Slashdot Asks: Should NPR Stop Promoting Its Own Podcasts and NPR One App On Air? (boingboing.net)

A new "ethics" policy from NPR details new rules to stop promoting NPR One and its podcasts on the air, to ultimately please local station managers who pay the largest share of NPR's bills.

Chris Turpin, V.P. for news programming and operations, writes: As podcasts grow in number and popularity we are talking about them more often in our news programs. We are also fielding more and more questions from news staff and Member stations about our policies for referring to podcasts on air. To that end, we want to establish some common standards, especially for language in back announces. Our hope is to establish basic principles that are easy to understand and allow plenty of flexibility for creativity. These guidelines apply to all podcasts, whether produced by NPR or by other entities. No Call to Action: We won't tell people to actively download a podcast or where to find them. No mentions of npr.org, iTunes, Stitcher, NPR One, etc.
Basically, NPR won't promote "the lauded, loved app that is basically the future of NPR" to listeners who would be most interested in it. How do you feel about NPR's new policy?

Comments

Not an Ethics Issue

[EmperorArthur]

This might be part of their ethics policy, but that's not where it belongs. As much as people have wined and complained about it being unfair for companies, like Google, to advertise their own products there's nothing unethical about it.

It's a competition issue. NPR gets a significant chunk of its money from radio stations. That's why not all NPR broadcasts are available as podcasts. This whole thing is merely about appeasing those radio stations who are worried about competition from podcasts that are more convenient and available.

Re:Not an Ethics Issue

[tomhath]

NPR gets a significant chunk of its money from radio stations.

And where do you think the local stations get all that money? Hint: not from donations - those go straight to NPR.

The local stations get their money from the federal government, then they hand it over to NPR. That's why NPR claims they only get 2% of their money from the government, but scream bloody murder if Congress tries to cut funding. Something over 50% of their revenue starts out as tax dollars or deductions before it gets laundered through the local stations.

"How do you feel about NPR's new policy?"

[Nutria]

How do I feel about it? When did /. turn into Oprah Fucking Winfrey???

CBC does this on their own podcasts

[EmperorOfCanada]

I keep my finger hovering above the skip forward button when I start listening to CBC(Canada's sort of NPR) podcasts. They pretty much inevitably promote insider (politically powerful) shows on shows that appeal to a specific and different audience. The promotions are for podcasts that are highly irrelevant to the podcast in question. A science show will promote an arts show, a business show will promote an arts show, a news show will promote an arts show, etc.

To make it worse, the shows they are promoting are often long out of date when the podcast in question is something that is ageless and thus will be listened to potentially for a decade or more.

I have a strong feeling that the CBC is deeply unhappy with podcasts because with listeners choosing what they want to listen to it is in complete opposition with how budgets are being distributed and how by putting certain shows in prime slots it then confirms that those shows are "popular".

I would love to see the stats on podcast listening compared to what the CBC claims is the number of listeners to the live show.

I have a sneaking suspicion that if the CBC was 100% driven by its listeners that the lineups, budgets, and shows would be wildly re-prioritized.

Instead the CBC is driven by some mental image of what they should be doing.

Re:NPR is incorrectly funded.

[kenh]

It should be paid for by everyone, because even those not actually using NPR are still utilizing NPR and should damn well pay for what they utilize.

This is EXACTLY the same argument used to help ram PPACA (Obamacare) and it's non-participation fees/taxes.

And I'm just curious, what the heck does this mean:

even those not actually using NPR are still utilizing NPR and should damn well pay for what they utilize.

How are those "not actually utilizing NPR" actually "utilizing" NPR?

Re:local stations are like local dialup BBSes.

[Sir_Eptishous]

Obviously you never listen to local PBS radio stations.
If you did you would note the wealth of... wait for it... LOCAL NEWS
Local news is something important to people that want to know what is going on in their local community, city and region.

Re: Decline public money

[pchasco]

Hmm... I'm going to out on a limb here and assume that you've never actually listened to NPR...

Re:Decline public money

[KermodeBear]

NPR is far from fair. If you believe that it is, then you live in an echo chamber. Sorry to have to call you out on this, but it's true. NPR is very, very left- and progressive- leaning on their programming.

I'm not saying that this is necessarily bad. Some people enjoy that point of view (like you, obviously). But to claim that it is a fair and balanced source of information is completely incorrect.

Re:Decline public money

[pugugly]

NPR/PBS leans leftwards ... somewhat.

However if you're claiming 'Far from fair' you're discounting how many conservatives they have on air, entirely conservative based shows like Tucker Carlson, The Editorial board of the WSJ, the 60%-80% conservative panel of the McLaughlin group, Religious programming, local politics, et al. And that's before even talking about the number of conservative guests and think-tanks on the 'Liberal' shows.

So
A) NPR/PBS bends over backwards to make sure conservatives have a voice
B) When's the last time you heard NPR/PBS cut someones a conservatives mic because they were winning the argument?