Mailbag: Listeners Question Breaking News Alerts And More

Listeners and readers email their concerns. It’s been a busy month of travel, so this week, we’re featuring emails from the Public Editor inbox that reflect commoner listener and reader concerns. As we’ve written in the past, many of these concerns come up consistently, so we’ve chosen Public Editor columns from the archives for the two emails below: A listener from the state of Washington emailed: BREAKING NEWS!!!!! NPR is engaging in the same tired tactics that drove me out of TV news after 25 years and back into newspaper. When you label a Tiny Desk concert breaking news, it’s even sillier than what I had to put up with. Stories like the Old Ellicott City flooding follow are an update and not breaking news. I'm pretty disgusted. How does NPR decide what merits sending a breaking news “push” notification to mobile phones? In this 2018 column, the Public Editor responds to reader concerns when a celebrity death was published as “breaking news.” “With so much grim news that day,” writes the Public Editor, “was it appropriate to flag a celebrity death?” [Read More]( A listener from Florida emailed: What is your policy for referring to Trump in news stories? When Obama was in office, he was referred to as “President” the first time, and as “Mr.” following. In the case of Trump, it seems that the “Mr.” designation is not used. Are you forced to only use “President?” Concerns around language are regularly a top priority for listeners and readers. For this email, we’re revisiting a column from a previous Public Editor. Edward Schumacher-Matos served as NPR’s Public Editor (then “ombudsman”) from 2011-2015, during the time that the newsroom changed its policy for how to refer to the president. Schumacher-Matos writes, “Beginning with the inauguration of President Barack Obama for his second term next Monday, ‘Mr.’ Obama and his successors will be called by just their last names on second reference. ‘Obama,’ for example. Just like the rest of us.” [Read More]( [From The Archives: Who's On NPR?]( [( Bettmann/Bettmann Archive For a listener trying to give feedback, chasing a story heard on the radio can lead down a confusing rabbit hole. Our office put together a quick guide to clarify what content comes from NPR and what comes from other audio producers. [Read More]( [Here's What We're Reading]( From Rick Edmonds for Poynter: “Between 2011 and 2018, the 264 independent local NPR stations (plus 150 unaffiliated) added 1,000 full-time and part-time journalists, having started that timeframe with just over 2,000 journalists. At the same time, newspaper newsrooms were shrinking to half their peak size and local digital startups, with a few exceptions, are making do with well-focused but tiny staffs.” The Public Editor serves as an independent mediator on questions raised by the audience regarding the standards and ethics of NPR’s journalism. [Read more]( from the NPR Public Editor, [contact us]( or follow us on [Twitter](. You received this message because you're subscribed to Public Editor emails. This email was sent by National Public Radio, Inc., 1111 North Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC 20002 [Unsubscribe]( | [Privacy Policy](