How NPR treats itself when it is in the news

When NPR is in the news, as it was This weekOur journalists try to cover what happens in the same way when they treat every other organization. To do that, the NPR -Newroom follows a process to ensure that only a small number of employees, nobody is directly involved in the news event, works on the reporting.

This process to which the newsroom calls ‘the protocol’, for example, was used in 2024 after a news site called The Free Press published An essay by the then NPR editor Uri Berliner. With the title “I have been to NPR for 25 years. For example, we lost the confidence of America”, it claimed that NPR had developed a liberal bias that influenced the ability to cover the news fairly. NPR’s media correspondent and his editors decided that it was important to treat and wrote different stories for the NPR website and the radio shows.

In such cases, a small group of NPR journalists has the task of covering the story and isolating themselves from the rest of the newsroom. That group usually consists of media correspondent David Folkenflik, his editor and a senior news manager, usually a managing editor. The coverage is planned and carried out within that small group. Decisions about which stories are written or produced are always powered by the most important news to deliver to the NPR audience, according to Gerry Holmes, one of NPR’s managing editors, often involved in such reporting, also on Wednesday.

If necessary, other NPR journalists can be tapped to help, depending on the required resources – for example, a producer to bring audio together needed for a radio piece. And the reporter can reach other NPR employees to serve as sources or NPR’s media relationship team for a commercial comment. But none of Newsroom or business leadership is involved in writing or production of NPR stories about NPR.

“We try to approach the story about us without any influence of any part of the organization,” said Holmes, “with the possibility to comment on everyone we need, inside or outside NPR.” He said that the small and firewalled of the team ensure that decisions are made “purely by the prism of journalism”.

NPR signals the use of the “Protocol” for its target groups by including a memorandum at the bottom of the story stating which of the journalists have written and edited the story. That note says: “Under the NPR protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR Corporate Official of News Executive assessed this story before it was publicly posted.”

Meghan Ashford-Dooms is a supervisory editor for standards and practices in NPR newsroom.