| | Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivers the keynote address during a virtual event on Oct. 28. Zuckerberg announced that Facebook will rebrand itself under a new name: Meta. Eric Risberg/AP |
Here are a few quotes from the Public Editor's inbox that resonated with us. You can share your questions and concerns with us through the NPR Contact page. |
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NPR updated its status on Facebook |
Bryan Brown writes: I heard this morning on a story about Facebook [or] Meta that Facebook "was until recently" a financial supporter of NPR. This mention was the first I have heard that Facebook is no longer a financial supporter of NPR. Please make a post about the circumstances behind this change. Did Facebook stop supporting NPR or did NPR drop Facebook as a sponsor? |
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Yael Eisenstat tweeted: “Facebook was, until recently, one of @NPR’s sponsors”. Interesting. When I was on @MorningEdition Monday, I believe they said FB was a sponsor. Wonder what happened? Who pulled the plug? FB? Or NPR? |
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Funny how just a slight change in language can prick your ears in a way that you suddenly have so many questions. At this particular moment, NPR has a perfunctory relationship with Facebook. The social network pays NPR to license NPR news stories for the Facebook news tab. (I totally forgot there was a news tab, too. Right there left of the notification tab at the bottom of the screen on the mobile app or on the top navigation bar on the desktop). To put it in perspective, lots of companies, including Apple News and Yahoo! News, license NPR’s content. In the past, Facebook has been an NPR sponsor, which is the equivalent of an advertiser in commercial media, but also a bit different because the rules are more restrictive about what sponsors can say. Also, NPR has a process for vetting sponsor messages, which we wrote about a couple of weeks back. Facebook’s last sponsorship campaign with NPR ended a year ago, in November 2020. However, NPR had not updated its editorial disclosure language to reflect the current state of the relationship. To compare, previous disclosures were sometimes worded, “Facebook is among NPR's recent financial supporters,” as seen in this web story on Oct. 25 and this Morning Edition story on the same day. Or, more simply, “Facebook is among NPR’s financial supporters.” Adding even more intrigue, later Friday, NPR revised the disclosure language a second time, arriving at a more current version, “We should note that Facebook's parent company, Meta, pays to license NPR content.” What’s really going on? The evolving language was actually a result of NPR first being slow to update the language and then tripping up in haste to get it right — not a torrid breakup. As we reported two weeks ago, NPR turned down the campaign you may be hearing on many other podcasts right now, in which Facebook tells listeners how hard the company is working to counter disinformation or that it supports congressional reform of the Section 230 of the Communications Act. That message was too close to the news of the day and risked sending a confusing message to listeners, said Gina Garrubbo, president and CEO of National Public Media, the NPR subsidiary that handles sponsorships. As The Wall Street Journal and then several other news organizations began reporting on a trove of damning documents leaked by a former Facebook employee, journalists and news consumers alike began asking a lot of questions about the relationship between Facebook and NPR. At the same time, internally at NPR, discussions were underway to revise the editorial disclosure language in a way that reflected the current reality. Why the shifting message? The Friday-morning “until recently” message seems to be a premature and not fully vetted release of the updated language. It set off the flurry of tweets. When I asked about “until recently,” NPR Managing Editor for Enterprise and Planning Gerry Holmes wrote in an email, “Our disclosure language has evolved over the last few days to include Facebook’s new name and to make sure we’re being transparent about the current financial relationship NPR has with Facebook/Meta.” This saga demonstrates the limits of parenthetical disclosures and editor’s notes. Like most national news organizations, NPR has a complicated relationship with Facebook, now Meta. In addition to the current licensing agreement, NPR also relies on Facebook, as well as Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, to deliver content to consumers, to build its brand and to interact with its audience. And, of course, NPR reports on Facebook/Meta as one of the world’s most powerful companies, which influences citizens, shapes democracies and autocracies, and frequently gets called before the U.S. Congress. To be sure, NPR takes many other actions to create transparency. It posts its ethics policies online. It releases its 990s and gives an overview of its finances. It lists all of its corporate sponsors in an annual report. And it employs a public editor team to answer audience questions. (How’s that for meta?) Hence, a single, one-size-fits-all description of these relationships is elusive, and perhaps unrealistic. News companies everywhere, including NPR, are constantly sorting through their relationships with giant information technology companies that have sucked up vast amounts of money in news and control access to consumers. When it comes to transparency around NPR’s relationship with Facebook (and probably Google, too), it’s impossible to ever be complete or finished. That’s why we’re here. — Kelly McBride, with research from Kayla Randall and Emily Barske |
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The Public Editor spends a lot of time examining moments where NPR fell short. Yet we also learn a lot about NPR by looking at work that we find to be compelling and excellent journalism. Here we share a line or two about the pieces where NPR shines. |
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You know what’s also 50 years old? |
The same year that NPR was launched, the sitcom that changed American television hit the airwaves. All in the Family is also 50. And its creator, Norman Lear, is 99! Morning Edition host Rachel Martin interviews Lear about the show’s history and its relevance today. And she interviews writer Jim Colucci about his new book on the show. — Kelly McBride |
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This year’s Halloween activities returned to a kind of pre-pandemic normalcy for some American children. NPR’s National Desk Correspondent Eric Westervelt treated Weekend Edition Saturday listeners to an audio postcard about a group of pre-K little ones trunk-or-treating at a park in Oakland, Calif. We hear the excitement of children as Westervelt describes a 3-year-old dressed as Baby Yoda and elaborately decorated car trunks. The story is about the joy that this holiday brings many children, and a reminder of the many festivities they missed out on over the past year and a half. The sweetest part may be that Westervelt stumbled into this scene and figured it was a good story for NPR listeners. — Amaris Castillo |
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| | The Office of the Public Editor is a team. Researchers Amaris Castillo, Kayla Randall and Emily Barske make this newsletter possible. Illustrations are by Carlos Carmonamedina. We are still reading all of your messages on Facebook, Twitter and from our inbox. As always, keep them coming. Kelly McBride NPR Public Editor Chair, Craig Newmark Center for Ethics & Leadership at the Poynter Institute |
Kelly McBride Public Editor |
| | Amaris Castillo Poynter Institute |
| Emily Barske Poynter Institute |
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The Public Editor stands as a source of independent accountability. Created by NPR's board of directors, the Public Editor serves as a bridge between the newsroom and the audience, striving to both listen to the audience's concerns and explain the newsroom's work and ambitions. The office ensures NPR remains steadfast in its mission to present fair, accurate and comprehensive information in service of democracy. Read more from the NPR Public Editor, contact us, or follow us on Twitter. |
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