Joshua Amir, Darryn

Fitzgerald, Sasha Resende,

Annie Rossetti
 NPR
• National Public Radio
• Privately supported, non-profit
membership organization
– 2% of funding comes from Federal
Government grants
– Primarily listener supported
• 26.4 million weekly listeners

 Radio as a medium
• Limitations
– Funding
– Listener demographic limitation
– Active vs. passive audience
• Compete with outside distractions
– Lacks visual/multimedia components


• Advantages
– Pull technology
– Reach
– 99% of U.S. population have access to at least one
NPR station
– Economic advantages—Free
– Active vs. passive audience
– Simplified, personal, story-telling element, tones convey e
 NPR Financial Coverage

 NPR effectively covers financial

news by breaking down complex
issues in a timely manner.
Stories combine creative
structure, effective use of sound,
and expert sources to provide in-
depth coverage.
•
“Foreclosures Rise with Slowing Ho
• Morning Edition, aired March 10, 2006
• Effective questions from reporter:
– Why would a bank be so eager to lend money to someone who is at
high risk for not being able to pay back a loan of the size they might
be making in an inflated market?
• Predicts the housing market crisis
• Reporters reiterates and rewords important points from the
interview to direct audience attention
• Not as personal as story could be
– “I've just helped a lady recently, a 57-year-old African-American
divorced mother with a 14-year-old child. She bought a home in
August of '04 and was foreclosed on this very last Tuesday.”
– could have interviewed someone directly affected by foreclosure
• Inskeep does not summarize the story, provide contextual
background, or use multiple interviews to enhance story
• Very short… could be due to high number of listeners and need to
keep stories to a minimum length
“Economist Warns of Housing Market Decli

• All Things Considered, Aired September 27,

2006
• Gave an explicit warning of foreseeable
outcomes in 2006—two years before the
crisis hit
• Used an objective, expert source
• Mentions the word “recession” long before it
became the slogan of economic crisis
reporting in 2008
• Reporter effectively interprets without
oversimplifying
– Discusses the media’s role in the crisis: what is
really going on vs. psychology of the market
and listener’s reactions to “discussions like
this one”
• Asks useful, practical questions that help inform
 “Subprime Mortgage Concerns Rattle
Markets”

• Morning Edition, Aired March 14, 2007

• Effective Early Reporting
– Clear Description of subprime mortgages, practices, and concerns
• Lending and burrowing principles
– Case Studies
• New Century Financial
– Federal Grand Jury and S.E.C. to investigate records,
loans
• Country Wide Financial
– Liquidity crisis
– Consequences
• 240 point fall in Dow Jones Industrial
• Wall Street stopping credit
– Expert Reporting
• Nigel Gault, Global Insight discusses frozen lending
– "Loans that were made in 2005 and 2006, with
hindsight, were bad loans...the market is now
correcting. And it may be be a painful correction.”
– Flaws
• Where do we go from here? How does the market recover?
 “Does Bear Stearns Bailout Set a Bad Precedent?”
 All Things Considered, Aired 25 March 2008
 Features an interview with Russell Roberts, a
professor of Economics.
o Russells is an objective source
because he had no stake in the Bear
Stearns bailout.
 Interview is very straight-forward and clear.
Takes a very complex issue and deconstructs it
for the average NPR listener to understand.
 Timeliness and Effectiveness
o Interview broadcast 9 days after the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
facilitated the buyout of Bear Stearns
by JP Morgan Chase.
o Russells foreshadows Lehman Brothers’
future assumption that the federal
government would bail them out and
facilitate a buyout by Bank of America
or Barclays.
o Addresses relevant issues, while also
highlighting the future implications of
present measures
 Coverage On the Day the Crisis Hit
• All Things Considered, Aired September 15, 2008
• On the day that Lehman Brothers filed bankruptcy, All Things Considered
devoted three entire reports to the ensuing “financial storm.”
• “Paulson Tries to Calm Nerves on Wall Street”
– Story is very compact, with lots of quick facts and terms that may
be confusing to listeners.
• “Bank of America Buys Merrill Lynch for $50B”
– Balances host Jim Zorroli’s straight-forward descriptions with bits
of financial facts from various Wall Street and academic
commentators
– Can satisfy both its business-savvy audience and less business-
oriented listeners.
• “AIG Gets OK To Borrow From Subsidiaries”
– Interview with senior writer for Business Week, an objective
source. However, she assumes a certain amount of knowledge
from the listeners.
• Strengths
– Overall, NPR did a good job of breaking down the most important
issues on this news-packed day.
– Gave a comprehensive analysis of ensuing financial downturn.
• Flaws
“Expert: Despite Mixed News, Eco

• All Things Considered, Aired October

18, 2009
• Reporter asks pointed questions that
explain the disparity between
numbers in the market and the
nation’s soaring unemployment rates
– The stock market has been soaring —
the Dow's up more than 50 percent
since March — yet the unemployment
rate is still sky-high, hovering just
below 10 percent.
• Explains the current stage as a
standard phase of recovery.
 Continued Reporting and NPR.org
• On the one-year anniversary of the September 2008
downturn, NPR.org created a special section on its
website titled “Financial Crisis: On Year and Counting”
which organized the most relevant stories NPR broadcast
in September 2009 to analyze the impact of the crash.


• NPR’s website features:

– Archive
– Organized programming
– Radio playlists
– Podcasts
– Live streaming
– Recommended programs
– Good way to stay informed and find specific stories
– Interactive media: Comment boards, multimedia
– Showcases NPR’s ability to adapt to new media technology and
changes in the consumption of news

 “Planet Money: The Financial Crisis One
Year Later”
•
• Morning Edition, Aired September 7, 2009
• Effective Ongoing Reporting
– Summarizes major events and components leading up to September
7, 2008
• Subprime Mortgages, Bear Sterns, Fannie Mae, Freddie
Mac, Lehman Brothers, AIG
• Credit principles, histories, and analogies
– Personal accounts
• Davidson recalls how he covered the crisis on September 7, 2008
– Discussion of where the economy is headed?
• Consistent reliance on the government
• Commercial real-estate concerns
– Format
• Clear definitions of terms
• Well paced for an engaging and informative segment
•
•
•
“Will the Global Economy Learn Its

• Morning Edition, aired 17 September 2009

• Basic Question Posed: One year later, has the global
economy learned from its mistakes and made the
necessary changes to its business practices?
– Answer: Largely, no.
• Breaks down the crisis and its global implications, relying on
financial experts for sound bites and analysis.
Commentators were objective and they laid out the grim
realities that await in the future.
• Timeliness
– Reports news the people don’t necessary want to
hear, but that they need to hear.
• Flaws
– Assumes knowledge of macroeconomic concepts
–
 Conclusion
• Limitations
– Shorter stories, less time to break down
concepts
– NPR is not a financial news source and it
must appeal to a broad audience
• Why listen to NPR for financial coverage?
– Creative structure of interviews, music, and
reporter commentary
– Thorough coverage with appropriate expert
sources
– Reporters are effective liaisons between
audiences and the source (e.g. question,
answer, context, interpretation)
– Break down complex issues without