We received a rather bland and, if I’m not 100% mistaken, somewhat cutting response from NPR. I expected soemthing with a little more substance than this from the nation’s leading non-commercial news agency.

We’ll put together a follow-up. This response is not adequate.

Dear Sean,

Thank you for contacting NPR’s Office of the Ombudsman.

We appreciate your thoughts regarding NPR’s news coverage and, according to you, its inability to match the content quality of other news outlets.

Making decisions about covering the events that impact our everyday lives is never easy. We make every attempt to ensure that the segments and stories you hear on NPR programming, and the attention devoted to them, are valid and appropriate.

We welcome praise, as well as criticism, and your thoughts will be taken into consideration.

Thanks again for writing in, and for your continued support of public broadcasting. For the latest news and information, visit NPR.org.

Sincerely,

Chantal de la Rionda
Assistant to the Ombudsman
National Public Radio
635 Massachusetts Ave NW
Washington, DC 20001

Tony Blair recently offered his opinion of 24 hour news media. In a recent statement, the former prime minister described such organizations as ‘feral beasts’ that ‘just want to tear people in public life apart’.

The speech was delivered at an office of the Reuters news agency. Many would argue Mr. Blair was in the presence of the most tremendous ‘feral beast’ of all (note the “Who Mongers Most” section on this page).

Guy Dresser of Reuters reacts to Tony Blair’s recent statements in a post online. The Reuters editor seems, surprisingly, to be in favor of Mr. Blair’s view. Below is an excerpt from Guy’s blog.

Tony Blair came to the Reuters HQ in London’s Canary Wharf to vent his spleen on the media and finally tell it how it is. His speech, billed as being about public life and leadership in the media age, turned out to be a 35 minute blood letting as he savaged the modern 24 hour news media as a ‘feral beast’ which just wants to tear people in public life apart.

He did pause to admit some responsibility, acknowledging that New Labour had assiduously courted the media and spent rather too much time worrying about what the papers said.

But the overall theme of his presentation was one of damnation. The press was ruining people’s lives, trampling over their personal affairs and making many Front page of the Independent newspaperthink twice about the wisdom of engaging in public life.

As a Reuters journalist I hesitate to wade in with an opinion. In a previous incarnation at Associated Newspapers, home of the Daily Mail, I would not have been so reluctant. Indeed, it would have been expected.

Perhaps the most troubling statement is Guy’s own - admitting he is afraid to express his personal opinions at Reuters, indicating he may be displeased with practices in his industry and perhaps is using Blair’s statements as a way of highlighting shared concerns.

We’ll follow up with Guy and see what more we can learn.

For more media reaction to Tony Blair’s speech, click here.

For a news agency that shares Mr Blair’s sentiments, visit Fearless News.

Investigation Central is an extension of Fearless News (http://www.fearlessnews.com).

Since NPR is a non-commercial producer we expect very clean and unbiased news from them. NPR also conveys a positive image, encouraging community and global involvement. Why is it then, that NPR fails to maintain news at the high quality level of certain other producers, such as BBC and Deutsche Welle. We launched this investigation to find out.

Our message to NPR

Dear NPR,

From ‘Science Friday’ to ‘All Things Considered’ I’ve enjoyed your broadcasts for many years. This is why I made certain to include a stream of NPR headlines when recently building an online news-discussion community.

At our community site we rank news agencies based on content quality. This ranking system is relatively sophisticated and includes input from staff, the site’s community, and an artificial intelligence algorithm (used for basic sorting).

I expected NPR to exemplify quality coverage. Yet to this point NPR has remained among the middle of the pack. While NPR content sits above sources such as CNN, France 24, Fox News, Al Jazeera, and so on; it’s content quality is rated below a handful of other agencies (BBC, Deutsche Welle, etc); a fact that hasn’t escaped our visitors. Many readers have expressed frustration over the degree of damaging or otherwise negative headlines NPR has produced.

On the whole the community has declared nearly 50% of NPR content unacceptable.

As a huge fan of NPR, and a devout Science Friday listener I’ve made donations to your agency on several occasions. I ask that you please consider my following request.

Answer this single question which might afford me enough information to successfully respond to the concerns of our community members regarding NPR, I would very much enjoy a response.

The question: Why is it that NPR is not able to match the content quality of BBC, Deutsche Welle, and various other providers?

I want to thank you for being the best American news source we rate.
If you wish to see which of your headlines have been given the thumbs down in our community, we offer full disclosure of this and any other information used in ranking agencies at the web address below.

Fearless News
http://www.fearlessnews.com

Investigation Central is an extension of Fearless News (http://www.fearlessnews.com).

Fox News is a global information provider that includes hundreds of local reporting offices. Fox News invades millions of homes through television commercials and regular broadcasts which include global coverage. They produce some of the most damaging local and global headlines of all major sources.

By way of popular demand from Fearless News supporters, who have spoken of a dislike for this source above all others, and due to the fact that statistically Fox News has consistently produces more than 50% damaging content according to FearlessNews.com, we launch this investigation into the practices of Fox News to get to the bottom of what makes this highly pervasive agency a proponent of media that captivates at the expense of the reader.

Our message to Fox News

Dear Fox News,

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to this message.

I have two brief questions.

The first: What sort of value is a Fox News editor offering to society when they participate in publishing Fox News content?

The second: Is a significant degree of personal discretion afforded in the process of determining which news stories to publish or does a well-defined rubric established by Fox News play the primary role?

I once again thank you for your time.

Regards,

Sean

Once we submitted our questions, we received the following message. Time will tell if Fox News will do as they describe and ‘respond accordingly’.

Thank you for contacting Fox. We value your opinions and suggestions. Our team will respond accordingly to your submission.

Investigation Central is an extension of Fearless News (http://www.fearlessnews.com).

We began our series of investigations with the agency that’s been #1 on our fear-monger list since our project began. Greater than sixty-percent of Reuters news stories, on average, have a damaging effect on the reader.

Part 1: Establish Contact

We stopped over at Reuters.com to see how we might get in touch with one of our editors. To our amazement, they’re ‘contact us’ section includes a quite friendly statement about the accessibility of their editing staff, there’s even a tinge of compassion. This is a snapshot of what we saw:

But how truly accessible are the editors? Will they actually respond to an introductory email? To satisfy this part of our investigation, we need to get in touch, which means some sort of formal reply. On Monday, July 2nd of 2007, we emailed the following statement via the “Contact a Reuters Editor” link above.

Our message to Reuters

Greetings,

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to this message.

I have two brief questions.

The first: What sort of value is a Reuters editor offering to society when they participate in publishing Reuters news?

The second: Is a significant degree of personal discretion afforded in the process of determining which news stories to publish or does a well-defined rubric established by Reuters play the primary role?

I once again thank you for your time.

Regards,

Sean
Fearless News

We received this after submitting our message, we’ll certainly be checking out that blog

Thank you for contacting Reuters Editors. Your comments have been passed on to our editorial team. We appreciate reader feedback, and all e-mails are read by a senior editor. Please note that due to the huge volume of e-mails sent to the Editors daily, we may be unable to provide a personal response. However, we take your compliments, comments and criticisms very seriously, and we invite you to see what some readers are thinking on our Reader Feedback Page at http://blogs.reuters.com/gbu.

More to follow

Our next post is to include the Reuters reply and our questions regarding specific articles Reuters has published. If we don receive any reply, we’ll post our subsequent attempts at establishing contact, which will include phone calls and more.

We’re fully committed to getting some answers.