|
|
|
|
Illustration by Carlos Carmonamedina
|
Here are a few quotes from the Public Editor's inbox that resonated with us. Letters are edited for length and clarity. You can share your questions and concerns with us through the NPR Contact page. |
|
The challenge of describing a rare diplomatic meltdown |
Jonathan Reich wrote on March 2: NPR’s newscast this morning (Sunday) characterized the meeting in the oval office between Zelenskyy and Trump … as a “shouting match.” Why does NPR use this term? I watched the meeting, and Zelenskyy did not shout at all. The only one who shouted was Trump. When NPR uses this term it biases listeners, most of whom did not watch the meeting, to think that both leaders were at fault, which is not true at all. Why does NPR want to disseminate such misinformation? |
|
@Sleni tweeted on Feb. 28: It was NOT a shouting MATCH. Just two of the three were shouting, and one was NOT Pres. Zelenskyy. Do better @NPR. |
|
@AltenbergLee tweeted on March 3: NPR News @NPRinskeep tonight disgraced itself by referring to Trump & Vance’s mob-boss shake-down of President Zelenskyy as a “shouting match”. Beware the use of symmetrical language to describe abuser & abused.
It’s a sign of moral cowardice to the abuser’s side—not symmetrical |
|
| Reddit users also held a robust discussion including these comments: |
|
Ewoksintheoutfield wrote: It becomes more and more obvious traditional American news outlets are failing us. They either bend over backwards to give a “both sides” approach which diminishes the awfulness of Trump and the GOP, or they sane wash and normalize the GOP by giving them air time to spout their nonsense. |
|
NO_M0DS_NO_MAST3RS wrote: Oh my god I’m so tired of NPR calling it a shouting match. Like how is it a match when Trump and Vance had a full on toddler meltdown while Zelenskyy was just sitting there trying to speak facts like an exhausted parent at Target? |
|
The four dignitaries — Trump, Zelenskyy, Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio — gathered in the Oval Office that morning for a media “spray,” where the press pool shouts questions and shoots photos. When heads of state are involved, the meetings are highly choreographed, NPR chief Washington editor Krishnadev Calamur told me. NPR did not have a journalist in the press pool, but had access to the audio recording immediately after the meeting ended.
The video recording of the event lasts for a lengthy 50 minutes. Very few news stories from any organization managed to capture the entirety of the event. Trump opened the meeting by talking about the “rare earth deal” he expected to sign later that day. At 11:45, Zelenskyy and Trump had a friendly back-and-forth over whether Europe or the U.S. gave more money to Ukraine’s war effort.
At 40 minutes in, shortly after Trump announced that he would take one last question, Vance animatedly stated that Trump’s strategy of being “diplomatic” with Russian President Vladimir Putin is a superior approach to resolving the war.
In response, Zelenskyy offers a long list of promises that Putin has broken and asks Vance, “What kind of diplomacy are you talking about?” And with that, the tenor of the conversation completely changed.
What had been mounting tension exploded, with Vance first dressing down Zelenskyy, accusing him of disrespect. For the last 7 minutes of the event, Trump and Vance lecture and interrupt the Ukrainian president.
NPR’s first headline said: “President Trump berated Ukraine’s president, calling him ‘ungrateful’ in a tense White House meeting.”
However, that headline was corrected within 90 minutes, because Trump never actually said “ungrateful.” Instead, Trump said Zelenskyy was “not acting at all thankful.”
The next headline on that story was less forceful and avoided saying who did the yelling: “Trump and Zelenskyy’s meeting turns into a heated argument.”
The final headline on the story was similarly bland: “Zelenskyy leaves the White House early after Trump meeting gets heated.”
Here’s a rundown of additional descriptions as they evolved over the next week on NPR:
-
In the 4 p.m. ET newscast that day, Lakshmi Singh said, “President Trump ordered his advisers to show Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his delegation the door after their meeting in the Oval Office devolved into a bitter exchange.”
-
In an extended interview at the 5 p.m. ET hour that day on All Things Considered, White House correspondent Asma Khalid described the events as:
-
“An extraordinary scene”;
-
“Openly fighting”;
-
“Contentious argument”;
-
Vance “chastising Ukraine’s president”;
-
Khalid said, “It is the type of diplomatic spat that you don’t usually see in public. There was lots of shouting, crosstalk, pointing fingers. And I think to fully understand just how heated the meeting became, you’ve got to listen to it, and this is long, but take a listen,” and then played a long clip.
-
Senior political correspondent Domenico Montanaro called it a “shouting match” in a web story that posted that same day.
-
In the 6:30 p.m. ET newscast, Jeanine Herbst also called it a “shouting match.”
-
In the 8 p.m. ET newscast, Jack Speer called it a “heated public spat.”
-
On Weekend Edition Saturday, host Scott Simon didn't characterize the meeting at all, he just played an extended clip of Trump chiding Zelenskyy before interviewing John Bolton, who served in the first Trump administration.
-
On Weekend Edition Sunday, host Ayesha Rascoe also called it a “shouting match” during an interview with national security correspondent Greg Myre, who called it an “outburst.”
-
On March 3, when Trump paused aid to Ukraine, All Things Considered host Ari Shapiro described the meeting as “disastrous.”
-
On March 5, ATC host Juana Summers described it as a “contentious meeting.” She was introducing a story about a letter that former Polish President Lech Walesa sent to Trump in which the Nobel laureate described the encounter as “an interrogation.”
-
On March 6, the NPR correspondent in Kyiv, Teri Schultz, called it “a spat.”
-
That same day, Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep said that Trump and Vance “berated Zelenskyy.”
While there are dozens of other stories, the above rundown is a representative look at how NPR’s language changed as journalists described what happened. NPR isn’t alone. The New York Times favored “blow up” and “showdown.”
The AP called it an Oval Office thrashing.
Journalism is often described as the first draft of history for a good reason. How reporters chronicle an event often sticks and then shapes our understanding of events. Even though the video is easy to find, most people won’t watch a significant portion.
NPR’s first headline accurately characterized what happened as Trump berating Zelenskyy, even though it inaccurately attributed the word “ungrateful” to Trump. It’s impossible to know if that early error, which was caught and voluntarily corrected by the team that made it, led to more cautious characterizations.
The conflict was one-sided, fueled by Trump and Vance. Zelenskyy certainly contributed by challenging Vance in front of the press. But the response from the American president and vice president was disproportionate and more akin to bullying than a diplomatic scolding.
Calamur, the chief Washington editor, told me he and his staff never really discussed whether their descriptions were accurate.
“I understand what the listeners are saying, but at the time, it really didn’t strike me as unusual in using that framing,” he said. “It was hard to tell whether they were just talking over each other and talking louder to be heard or actually yelling at each other.” He added, “It did not seem imprecise to call it a shouting match.”
Khalid wrote in an email, “We also played unusually long cuts of tape (longer than we ever normally play in a 2-way), so that people could hear in their own ears who was shouting at whom.”
We are fortunate to have a publicly available recording of this historic moment. It’s also good that members of the press were in the room and that even more journalists can distribute the recording to their audiences. News consumers lean on NPR journalists to provide context and make sense of fast-moving and significant events.
It’s rare when something truly unexpected happens in politics. Most events are scheduled and controlled. It’s understandable that the first descriptions are a bit more general, because it takes several rewinds, and additional reporting on subsequent events, to really see the power dynamics at play in the conversation.
I don’t fault the journalists who took the first pass at describing what happened and who selected terms that did not assign fault or action. As time goes on, I would expect journalistic descriptions of the Zelenskyy-Trump Oval Office meeting to become more accurate and more precise, which we see Inskeep do on Morning Edition, one week later. That could have happened sooner. But the timing is less important than getting the description right. As journalists, it’s important to question whether our first word choices were the best word choices. And when they’re not, our language evolves, in service of a closer version of the truth. — Kelly McBride
|
The Public Editor spends a lot of time examining moments where NPR fell short. Yet we also learn a lot about NPR by looking at work that we find to be compelling and excellent journalism. Here we share a line or two about the pieces where NPR shines. |
|
Quantifying chaos caused by DOGE |
On March 7 for NPR’s Shots vertical, science desk correspondent Yuki Noguchi spoke with a former Centers for Disease Control employee who had been laid off in mid-February as a result of DOGE’s government employee cuts. Bri McNulty said she was on her way to FedEx to drop off her CDC computer when she decided to check her email one last time, only to find that she was being called back to the same job from which she’d been let go. The email was from a sender unknown to McNulty. There was no signature at the bottom of it. Her boss, Kelly Wells Sittig, had no knowledge that McNulty, or the rest of the 66-member cohort she was a part of, were being reinstated.
NPR zeroes in on a single government entity and focuses on one person’s experience with the DOGE cuts, getting right to the heart of the uncertainty and confusion caused by the current administration’s unorthodox approach to government matters. That confusion is further made clear when Noguchi spoke with McNulty’s manager. Listen to the audio piece and read the accompanying web story here. — Nicole Slaughter Graham |
|
|
|
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 |
|
Amaris Castillo
Poynter Institute |
|
Nicole Slaughter Graham
Poynter Institute |
|
|
|
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.
Read more from the NPR Public Editor, contact us, or follow us on Facebook, Instagram or Threads. |
|
|
|
|
|
You received this message because you're subscribed to Public Editor emails. This email was sent by National Public Radio, Inc., 1111 North Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC 20002
Unsubscribe | Privacy Policy |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
