Slate’s Jack Shafer notes that NPR executives have been dropping like flies the last few years, with the top three positions constantly turning over. His diagnosis:
NPR isn’t an independent and powerful freestanding operation, it’s the creation of a network of stations, some of them sophisticated and urban but many more parochial. Most of the board’s members observe agendas and priorities that are separate from maintaining a strong national journalistic network, which by its nature sometimes has to stand strong against outside attacks. Sure, the local stations want their Morning Edition and All Things Considered to “tent pole” their broadcast day and they want their Car Talk. But their primary obsessions are local (that is, raising local money) and federal (that is, making sure Congress continues to fund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which many of them depend on).
Every time a faux scandal like Juan Williams or Ron Schiller thrusts its way in the news, the board doesn’t think the way a Sulzberger or a Graham would: How do I gut this out? Instead, they go all wobbly worrying about their how their local and federal funding will dry up. Then, a board member suggests that they sack an executive or somebody on-air to silence their critics. Of course, such sackings only encourage the critics. But they do it anyway.
I’m reminded of lots of international organizations, particularly the United Nations and the European Union. Sometimes, the whole is less than the sum of the parts.
