Thank You Ellen Weiss

By now you probably know that NPR's Senior News VP Ellen Weiss resigned her post as part of the fallout from firing Juan Williams.

The Washington Post has a follow-up article on industry reaction to her resignation and there are several references to her many significant contributions to public radio. Not listed was her role in expanding All Things Considered to two hours each evening and, more importantly, moving the start time of the program an hour earlier, to 4pm.

In the mid-1980s, it was obvious that East coast stations were losing audience by not having All Things Considered on at 4pm. Stations in the Central time zone and west enjoyed good success with the earlier broadcast. For years, NPR News leadership and the staff at All Things Considered turned down frequent requests from stations to start the program an hour earlier. It was All Things But That Considered.

That changed when Ellen was Executive Director of the program and Bill Buzenberg was the News VP. Ellen thoroughly researched the stations' needs, NPR's capacity to make the change, and the cultural shift it required in the newsroom. Though the move would be unpopular with her direct staff and other newsroom colleagues, she came down on the side of... the listeners, and as a result, stations.

The move to a 4pm (et) All Things Considered was one of the most significant steps in public radio's growth as a national news outlet. Hundreds of thousands of new listeners could now hear the program at a time convenient to them. Those listeners then found other programs on local stations and eventually became donors. Today millions of people get their news during this hour. If you're one of them, then you have Ellen Weiss to thank.

I worked directly with Ellen Weiss for several years at NPR and that was how she operated -- in the best interest of the listeners. It is NPR's loss that she will no longer be there to offer her insights.

NPR's loss does not have to be public radio's loss. Significant investments are being made at many public radio stations as they seek to become major players in local and regional news. One of those investments should be in the experience and wisdom of Ellen Weiss.

Fox Reports, Public Radio Listeners Decide

Day Two of the Juan Williams predicament. We've heard from about a dozen stations holding pledge drives. All of them are fielding lots of complaints about NPR's firing of Juan Williams. But they still are meeting or exceeding pledge drive goals. New member results appear to be as strong as usual.

What's up with that, you ask?

It turns out there are two types of complaint calls -- those coming from thoughtful, calm people who express their disappointment at NPR's handling of the situation and those coming from people who were incited to call by watching Fox News.

A large number of callers are claiming to be donors but their names do not appear in the station's donor database. Very few current donors are asking for refunds on contributions.

We're also starting to hear about people giving additional gifts to the station. That's not surprising given the calls to eliminate federal funding for public radio. Loud opposition to federal funding always motivates listeners to give.

Juan Williams and the Opinions of Journalists

NPR terminated the contract of Juan Williams yesterday in response to a comment he made on Fox's Bill O'Reilly Show. Here's what he said, according to FoxNews.com:

"I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country," Williams told host Bill O'Reilly during a discussion on the dilemma between fighting jihadists and fears about average Muslims.

"But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous," Williams said.

This incident comes at an interesting time for public radio. There is a movement in the industry towards having journalists do more of their work in the first person. The idea is that reporters also have to have some personality and let the listeners know who they are and that will attract a bigger audience. Sometimes that means including the reporter's laugh in the final edit. Sometimes that's injecting the reporter's personal anecdote into a story. Sometimes that's allowing the reporters to share an opinion on the topic or subject of the report.

It was suggested twice on the closing day of last month's Public Radio Programming Conference that it's okay for a reporter's opinion, even bias, to show as long as the report itself is balanced. The concept even has a name -- "opinionated journalism."

That seems to be a slippery slope, one that leads straight to the current situation with Juan Williams. Once personal opinions become part of the on-air equation, who gets to decide which reporter opinions are appropriate for air -- the reporter, the editor, the supervisor, the Board of Directors, a corporate funder, a major donor? Even more to the point, who gets to decide which opinions are appropriate for employment in the newsroom in the first place?

Everyone has an opinion. Everyone is biased. Public radio news listeners expect that bias to be put aside in the name of honest, accurate journalism. It is one of the most treasured standards of professionalism in our industry. It's one of our Core Values.

There's room in public radio for opinions. There's room in public radio for journalism. But as the Juan Williams story unfolds, it's pretty clear they don't mix. "Opinionated journalism" is not only a bad idea, it's an oxymoron.