April was a cruel month for NPR. A longtime journalist there took a hard shot at its coverage from the right, and at least one former colleague took one from the left. The new CEO, who comes to NPR with youth, vigor and lots of nonprofit experience, but essentially none in journalism, faced criticism from within and without. And, of course, all of this happened in the context of serious business challenges, both for NPR News centrally and for member stations across the country.
My own view is that NPR’s most serious problems are not the falloff in advertising (which NPR loftily prefers to call “sponsorship”) or even the declines in commuting and terrestrial radio, the podcast business bust or lessening tolerance for “pledge weeks”—although all of those difficulties are very real. Rather, I think, and have thought for awhile, that NPR’s business model and structure are broken, and need to be substantially transformed. This week, I want to suggest a rough outline of how that might be done.
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