Whose Will Be The Next Head on the NPR Block?

[MattParker]

The NPR board has gotten their verbal (and privileged) report from the lawyers they hired. Nothing in writing, of course. Therefore, nothing to make public.

Now we are supposed to "move on" to hiring a new head of NPR News and putting Juan Williams "behind us" again for the second - or is it third? - time. In her column, NPR Obudsman Alicia Shepherd makes the following interesting observation:

It is worth noting that the job Weiss held has proved to be a hot seat at NPR. To the best of my knowledge, every single person who has been NPR's top editorial executive over the last two decades was eased out of the position one way or another. Should give anyone pause before considering taking Weiss’ old job.

Let's start a pool on how long Weiss' replacement lasts.

One consequence of NPR getting government money: They operate so like the government.

Shepherd also asks the following very reasonable question:

(The law firm NPR hired did) not come cheap, and its investigation must have cost tens of thousands of dollars to produce results that (from what we've been told about them) seem obvious. Might NPR have hired one or two experienced and widely respected journalists or management gurus instead?

Ah, yes. Your pledge dollars at work.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

The NPR board has gotten their verbal (and privileged) report from the lawyers they hired. Nothing in writing, of course. Therefore, nothing to make public.

Now we are supposed to "move on" to hiring a new head of NPR News and putting Juan Williams "behind us" again for the second - or is it third? - time. In her column, NPR Obudsman Alicia Shepherd makes the following interesting observation:

It is worth noting that the job Weiss held has proved to be a hot seat at NPR. To the best of my knowledge, every single person who has been NPR's top editorial executive over the last two decades was eased out of the position one way or another. Should give anyone pause before considering taking Weiss’ old job.

Let's start a pool on how long Weiss' replacement lasts.

One consequence of NPR getting government money: They operate so like the government.

Shepherd also asks the following very reasonable question:

(The law firm NPR hired did) not come cheap, and its investigation must have cost tens of thousands of dollars to produce results that (from what we've been told about them) seem obvious. Might NPR have hired one or two experienced and widely respected journalists or management gurus instead?

Ah, yes. Your pledge dollars at work.

Are you suggesting that only government hires outside consultants at a time like this and American business does not?

Is Shepherd suggesting that all the consulting law firm studied and responded to was whether Juan Williams was out of line, and if not, was NPR news management out of line?

Is there not a possibility that the consultants studied the NPR employee handbook and the NPR personnel policies for everyone from CEO down to the week-end janitorial staff?

American business does quite often exactly what NPR did by bringing in consultants who seem to be endowed with "magnificent credentials". To not do so is to gamble that some court in the future on some future complaint will find that NPR failed to exercise due-diligence in shaping their operating procedures.

 

[MattParker]

Wait, there's more....

Apparently NPR has managed the unusual feat of getting everybody p*ed off. The Washington Post says NPR staff reacted with "shock and anger." The troops liked Weiss. A "member station" "A-Rep" tells fellow reps NPR has "capitulated" to the right - "egged on" by Fox.

Schiller, the Post reports, is getting her wrist slapped. She keeps her job but loses her bonus. They won't say how much of a bonus she was supposed to get but last year she told the IRS her base salary was $450,000 and her bonus was $112,500. The year before it paid out $1.22 million (each) to both Ken Klose, Schiller's predecessor who retired, and Ken Stern, who was pushed out because the A-Reps didn't like him moving NPR into new media. Your pledge dollars at work. Also your tax dollars.

Meanwhile, the LA Times says, the NPR board's "densely-written, bureaucratic" press release says NPR wants to do more to "insure a broad range of viewpoints" is reflected at NPR - including ideological viewpoints. Apparently, NPR has become the bastion of liberalism its detractors have long claimed...

Some board members have expressed concern privately that ideological insularity might hurt them as they try to fight off renewed calls in Congress to cut off NPR's federal funding. Past NPR boards included solid conservative membership, the kinds of figures who could go to Capitol Hill and act as liaisons to Republican members of Congress, but the current one does not, the insider told me.

Liberals but always quick to cave in.

@GRC: Business hires outsiders with specialized skills for special projects (i.e., ad agencies, market research firms). The only type of business I can think of that is consultant-happy - that hires somebody to do a job and then consultants to tell him how to do it is .... broadcasting.

And the consultants NPR brought in were lawyers. Given lawyers' stated area of expertise, sounds like NPR was more concerned about law suits than developed good HR policies. And nobody likes to rack up billable hours like associates in politically-connected white-shoe law firms. HR specialists would have been a lot cheaper and in the long run more useful, as NPR ombudsman suggests.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

And the consultants NPR brought in were lawyers. Given lawyers' stated area of expertise, sounds like NPR was more concerned about law suits than developed good HR policies. And nobody likes to rack up billable hours like associates in politically-connected white-shoe law firms. HR specialists would have been a lot cheaper and in the long run more useful, as NPR ombudsman suggests.

Until someone who knows how to check credentials looks into this for us, we are both "blabbing in the dark". A number of years ago when I was young and naive and a newbie to life in the big city, I found myself as the guest of honor in a non-compete agreement legal action. I went to a friend of mine that I knew had an administrative job in a large law firm. I found myself represented by an attorney that worked only with issues of labor-management. He usually worked ONLY for the management side, but as a favor to my friend he took my case. He knew what he was doing and ended up applying liberal amounts of egg to the face of my previous employer. (The judge threw one more egg just for good measure.)

Fast forward to the litigious society of today and I think you will find that accounting firms, law firms, and architectural firms have entered the world of consulting on specialty topics. (If you ever need a consultant to give upfront advice on planning the labs for your next expansion of your hospital, I have a world-class candidate for the job. She calls me "Dad".)

Is there some possibility that the law firm selected by NPR has a consulting division that specializes in helping design rules and handbooks on how an entity and its employees will function to achieve peace, fairness and productivity?

 

[MattParker]

@GRC: You raise an interesting point. So, I took a look at Weil, Gotshal & Manges' website. One of their claimed areas of practice is employment law. It sounds like somebody you'd hire if you're worried about employees suing you. See for yourself:
http://www.weil.com/practiceareas/detail.aspx?service=1933&more=true

Attorneys in the Employment Litigation Group litigate and advise clients on the full spectrum of employment issues, focusing on complex, multi-disciplinary problems, such as class and mass actions, large scale reductions in force, executive compensation, separation and employment agreements, restrictive covenant and trade secrets litigation involving key personnel, and the full breadth of issues arising from mergers, acquisitions, corporate restructurings and bankruptcies.

It also is apparent from this website that they are corporate lawyers. If NPR wants everyone to believe they are "good guys," this does not seem like a firm with whom they should get in bed.

 

[TheBigA]

Your pledge dollars at work. Also your tax dollars.

Oh come on. As I've said many times, public radio people don't take a vow of celibacy. Her salary and bonus have nothing to do with tax or pledge dollars. NPR doesn't hold pledge drives, so people don't pledge money to it. She oversees talent who get paid about the same. Same with them. Their salary isn't connected to tax or pledge dollars. It's more about corporate funding. Why no ranting about the influence of corporates? Whoops...that's next.

Apparently, NPR has become the bastion of liberalism its detractors have long claimed...

That's your interpretation. My view is that there should be NO viewpoints in the reporting of news. I'm offended by an idea of quantifying the amount of liberals or conservatives on the air. Let that kind of stuff be the bastion of commercial radio. In my view, it's hurt the credibility of journalism, and left the public with no place to get unbiased news. The mistake NPR makes is to try and give everyone a voice, and it can't be done fairly. Someone gets left out, or feels left out along the way. The proper solution is to stick to the facts. Hard news reporting without commentary. That should be the goal here. I bristle at the idea of news by committee, with decisions being based on points of view.

 

[TheBigA]

The only type of business I can think of that is consultant-happy - that hires somebody to do a job and then consultants to tell him how to do it is .... broadcasting.

That's funny. You should spend some time in the military. It hires lots of people to be soldiers and generals, then hires former generals and soldiers as consultants. So a lot of these current generals end up getting second guessed by retirees who double dip, getting their military pension plus a much bigger corporate salary.

Then you have the auto industry. The movie industry. Did you see all the consultants hired by BP during the gulf oil crisis? Shall I continue?

 

[TheBigA]

If NPR wants everyone to believe they are "good guys," this does not seem like a firm with whom they should get in bed.

I think you hire a company that will be fair or if they're going to err, do it in a way that won't be interpretted as favoritism. If they hired a liberal law firm with ties to public broadcasting, it would be viewed as a snow job. So they hire a firm that has no bias to this kind of company, and it gives their report credibility. And if the central issue was this journalism code, someone had to assess exactly how fair or proper that code was.

I have no problem with the company the chose. I thought it was interesting that Williams himself refused to co-operate with the investigation. That's telling to me. What did he have to hide? He said that he was doing his own "investigation."

 

[MattParker]

@BigA: If you'd read my original post you'd see it was about the ideological composition of the NPR board. NPR's people, on and off the air, in the trenches or in the executive suite, are steeped in a culture of political correctness. It's so pervasive it's invisible to them; like air to the bird and water to the fish. But to show how "objective" they are, they bend over backwards to placate conservatives and fold at the first sign of pressure from the right. Their handling of what we should now call the Williams-Weiss matter is only the latest example.

Of course, every penny NPR spends is tied to pledge dollars and tax dollars. It's part of their cost of doing business. Those costs are paid for by the fees assessed members. And members pay those fees using pledge dollars and tax dollars (and underwriting dollars). If NPR weren't playing so fast and loose with executive compensation, bonuses, perks and golden parachutes, maybe the stations wouldn't have to pay so much for Morning Edition.

I "rant" here about NPR because this is a public radio board. Corporations are not the topic here. But once again, NPR apologists avoid issues raised about NPR's conduct and practices by trying to turn the discussion to someone and something else. This non-response is like a kid caught stealing who screams, "Bobby does it, too." And frankly, I expect more of NPR than I do from the groups you cite.

Juan Williams has no obligation to help NPR's lawyers whom he may end up facing in court in an adversarial proceeding.

 

[TheBigA]

NPR's people, on and off the air, in the trenches or in the executive suite, are steeped in a culture of political correctness.

First of all, how do you know? Have you done a personal assessment of all of them?

Second of all, what's the opposite of political correctness? Is that something we should aspire to be? Maybe we should ask ourselves that.

If NPR weren't playing so fast and loose with executive compensation, bonuses, perks and golden parachutes, maybe the stations wouldn't have to pay so much for Morning Edition.

That’s why stations sit on the Board. If they have a problem with the price they pay, they are in a position to change it.

I "rant" here about NPR because this is a public radio board. Corporations are not the topic here.

Hmmm…so federal funding is on topic, but corporate funding to the same organization is not? Explain that to me. If federal funding goes away, the difference will be made up in increased corporate funding. Is that a good thing?

Juan Williams has no obligation to help NPR's lawyers whom he may end up facing in court in an adversarial proceeding.

They weren’t NPR’s lawyers. They were independent. If he has nothing to hide, he should co-operate.

 

[MattParker]

NPR's people, on and off the air, in the trenches or in the executive suite, are steeped in a culture of political correctness.

First of all, how do you know? Have you done a personal assessment of all of them?

Second of all, what's the opposite of political correctness? Is that something we should aspire to be? Maybe we should ask ourselves that.

If NPR weren't playing so fast and loose with executive compensation, bonuses, perks and golden parachutes, maybe the stations wouldn't have to pay so much for Morning Edition.

That’s why stations sit on the Board. If they have a problem with the price they pay, they are in a position to change it.

I "rant" here about NPR because this is a public radio board. Corporations are not the topic here.

Hmmm…so federal funding is on topic, but corporate funding to the same organization is not? Explain that to me. If federal funding goes away, the difference will be made up in increased corporate funding. Is that a good thing?

Juan Williams has no obligation to help NPR's lawyers whom he may end up facing in court in an adversarial proceeding.

They weren’t NPR’s lawyers. They were independent. If he has nothing to hide, he should co-operate.

Again, you're not paying attention - or maybe you are arguing just to argue.

The comments about the board were the LA Times' assessment, which I cited.

Of course, they were NPR's lawyers. Who hired them? Who pays them? Lawyers are not independent. They are required by the canons of legal ethics to have a fiduciary relationship with their clients and to act in their client's interest.

The opposite of political correctness is an open mind. Maybe you should aspire to that.

 

[TheBigA]

The opposite of political correctness is an open mind. Maybe you should aspire to that.

Nope. The opposite is political INcorrectness. Which means a return to the racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual slurs of the past. Conservatives have a long history of supporting and perpetuating these kinds of stereotypes.

But I have a very open mind about the issues of public radio, and it's not influenced by my local station's internal politics.

As I said in another thread, the main mistake NPR made here was not prohibiting its news employees from holding outside jobs. I expect their new code will do that.

 

[TheBigA]

Getting back to the topic of the thread, the answer depends on what happens next. I'm surprised no one in Congress is calling for their own investigation. That would be far more productive and popular than calling for defunding. A Congressional investigation would be justified.

I expect some news employees will quit as a result of last week's resignation. That seems like the next logical step. As we've discussed, there are a lot of outlets for established journalists within the public radio system, either as free-lancers, independent producers, or employees of other program suppliers.

The next step is to hire a new news chief. The person they hire will say everything. If it's someone the current staff knows, that will calm some fears. If it's an outsider, it may lead to a huge turnover. Then the focus will be on revising the code and what that means. The report seemed to indicate a need for a complete reassessment of how news programming is done, and some veterans may not like that kind of change.

Reagrding Shiller, I've felt she's done several things to anger stations. Her interviews last year about new media didn't sit well with a lot of station people. Then this incident and her role didn't help. So we're at "three strikes and you're out." Not giving her a bonus is like getting a bad evaluation. The next step is the door. She needs to show her leadership skills (if she has any) in dealing with this crisis, and in a few months, we'll know the results.

 

[MattParker]

@BigA: I concur with your assessment of Viv's current standing with the board. I also suspect her standing with the news division is not much better. She can't have gotten off to a good start cutting news people and programming (i.e., Day to Day) and then getting a bonus.

On the other hand, NPR can't keep dumping CEOs for realizing this is 2011. As Holland Cooke said in a current post on the news/talk board: "If all you're doing is sending-audio-to-rusty-towers-in-pastures you're in media's Jurassic Park." New media is already here, whether the A-Reps like it or not.

I wouldn't be surprised is some NPR personnel are updating and polishing their packages this weekend. The problem is, where do they go? I don't see a lot of berths for established journalists in today's market. There is no broadcast news operation on a par with NPR. Not ABC radio news, the CBS/Westwood network "brands," or AP Radio. I doubt there is much room for foreigners at the BBC or CBC. Even the better local operations like WCBS or WTOP aren't in the same league. Ellen Weiss' husband is a well-known rabbi, so she can probably afford to take time off to write a book and maybe accept some public speaking engagements. Maybe some others can, too.

A no moonlighting rule is one option. That would mean Cokie Roberts, among others, would not be counted as an NPR correspondent or analyst. For her (and a few others), the other place they work has become their "day job." So they would probably not be billed as staff but could be on as much as before billed as "special contributors" or "guests." There are several people (from the Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and other news organizations) who are on regularly as "outsiders." If they done that with Juan Williams - tell him he's now a contributor, bring him on a couple of more times and then quietly stopped calling him - they could have avoided all this. They could also take a page from MSNBC's book and just suspend people, rather than fire them.

Political correctness to me is like McCarthyism. It's "diversity in everything but thought," as implied in the word "correctness." It goes way beyond a general "golden rule" - "love-they-neighbor" openness to people different from ourselves. It labels some opinions as unacceptable and some people who hold them as bad. It creates a self-righteous arrogance and intolerance to different opinions. This is what causes people like Terry Gross, Whoppi Goldberg or Joy Behar to lose it when Bill O'Reilly says something they don't like (something O'Reilly is able to exploit to his own advantage). And it may be what caused Ellen Weiss to act intemperately in her handling of Juan Williams.

 

[TheBigA]

I wouldn't be surprised is some NPR personnel are updating and polishing their packages this weekend. The problem is, where do they go? I don't see a lot of berths for established journalists in today's market.

Well as I said, the NPR system is an open system as far as programming is concerned. The stations have invested a lot in the news/talk format, so perhaps if a major name wants to do his/her own thing, as Bob Edwards did, they will find some interest. But they will also need a business plan for running it. A lot of former employees get their own funding, write their own grant proposals, and then market shows to stations. Minnesota isn't the only place where programming is created. It's happening in Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. They're all respected stations that carry NPR shows, but also do their own syndication through the NPR system.

Regarding your last paragraph, there's a lot of rudeness in the country right now. A lot of selfishness. A lot of intorlerance. It's seen as acceptable to say anything with no filter. Compromise is viewed as giving in, and that's not good. There are enemies lists on both sides, as we've seen in the last election. It's going to have to change, or else we'll be back where we were in 1861. I'm seeing a lot of parallels between now and then.

 

[MattParker]

@A: The better known "names" may be able to do their own shows from the bigger member stations and get distribution from PRI, maybe even NPR itself. I imagine Scott Simon could go back to Chicago and get a weekend show going from WBEZ. But the less well-known correspondents, editors, producers and writers would have a tougher time. A lot of people I used to hear frequently seem to have left the business entirely.

Of course, if any hosts or newscasters left NPR and were forced to live on the street for a while, a job at MSNBC might be a possibility. :

Or where we were in 1920, 1952, 1968, 1972 and at many other times. Hate and anger are always there, sometimes on the surface and sometimes close to it. And it can come from all sides. I fear the rigid and self-righteous stance of those who call themselves politically correct, and the "solutions" they seek to impose on others only make matter worse.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Matt: Not all Democrats are cookie-cutter look-a-likes. There are the conservative Blue-dog Democrats, there are centrist Democrats and there are those who are flaming, way beyond the fog-line liberals.

Not all Republicans are cookie-cutter look-a-likes. We have Tea-party darlings to the far, far, far right, we have old fashioned centrist Republicans, and we have some Republicans that are amazingly liberal.

If you can accept my two previous statements, I have to ask: Why would you assume that all people who speak out on behalf of "political correctness" are all cookie-cutter look-a-likes who all share the same evil, corrupt mentality.

In the America in which I grew up, people who did not see eye to eye could still have conversation that was civil, could stand with one another on the public platform, and could go into a committee room, roll up their sleeves, and come with agreements they could take to the people as policy or law. Works at the school board level. Works in city council. Works at the county level. State level. Federal level. Shoot... they even get some things done at the United Nations.

I understand that NPR is not liked by some people. But what they do when they put news together reminds me of what used to go in in communities where I lived. We talk about it. We work on it, We fix it. To get that done we refrain from addressing each other with derogatory descriptions of ethnicity, religion, place of residence, etc. To me that is the baseline of being "Politically Correct". Do some people go overboard on the concept? Absolutely!!!! So do we abandon all efforts to be civil with one another in this country? I HOPE NOT!

Just for the record: I find you repeated use of "Political Correctness" as a derogatory description to be something of a rude corruption of the term. But that is your privilege.

 

[MattParker]

@GRC: I don't say all liberals are politically correct and I agree that liberalism comes in several flavors. Even more, so does the Democratic Party. I don't know of anyone who calls themselves "politically correct" but I do recall hearing some call others "politically incorrect." I am sorry you find my use of the term rude. It is not a judgement on anyone's specific opinions but on a certain mindset, which I see as self-righteous and judgmental, and which attempts to marginalize and degrade anyone who questions their "orthodoxy." Yes, I've run into people like that from the right, too. Unfortunately, a specific term for them has not come into common use. I'd say small and medium market commercial radio seems to be full of PC-right types. And I consider marginalizing and dismissing someone else's ideas and opinions, as well the person holding them, because they don't fit some prescribed mold to be the height of rudeness - from any place on the political spectrum.

In the case of NPR, while it may strive for "fair and balanced" reporting of political issues, to my ears there are some "truths" it holds to be beyond self-evident, beyond questioning or beyond challenge. Global warming is happening and people cause it. Our society is racist, sexist, homophobic. Affirmative action is appropriate. Anger and hatred is understandable among minority groups but inexcusable in the mainstream population. There are many areas in which NPR reporting appears to tacitly condone double standards. It seems like this is so deeply imbedded in their corporate culture, they don't even think about it or realize they are doing it. For lack of a better term, I call that "political correctness."

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Let's hope Ms. Vivian Schiller will be next. It's highly unlikely though. It's always middle management that takes the fall. Schiller needs to go...

 

[aaronread]

I'm surprised no one in Congress is calling for their own investigation. That would be far more productive and popular than calling for defunding.

Probably too many First Amendment concerns, whether real or imagined. Defunding is just as effective because instead of looking "Big Brother"ish, it just keeps it at the "liberals funded by your tax dollars" populist rage level.