American Enterprise Institute, Kevin Phillips’ American Political Research, the hawkish Center for Strategic and International Studies, the AIPAC-affiliated Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the libertarian Cato Institute.

On the other hand, only one think tank that might be considered left of center—the National Security Archive—was quoted more than once. The leading multi-issue think tank of the left, the Institute for Policy Studies, was never quoted in the four months studied.

The journalists that NPR uses as sources come from solidly establishment news outlets. Topping the list was the Washington Post, followed by the New York Times, Associated Press, BBC and Newsweek. Journalists cited more than once came from 22 media outlets—none of which could he considered an alternative news outlet.

While conservative analyst Kevin Phillips is a regular contributor, interviewed alone or in tandem with Cokie Roberts, there is no left journalistic voice. Individual progressive sources do appear on NPR as news shapers, especially academics. But their appearances are sporadic: They aren’t generally on the rolodex of regular sources, as centrist and conservative think tanks are.

THINK TANKS QUOTED TWO OR MORE TIMES ON NPR

Commentators

Most Morning Edition and All Things Considered programs gave substantial air time (approximately 35 lines–roughly two minutes and 20 seconds) to a commentator who plays the role that a columnist plays in print media. Fifty-seven commentators were used, during the four-month period; 27 of these, who were featured two or more times, can be considered regular commentators.

With commentators, NPR had the discretion to select a broad range of perspectives, and some commentators indeed did just this. Carmen Delzel spoke as a single parent, Lynda Barry recalled class tensions as they emerge over Halloween customs, Elaine Segal offered a moving personal history of experiences of sexual harassment.

But overall, NPR’s selection of commentators was strikingly narrow. Of 27 regular commentators on Morning Edition and All Things Considered, all but one were white (96 percent). Barry, the single exception, is part Filipina. There were no regular commentators who were African-Americans, Latinos or Native Americans.

Only four of 27 regular commentators were women (15 percent): Of all 57 commentators, 10 were women (18 percent). Women were not only under-represented; they were ghettoized. Only one commentary on international politics and none on U.S. politics or economics came from women. (Men did 28 international commentaries, 21 commentaries on U.S. politics and seven economic commentaries.)

While NPR might argue that its choices for news sources are limited by the fact that people in power are mostly white and male, there is no reason why the commentators selected by public radio can’t reflect the diversity of the public. Instead, 85 percent of its commentators came from the most overrepresented demographic group in commercial broadcasting—white men.

The Public in Public Radio

The format of most public affairs programming on both commercial and public television precludes a substantive role for the public. Earlier studies ofMacNeil/Lehrer and Nightline found few ordinary citizens interviewed as news sources.

In sharp contrast to television, Morning Edition and All Things Considered frequently took advantage of their more flexible format to include the reactions of the public. Five percent of sources were typical passers-by whose commentaries were solicited in bars, beauty salons or “on the street.” After Anita Hill’s testimony in the Clarence Thomas hearings, for instance,NPR made use of its affiliate structure to bring listeners the reactions of people across the country–restaurant- and bar-goers in Atlanta, New York and Chicago, hair salon clients in Salt Lake City, etc.

Transcript analysis did not permit consistent identification of the race/ethnicity of citizen sources. It was clear, however, that NPR on a number of occasions chose locations that would maximize chances of interviewing people of color—a Latino restaurant in Washington, a popular bar in an African-American neighborhood of Atlanta, or the shopping district of a largely Asian neighborhood of Los Angeles.

While in most of NPR’s coverage, women sources were outnumbered by a ratio that ranged from 4:1 (journalists, writers and academics) to 13:1 (government officials), almost half of “average citizens” quoted were women.

Besides the person-on-the-street interviews, NPR also occasionally sought out comments from people as part of a demographic group. Two percent of sources were people interviewed as workers, while 3 percent were cited as representative of either youth or the elderly.

In involving the public, NPR suggests the potential of radio to further democratic communication. Nonetheless, there are limitations in how NPRuses public voices. John or Jane Q. Citizen was rarely given the opportunity to develop an argument at length. The average length of comment allowed for a person on the street was three lines (roughly 12 seconds), as opposed to 13 lines (52 seconds) for a news shaper (journalist, writer or academic). News shapers accounted for 22 percent of all sources, but represented 70 percent of the sources who spoke more than 25 lines (100 seconds or more). People on the street were 5 percent of all sources but only 1 percent of the sources who spoke at length.

Just as social scientists are finding that the complexity of popular thought on issues can not he measured as well by multiple-choice polls as by focus group interviews, so journalists would be well advised to move toward a more extensive format. In cases where NPR engaged in more extensive interviews, the sophistication of the views of citizens and activists emerged. Phyllis Crockett’s interview (Morning Edition, 10/15/91) with three members of an African-American family in Washington, D.C., grappling with their reactions to the Thomas hearings stands out an example of the richness of this approach.

Conclusions

National Public Radio at its best suggests what public radio could be, news that provides the background and context necessary to make sense of the day’s events, news that provides critical and diverse perspectives. Yet, despite some exceptional reporting, NPR’s routine coverage is hard to distinguish from commercial broadcast journalism.

NPR tends to interview those in positions of power, whether in government or in established institutions. The price NPR pays for this conventional approach is that it frequently excludes independent or non-establishment points of view— even on occasions when those views represent a critical mass of the public.

There are many possible explanations for this, none of which are mutually exclusive. Conservative attacks may have had a chilling effect on NPR; self-censorship may have increased as NPR editors consider the potential effects of cuts in funding should conservatives successfully convince Congress that NPRis too bold.

Another possible contributor to NPR’s conventionality may be that, in its search to be considered “professional” by mainstream journalists, NPR may have taken on some of the weaknesses of commercial journalism. One mainstream convention is that journalists cover the views of those with power, and, for a counter-point, the most “established” opposition perspective. Reporters should question modes of operation that work to exclude articulate, legitimate points of view.

Though NPR, at times, breaks with these conventions, it generally adheres to them–equating the workings of public officials with news, equating balance with interviews with the top-ranking member of each major party–and this keeps NPR’s coverage safely within conventional Beltway discourse.

To provide an independent alternative to commercial broadcasting, NPR needs to ask questions about the goals of journalism: Should news primarily report what groups in power do and say? Or should it, in the tradition of investigative journalism, cast a critical eye on groups in power? In the interest of democracy, should it report what groups not in power do and say? How can journalists expand news criteria to include relatively undercovered populations and regions?

These are questions that National Public Radio, at its best, sometimes raises. These questions need to be addressed each and every day.

Research assistance on this study was provided by Jason Black.