Bob Edwards

[Mark Giardina]

Perhaps this belongs on another board, but I was curious if anyone has information how Bob Edwards, former Morning Edition host, is doing on satellite radio?

I can't imagine that he's pulling down the numbers he did when employed at NPR. On the other hand I don't blame him one bit for leaving NPR, especially after the way he was treated by management.

 

[jim8230]

Mark,

Bob Edwards has a daily show on XM. Selected interviews are then packaged into a two-hour program for public stations known as "Bob Edwards Weekend". Our sister station WNED-AM runs one hour on Saturday at 3:00pm and the other Sunday mornings at 11:00.

 

[FilioScotia]

I don't blame him one bit for leaving NPR, especially after the way he was treated by management.
A lot of people have been allowed to believe Edwards left NPR because he was treated shabbily and unfairly by management. Actually, if anything, it was management that was treated unfairly by Edwards.

He had his fans for sure, lots of them, but over the years with Edwards, Morning Edition had settled into a kind of predictable "same-ness". It was very slow to respond to big breaking stories. I'll never forget how terrible ME was during the 9-11 attacks on NYC. When it became clear what was going on, it took them almost a half hour to just get one of the reporters from their NY affiliate on the telephone for Q&A. Their coverage was just dreadful because they weren't used to reacting quickly to breaking news. It turned out that most of the ME staff below the level of "Editor" had almost no experience handling a fast breaking story.

This was just one of the things NPR management wanted to change. They wanted to shake things up, to pick up the pace of the show, and make the newsroom and the NPR bureaus lighter on their feet and able to handle breaking news. They also wanted to make ME a two-person show, the way All Things Considered has been for years, but that's where Edwards dug in his heels.

He refused to be part of any effort to turn ME into a two-person show, and that left management no choice but to tell him it would have two-hosts with or without him. That's when Edwards decided to retire.

 

[Julius Leonard Marx]

I don't blame him one bit for leaving NPR, especially after the way he was treated by management.
A lot of people have been allowed to believe Edwards left NPR because he was treated shabbily and unfairly by management. Actually, if anything, it was management that was treated unfairly by Edwards.

He had his fans for sure, lots of them, but over the years with Edwards, Morning Edition had settled into a kind of predictable "same-ness". It was very slow to respond to big breaking stories. I'll never forget how terrible ME was during the 9-11 attacks on NYC. When it became clear what was going on, it took them almost a half hour to just get one of the reporters from their NY affiliate on the telephone for Q&A. Their coverage was just dreadful because they weren't used to reacting quickly to breaking news. It turned out that most of the ME staff below the level of "Editor" had almost no experience handling a fast breaking story.

This was just one of the things NPR management wanted to change. They wanted to shake things up, to pick up the pace of the show, and make the newsroom and the NPR bureaus lighter on their feet and able to handle breaking news. They also wanted to make ME a two-person show, the way All Things Considered has been for years, but that's where Edwards dug in his heels.

He refused to be part of any effort to turn ME into a two-person show, and that left management no choice but to tell him it would have two-hosts with or without him. That's when Edwards decided to retire.

Bob Edwards was air talent. The real problems you cite were a function of the editorial and production staff. That's where they should have looked first to make changes.

Bob Edwards is a news reader. He's a very good news-reader with great pipes. But his entire career is reading words written by others and asking questions prepared by others. And yes, somebody with no reporting experience can not be expected to wing it and work without a net on breaking news coverage. There is no reason why the same person who reads news must be the person who anchors breaking stories. In Britain these are distinct and different roles. Originally they mostly were here, too. What NPR could have done is kept Edwards and brought in a designated anchor for breaking stories.

Now Bob does a show where he doesn't have to worry about breaking news and never has to leave a studio (unless the rat problem gets too bad).

 

[Mark Giardina]

Mark,

Bob Edwards has a daily show on XM. Selected interviews are then packaged into a two-hour program for public stations known as "Bob Edwards Weekend". Our sister station WNED-AM runs one hour on Saturday at 3:00pm and the other Sunday mornings at 11:00.

Jim,

For some reason I can't pick up WNED-AM on my car radio. The only way I can listen to WNED is to stream it on my computer at work, or home.
But thanks for the information.

Regarding the comments about Edwards; I feel that the NPR brass could have waited and let him do his last show on his (I believe) 20th anniversary with the network. That would have been more classy than the way the network handled his removal from Morning Edition. It's just my opinion.

Happy Holidays,

Giardina

 

[FilioScotia]

Actually, Edwards was with NPR for 30 years. He anchored Morning Edition for not quite 25 years, but I get your point.

I agree NPR brass could have found a hundred ways to handle that situation better than they did, but Edwards' refusal to make ME a two-person show was the main reason he was removed.

NPR wanted him to stay and share the duties with a co-host, but he wanted no part of it. Acquaintances inside NPR have told me that over nearly 25 years he had come to regard ME as "his" show.

That meant things were always done "his" way, regardless of what the ME producers and editors thought. He was so set in his "ways" that ME had fallen into a rut, which became painfully apparent on 9-11-01. That's when NPR managers started serious high-level discussions about overhauling and updating the entire news operation, including ME and ATC.

Edwards could still be there and he could still be a big part of the "new and improved" Morning Edition, but he refused and dug in his heels.

In my opinion, he thought he had a lot of important high-level friends outside NPR who could pressure his bosses into keeping ME the way it was.

It's important to note that Edwards WAS NOT fired from NPR. He became a senior correspondent, like Linda Wertheimer. That lasted three months, and it's worth noting that, like a petulant child, he developed and filed only one report as a senior correspondent. He left NPR for XM Radio of his own accord.

 

[The Voice of Reason]

Morning Edition continues to draw an audience even without Bob Edwards so that proves the old theory that listeners' memories are short when it comes to on-air personalities.