A new FAIR study finds that NPR commentary is dominated by white men and almost never directly addresses political issues.
This study reviewed transcripts from January 1 to May 31, 2015, looking at regular commentators—that is, voices who were featured twice or more on Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Weekend Edition Saturday and Weekend Edition Sunday to present their perspective in monologue form. (Reviews containing soundbites from reviewed material were considered to be commentaries.)
The study found 14 regular commentators, whose viewpoints were featured in a total of 111 segments. Of these commentators, 11 were men and three were women (79 percent male); 13 of the commentators (92 percent) were non-Latino whites and one was a person of color.
The women who were regular commentators were Tess Taylor, a poetry critic, and music reviewers Meredith Ochs and Michelle Mercer. The person of color was Eric Deggans, an African-American writer who critiques TV. No women of color were regular commentators.
Of the 111 regular commentary segments, just 7 percent featured one of the female commentators. Eleven percent were by people of color, reflecting Deggans’ frequent appearances on Morning Edition. Eighty-two percent of regular commentaries aired by NPR were by white men.
Eric Deggans, the one person of color who is a regular commentator for NPR News. (photo: NPR)
FAIR has studied NPR‘s commentators twice before, in conjunction with broader studies of NPR‘s sources in 1991 (Extra!, 4–5/93) and 2003 (Extra!, 5–6/04). Both these earlier studies looked at four months of commentary, rather than five; the 1991 study looked only at the weekday news shows, not at the Weekend Edition programs.
The 14 regular commentators in 2015 were markedly lower than the 46 counted in 2003 and the 27 in 1991, despite the earliest study excluding weekend programming.
The 21 percent of regular commentators who were female in 2015 was somewhat lower than the 24 percent women in 2003, though considerably more than their 7 percent in 1991. The 8 percent of regular commentators who were people of color in 2015 was a good deal lower than their 20 percent representation in 2003, though statistically more than in 1991, when the one person of color among a larger number of regular commentators represented 4 percent.
White men were 71 percent of NPR’s regular commentators in 2015, up from 2003’s 60 percent, though down from 1991’s 85 percent.
The BBC‘s Jonny Dymond, the only person we found doing individual political commentary on NPR News. (image: BBC)
Eight of NPR’s regular commentators in 2015 critiqued arts and entertainment, while others commented on particular subject areas like history (Nate Dimeo) or sports (Frank Deford). One, Greg O’Brien, delivered a series of audio diaries describing his personal experience with Alzheimer’s disease.
The only regular commentator who specialized in politics was BBC Washington correspondent Jonny Dymond, who delivered colorful accounts of British electoral campaigns. His focus was on rhetorical styles and personal quirks (like favorite sports teams), however, rather than on actual political issues.
This is a big change from the previous studies, which found politics to be a more frequent theme of NPR commentary. In 1991, regular commentators produced 29 segments on international affairs, 21 commentaries on US politics and seven on economics. (Compare that to just two segments by Dymond.)
The 2003 study recorded subject areas by percentage, not raw numbers; 18 percent of the segments by regular commentators focused on domestic politics, while 4 percent looked at international affairs. Only 9 percent focused on the arts.
E.J. Dionne’s point/counterpoint segments with David Brooks have replaced virtually all political commentary on NPR News. (photo: Amherst)
The political discussion that used to be incorporated into NPR‘s commentary is now relegated to Week in Politics, a feature on All Things Considered that usually airs on Friday. Rather than having a range of commentators giving their individual perspectives in monologues throughout the week, Week in Politics presents two commentators who represent a conservative and liberal viewpoint discussing trending topics in a point/counterpoint format.
The regular Week in Politics pundits are Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, representing liberals, and New York Times columnist (and PBS commentator) David Brooks taking the conservative side. Both are white men.
Occasionally Brooks or Dionne takes the week off, and a stand-in takes their place. Suzy Khimm, a senior editor at the New Republic, filled in for Dionne twice in the study period. Ramesh Ponnuru, an Indian-American man and senior editor at the National Review, filled in for Brooks six times, while Reihan Salam, National Review‘s executive director, filled in for Brooks twice. All three of the replacement pundits are Asian-American. As Khimm’s two appearances were the only female representation, Week in Politics‘ punditry was 97 percent male and 83 percent white.
The virtual elimination of political commentary from most of NPR‘s main news shows comes after decades of criticism from Republicans and conservative news commentators who considered NPR to be unworthy of taxpayer support, in part because it failed to include enough conservative voices. (In actuality, back when there was enough political commentary on NPR to evaluate its political slant, FAIR argued that it leaned to the right—see Extra!, 5–6/04.)
In May 2014, the board of directors of NPR adopted a new strategic plan that aimed, among other things, for “undisputed leadership” in “stories at the intersection of race, ethnicity and culture,” and a newsroom that better “reflect[s] the fabric of America,” within three to five years.
With regular commentators who are 71 percent white men, NPR has its work cut out for it.
SIDEBAR:
Fresh Air’s All-White Commentary
In addition to looking at the regular commentators on NPR‘s main news programs, FAIR also examined the commentary heard on NPR‘s Fresh Air, which has a talkshow format. People appearing on the show were counted as regular commentators if they presented their perspectives in a monologue format two or more times during the study period (1/1/15–5/31/15).
All 9 regular commentators on Fresh Air were white; none were people of color (including Latinos).
One regular commentator (10 percent) was a woman: Maureen Corrigan, a book critic. Out of the 86 segments of regular commentary on Fresh Air during the study period, Corrigan provided 13, or 15 percent of regular commentaries. The other 85 percent of regular commentaries were by white men.
All but one of the regular commentators on Fresh Air commented on arts or entertainment, generally in the context of reviews. The exception was Geoffrey Nunberg, who talked about linguistics.
CORRECTION: After FAIR published this study on July 15, NPR ombud Elizabeth Jensen noted discrepancies in the criteria used to classify segments as commentaries. This led us to review the dataset and correct some codings and attributions. The article reflects the amended dataset (7/18/15). FAIR appreciates Jensen’s close attention to the data.
NOTE: This is a revised version; an earlier version, released July 14, 2015, mistakenly combined data from the NPR talkshow Fresh Air with data on NPR‘s news-format shows, making the comparisons to earlier FAIR studies problematic. In this version, data on Fresh Air is presented in a separate sidebar.
Michael Tkaczevski is a student at Ithaca College and a FAIR editorial intern.
If you haven’t already seen this blog, you might find it interesting. The blog’s owner gave up in despair some time ago but it was one of the best chronicles of the pro corporate right wing slide into awfulness of NPR called NPR Check. http://www.nprcheck.blogspot.com/
I was a faithful listener of NPR from the late 70’s up to the moment NPR embedded with the Pentagon in 2003 in Iraq. I became a frustrated listener after that and then erased my presets for the area NPR stations from my car radio after feeling the need to rip my stereo from the dashboard and fling it out the window on my morning or evening commutes before I retired. Can’t listen to their other non news shows anymore for similar reasons. The disconnect the majority of NPR reporters have between their weird little world and the one the rest of us live in is just too much.
Too many of their reporters when you look at them a little closer have connections to the power structure in Washington that makes it impossible for them to report objectively and not keep pushing their coverage further to the right. Then there are the Pentagon mouthpieces like Michelle Keleman who can never resist some government approved fear mongering or the anti union, anti teacher anti Occupy Wall Street blatherings of Steve Inskeep.etc.
Read the posts on NPR Check, this has been going on for a long long time. If you actually listen to NPR instead of just having it on in the background, there’s no way it can be thought of as part of the mythical liberal media. They’re corporate all the way and good luck writing to the ombudsman du jour at NPR. Respectfully written or not, there is little to no getting past that gatekeeper.
E. J. Dionne and David Brooks are bookends to Dr. Eliot’s five inch library, comprised of two volumes–the playbooks from each of the republican and the democratic wings of the U.S. Corporate Party. NPR simply reflects that variety of thought and intellectual honesty.
steve-
I think ‘variety’, ‘thought’, ‘intellectual’, and ‘honesty’ are too strong a string of words.
… but who’s dr Elliot ? is he very tiny?
Michael t.- thank you for your hard work for this report. it’s so important -just as all of FAIR is important.
yeah. SOMEONE must watch the store!
Patrick- I definitely want to look at npr check. pbs needs one, too.
bottom line is that almost all of tv and radio seems made to drive us
crazy! or just stupid. seriously. and I can believe that the npr check blogger gave up… as it must be to work at FAIR, you really must have to be mighty to keep your eyes and ears on a constant psychological operation such as is our MS corporate Media.
people could go crazy, I’d really think! …. like the ones who have to report from there every day!…. so, will you all be careful and thank you, everyone there! , )
Could be the reason why general market media (NPR included) is losing audience share among the fastest-growing consumers, students, taxpayers, voters, workforce participants—and younger—ethnic segments of the U.S. population. Our nation’s media must address our nation’s demographic changes for especially in the marketplace and workplace “adapt or perish” remains nature’s inexorable imperative.
Very disappointed when they cancelled Tell Me More. Michel Martin interviewed the new head of NPR on her final broadcast and he spit out the drivel about how diverse voices would be incorporated across programming and not confined to a show. Right, how has that worked out?
NPR, like all the major all American media, attempts to give equal time to both major political parties. The problem with that is the Republican Party’s current positions, which are so irresponsible they don’t deserve promotion.
To cite one example: The call by several current Republican Presidential candidates for voter photo ID cards, which would disenfranchise low-income voters.
As for David Brooks, he promotes the Republican Party without dealing with its appalling positions. This is dishonest and does not justify his frequent appearances on NPR and PBS.
“E.J. Dionne’s point/counterpoint segments with David Brooks have replaced virtually all political commentary on NPR News.”
Bingo! I could write/speak their segments; most of us could. Bland, predictable, narrow, irrelevant.
When I was hosting Weekend All Things Considered (Fall 2000 to Spring 2002), David and E.J. were the go-to guys then as well. At a staff meeting, I said, “Why do we only have two sides represented? And two obvious sides, at that? Some stories have three sides, some four, some ten. Why can’t we have other people on who represent different points of view?”
The staff looked at me like I was a Martian. The show editor at the time asked me, “Who would that person be?” I gave her some names, indicating that these were just a start; if they didn’t like them, they could find other people, whatever — just that we needed more than Establishment-Dem and Establishment-Repub in the mix.
Nothing ever happened.
I could go on and on about the corporate culture of NPR, which several readers here have already accurately gauged. NPR is mainstream with a capital “M” and proud of it. It hasn’t been “liberal” for over 30 years. Yet it’s constantly running from that Big Scary Epithet. It could turn into Fox News overnight, and it would still be tarred with the dreaded “L” word. As Jay Rosen put it when NPR blacklisted me (a NON-employee at the time) for my involvement in the Occupy movement: “NPR’s solution to getting bullied on the playground is to bring more lunch money.”
This seems like a good summary of the situation. With the conservative congress hanging over their shoulder, and mega-rich influencers like the Koch brothers, NPR is hunkering down, but that’s not the best strategy for the long run if they want to keep the listeners that they want, and have a real journalistic future, supported by those of us that expect to get real news that covers all the issues with a broad spectrum of people, gender diversity, backgrounds and opinions.
The analysis of Terry Gross’s show is just weird. The issue isn’t “commentary” but interviews. How many people of color does this one white woman (or Dave Davies or whoever is sitting in for her) actually interview?
Where is the full FAIR study referenced in this article available online?
Tell me More with Michele Martin was my lunch companion . The show was terminated without cause IMO We need more diverse voices in daily discussion at NPR. NPR needs tor reflect the diversity of the community at large
lame show, you should be embarrassed!
I was going to post that Atlantic article but Judy beat me to it! He actullay reminds me a lot of a South Indian film star named Rajnikanth he is late middle-aged, paunchy, balding, insanely popular and makes outrageously batty films with some surprising social commentary. I saw his movie Sivaji: The Boss, which is one of the biggest nuttiest movies I’ve ever seen.Rajnikanth doesn’t have the invisible horse dance though.
I noticed that Terry Gross’ guests are by far mostly nen and mostly white men.