Re: [Swprograms] NYTimes.com Article: NPR Stations Had Pushed forChange

["Richard Cuff" <richard@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

But one of those nagging gray areas is, "When do you know something is broke
or not?"  For example, is 64% growth over 5 years good enough?  Could it
have been 84% with different actions taken?"

I am playing devil's advocate in this -- I was one of the 17,000 messages
who stated that the timing was highly insensitive with Edwards' 25th
Anniversary coming up.

There is a delicate line that needs to be straddled in this quandary of
"going live" with breaking news. I, for one, don't want to see NPR (or the
BBC) become a CNN clone in emphasizing immediacy over impact and analysis.

Perhaps we can draw a parallel to the BBCWS in this -- while I don't
specifically recall how the events on 9/11/2001 unfolded on the BBCWS, I'd
wager they "went live" a lot quicker than NPR.

Maybe the lesson here is that you must purposefully rotate hosts if you want
the "NPR" brand to be more important than the "Bob Edwards" brand, and to
avoid facing this no-win situation.

Take our friends at the BBCWS -- neither Newshour nor The World Today are as
personality-driven as NPR's Morning Edition or ATC.  I suspect this helps
keep Newshour from becoming the Julian Marshall show or the Robin Lustig
show.

Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA  USA

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <jfiglio1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <swprograms@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2004 9:33 AM
Subject: [Swprograms] NYTimes.com Article: NPR Stations Had Pushed forChange


The article below from NYTimes.com
has been sent to you by jfiglio1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx


Very good article on a dilemma facing NPR and most public service
broadcasters.  Two comments come to mind: (1) If it ain't broke, don't fix
it; (2) Even if you're on the right track, if you're moving too slowly,
you'll get run over. (with apologies to Richard Armitage)...  Both are
true--choose your poison!  :-)

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