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Illustration by Carlos Carmonamedina
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Many of our inbox questions center around the journalistic process and why it is that NPR makes certain decisions within that process. Here, we aim to answer those questions and provide a behind-the-scenes look at how journalism works. You can share your questions and concerns with us through the NPR Contact page. |
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When NPR stepped into podcasting in the early aughts, the work was largely experimental. The early podcasts, collectively called alt.NPR, was a hodgepodge of shows on topics like gambling, winemaking and even advice. NPR pitched podcasts to its employees as an opportunity to create something of their own.
A flurry of brainstorming among staffers began, and in 2005, NPR launched Press Start, a podcast about the art and craft of video games co-hosted by Kyle Orland, Ralph Cooper and Robert Holt — among other podcasts.
“All I knew is that Kyle and Ralph and I worked in completely different areas of the company,” recalled Holt, now digital architect of Maine Public. “But we all would talk at lunch. We all knew we were into games and were total nerds. All of us were.”
Eric Nuzum, at the time NPR’s director of programming and acquisitions at NPR, was tasked with launching Press Start and the other early podcasts. These shows offered listeners a completely new and alternative way to hear from NPR. Nuzum remembers a great deal of learning. These early efforts paved the way for programs that would expand NPR’s brand identity, Ted Radio Hour and Pop Culture Happy Hour. These podcasts, Nuzum added, provided proof that podcasting was a self-sustaining business for NPR — allowing it to serve large-scale audiences on digital platforms and bring in money as well.
“We just had this run of hits for several years. And people were asking, ‘How did that happen? How did you get all these hits to happen?’” Nuzum recalled. “It took the 50 experiments to start to learn how to put NPR programming out in the world that people wanted.”
The trio behind Press Start had minimal editing and no real guidance. “No meetings,” said Cooper, then a Morning Edition production assistant/producer. He’s now an independent podcast producer and a standup comedian. “We were our own producers, production staff, research editors.”
Orland, now a senior gaming editor at Ars Technica, said, “They let us do whatever we want.”
It turned out that many video game enthusiasts were also NPR listeners. Much like every author and publisher wants to have their books featured on one of NPR’s shows, the NPR name got the Press Start hosts a lot of attention in the gaming community.
They were granted access to gatherings for game enthusiasts and scored interviews with gaming executives.
Of NPR’s early podcast presence, Holt believed they were ahead of the curve. “We knew we were in a unique position, and we felt like we were playing in the World Series. That’s what it felt like. And turns out we were kind of right. We were way ahead of the game, and we knew it. And we took advantage of it, and NPR took a chance on that.”
Innovation doesn’t come without growing pains, though. They were operating at a breakneck speed, Nuzum said. “And in order to make things happen that quickly, there were a lot of decisions that NPR made — me being part of these decisions — that, in the long run, became very difficult.”
For example, the podcasts weren’t searchable on NPR.org in the beginning, Nuzum explained, so if a listener went to the site to find one, they couldn’t. In a 2020 column for Current, he recounted the tremendous pressure to get podcasting right for NPR. Nuzum recalled NPR realizing that the podcast product was growing too big, too fast, and that the network couldn’t support everything they’d set up. About a year and a half later, NPR staffers with podcasts in the alt.NPR initiative were given the choice of doing them independently, moving to their own hosting provider and without the NPR branding. |
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NPR’s place today and tomorrow |
NPR’s podcast vibe has shaped much of the podcast world. Arielle Nissenblatt, the brain behind EarBuds Podcast Collective, a newsletter that curates a weekly list of podcast recommendations, credits NPR as a big part of why she got into the podcast space nearly a decade ago.
When Nissenblatt consults with people about what they want their podcast to sound like, they’ll often say that they want it to sound like an NPR podcast. “What they mean is sound-rich. What they mean is highly produced. What they mean is making an impact,” she said. “I think that’s NPR’s larger impact. It’s associated with quality.”
For the past few years, journalistic podcasts of all stripes have fallen down the charts, Nissenblatt said. “Chat shows and interviews with celebrities often rank higher than longer-form journalistic pieces released by NPR,” she added. “They still do come up every so often and climb the charts, but the fact is that it’s harder to make an investigative, fact-checked piece than it is to sit down with a microphone and then make a bunch of clips surrounding it.”
Today, at NPR, Collin Campbell is accountable for the performance of all of NPR’s podcasts. His job is, in part, to ensure that the network reaches the largest audience possible.
“We’re a leader in this space, and I think we’re really good at what we do. We’re good at building audience. We’re good at monetizing the audience that we have, and so we have a lot of responsibility and a high profile in that space,” Campbell said. “I think there’s lots of other people that want to come and eat into our market share, or come and sort of see if they can persuade our listeners to go somewhere else. And there are a lot of people competing with us, but I think our position at this point is really strong.”
Even so, Campbell understands that NPR’s strategy must evolve for the network to maintain its strong position. Video podcasts, for example, are gaining popularity. “The number of people who are looking for podcast content on YouTube has grown a lot in the last two years,” he said.
Today, when the hosts and producers behind NPR’s podcasts record their shows, they’re not gathering a lot of video. Campbell admitted that that limits how much they can use video platforms as a place for people to come and find NPR’s podcast content, and he knows that needs to change. “A lot of our podcast teams now are thinking about the best ways to use video in those formats,” he said. “And there are a lot of different answers to that question. There isn’t just one answer.”
NPR won’t be recording every show and posting a video for every episode. But YouTube’s growth as a podcasting platform is the biggest shift in the last two years, and Campbell said that it’s important for NPR to consider how they’re presenting their work in a visual format.
Nuzum, now a co-founder of the consulting and production company Magnificent Noise, said the podcast world today is mainstream in a way that it wasn’t before. Every couple of years, he said, podcasting has morphed and changed, and it continues to do so. “I think one of the criticisms of NPR in the podcast space now, is that NPR is not really morphing and changing with the industry,” he said. “When I left NPR, half of the top 10 podcasts in the U.S. were NPR podcasts.” Now, he said, fewer rank at the top of the charts.
“And that’s not really a statement about NPR, as much as how much the world around it has changed,” Nuzum said. He did say, however, that NPR needs to decide what it wants to be in the future.
“And I don’t mean that in any negative way at all. It’s a very powerful moment to be in media and in journalism. With the recent federal funding changes, that’s even called more into the need to have a very clear mandate for yourself, and that extends to podcasting, too,” he said. “Just putting out podcasts because they’re NPR doesn’t make any sense. You have to figure out, ‘What do we want to own? What do we mean in this space? What separates us from anyone else, and what can we do different than everyone else?’” — Amaris Castillo |
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The Office of the Public Editor is a team. Reporters Amaris Castillo and Nicole Slaughter Graham and copy editor Merrill Perlman make this newsletter possible. Illustrations are by Carlos Carmonamedina. We are still reading all of your messages on Facebook, Instagram, Threads and from our inbox. As always, keep them coming.
Kelly McBride
NPR Public Editor
Chair, Craig Newmark Center for Ethics & Leadership at the Poynter Institute |
Kelly McBride
Public Editor |
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Amaris Castillo
Poynter Institute |
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Nicole Slaughter Graham
Poynter Institute |
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The Public Editor stands as a source of independent accountability. Created by NPR's board of directors, the Public Editor serves as a bridge between the newsroom and the audience, striving to both listen to the audience's concerns and explain the newsroom's work and ambitions. The office ensures NPR remains steadfast in its mission to present fair, accurate and comprehensive information in service of democracy.
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