So when I got a job here 25 years ago, I never looked back. We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding. In recent years, however, that has changed. Today, those who listen to NPR or read its coverage online find something different: the distilled worldview of a very small segment of the U. For decades, since its founding in , a wide swath of America tuned in to NPR for reliable journalism and gorgeous audio pieces with birds singing in the Amazon.
Millions came to us for conversations that exposed us to voices around the country and the world radically different from our own—engaging precisely because they were unguarded and unpredictable. No image generated more pride within NPR than the farmer listening to Morning Edition from his or her tractor at sunrise. Twenty-six percent of listeners described themselves as conservative, 23 percent as middle of the road, and 37 percent as liberal. By , the picture was completely different: only 11 percent described themselves as very or somewhat conservative, 21 percent as middle of the road, and 67 percent of listeners said they were very or somewhat liberal.
Like many unfortunate things, the rise of advocacy took off with Donald Trump. As in many newsrooms, his election in was greeted at NPR with a mixture of disbelief, anger, and despair. Just to note, I eagerly voted against Trump twice but felt we were obliged to cover him fairly.
Persistent rumors that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia over the election became the catnip that drove reporting.
During many of those conversations, Schiff alluded to purported evidence of collusion. The Schiff talking points became the drumbeat of NPR news reports. Russiagate quietly faded from our programming.
