NPR: Difference between revisions

'''National Public Radio''' (usually shortened to '''NPR''', stylized as '''npr''') is an American privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national [[Radio syndication|syndicator]] to a network of 900over 1,000 [[public radio]] [[List of NPR stations|stations]] in the United States.<ref name="Audience">{{cite web |url=http://wwwnationalpublicmedia.com/npr.org/aboutaudience/nprworks.html |title=How NPR Works: NPR's Mission StatementAudience |publisher=NPR |accessdate=JuneJanuary 12, 2007 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100901113039/http://www.npr.org/about/nprworks.html |archivedate=September 123, 20102018}}</ref>

NPR produces and distributes news and cultural programming. Individual public radio stations are not required to broadcast all NPR programs; most broadcast a mix of NPR programs, content from rival providers [[American Public Media]], [[Public Radio International]], [[Public Radio Exchange]] and [[WNYC Studios]], and locally produced programs. The organisation's flagship shows are two [[drive time|drive-time]] news broadcasts, ''[[Morning Edition]]'' and the afternoon ''[[All Things Considered]]''; both are carried by most NPR member stations, and are among the [[List of most-listened-to radio programs|most popular radio programs]] in the country.<ref name="All Things Considered">>{{cite web | url=http://nationalpublicmedia.com/npr/programs/all-things-considered/ | title=All Things Considered | quote=Heard by 13.3 million people on 814 radio stations each week, All Things Considered is one of the most popular programs in America. | publisher=National Public Media | accessdate=October 12, 2016}}</ref><ref name "Morning Edition">{{cite book |last=Mitchell |first=Jack W. |title=Listener supported: the culture and history of public radio |year=2005 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |quote=Conceived as "alternatives," ''Morning Edition'' and ''All Things Considered'' are the second and third most listened-to radio programs in the ... |page=175 |url=https://books.google.com/?id=KIwTKWj04wEC&pg=PA175 |isbn=0-275-98352-8}}</ref> {{As of|October 2017}}, the drive time programs attract an audience of 14.63 million and 14.6 million respectively. <ref name="Growth">[http://www.npr.org/about-npr/559791315/npr-stations-audience-grows-for-fifth-consecutive-national-ratings-period NPR Reaches 99 Million People Monthly, GenXers And Millennials Drive Growth] ''NPR,'' October 25, 2017. Retrieved October 27, 2017.</ref>

According to 2009, NPR statistics, about 20.9 million listeners tune into NPR each week.<ref>{{cite news|last=Farhi|first=Paul|title=Good News for NPR: Its Most Listeners Ever|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/23/AR2009032302972.html|accessdate=March 7, 2013|newspaper=Washington Post|date=March 24, 2009}}</ref> By 2017, NPR's weekly on-air audience had reached 30.2 million.<ref name="Audience"/> According to 2015 figures, 87% of the NPR terrestrial public radio audience and 67% of the NPR podcast audience is white.<ref>Tracie Powell, [http://www.cjr.org/analysis/are_podcasts_the_new_path_to_diversifying_public_radio.php Are podcasts the new path to diversifying public radio?] ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (May 22, 2015).</ref> According to the 2012 [[Pew Research Center]] 2012 News Consumption Survey, NPR listeners tend to be highly educated, with 54% of regular listeners being college graduates and 21% having some college.<ref name="Pew">[http://www.people-press.org/2012/09/27/section-4-demographics-and-political-views-of-news-audiences/ Section 4: Demographics and Political Views of News Audiences], [[Pew Research Center]] (September 27, 2012).</ref> NPR's audience is almost exactly average in terms of the sex of listeners (49% male, 51% female).<ref name="Pew"/> NPR listeners have higher incomes than average (the 2012 Pew study showed that 43% earn over $75,000, 27% earn between $30,000 and $75,000).<ref name="Pew"/> The Pew survey found that the NPR audience tends Democratic (17% Republican, 37% independent, 43% Democratic) and liberal (21% conservative, 39% moderate, 36% liberal).<ref name="Pew"/>

NPR stations generally do not subscribe to the [[Arbitron]] rating service and are not included in published ratings and rankings such as ''[[Radio & Records]]''. However, NPR station listenership is measured by Arbitron in both Diary and PPM (people meter) markets. NPR stations are frequently not included in "summary level" diary data used by most advertising agencies for media planning. Data on NPR listening can be accessed using "respondent level" diary data. Additionally, all radio stations (public and commercial) are treated equally within the PPM data sets making NPR station listenership data much more widely available to the media planning community. According to Arbitron's National Broadcast Audience Estimate report for September 29, 2011,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.npr.org/templates/archives/archive.php?thingId=125885971 |title=Audience Estimates |publisher=NPR |accessdate=February 16, 2012}}</ref> NPR's signature morning news program, ''Morning Edition'', is the network's most popular program, drawing 1214.963 million listeners a week, with its afternoon newsmagazine, ''All Things Considered'', a close second, with 1214.26 million listeners a week according to 2017 Nielsen ratings data.<ref name="Growth"/> Arbitron data is also provided by [[Radio Research Consortium]], a non-profit corporation which subscribes to the Arbitron service and distributes the data to NPR and other non-commercial stations and on its website.<ref name="sfcron">{{cite news | first=Ben | last=Fong-Torres | title=Radio Waves | date=March 12, 2006 | url =http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/12/PKGU9GINB71.DTL | work =San Francisco Chronicle | accessdate = April 26, 2008 }}</ref>

* ''[[All Things Considered]]'', hosted by [[Robert Siegel]], [[Audie Cornish]], [[Kelly McEvers]], and [[Ari Shapiro]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5002|title=About 'All Things Considered'|publisher=}}</ref>

NPR has been accused of displaying both liberal bias, as alleged in work such as a [[UCLA]] and [[University of Missouri]] study of ''Morning Edition'', and conservative bias, including criticism of alleged reliance on conservative [[think-tank]]s.<ref name="OTM_Bias">{{cite web|url=http://www.wnyc.org/story/133120-does-public-radio-have-a-liberal-bias-the-finale/|title=Does Public Radio Have A Liberal Bias? The Finale!|last=|first=|date=March 25, 2011|publisher=WNYC|format=Radio Transcript|work=On The Media|accessdate=September 4, 2011}}</ref> NPR has also been accused of bias related to specific topics, including support of the [[2003 Invasion of Iraq]] and coverage of [[Israel]]. The NPR ombudsman has described how NPR's coverage of the Israel-Palestinian conflict has been simultaneously criticized as biased by both sides.<ref>[http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2010/06/17/127895293/listeners-hear-same-israeli-palestinian-coverage-differently Listeners Hear Same Israeli-Palestinian Coverage Differently]; NPR Ombudsman; June 18, 2010</ref> UT Austin journalism professor and author [[Robert W. Jensen|Robert Jensen]] has criticized NPR as taking a pro-war stance during coverage of Iraq war protests.<ref>[http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/attack52.htm Published Articles – 2003]; University of Texas, Robert Jensen</ref>