NPR Public Editor by Poynter's Kelly McBride

NPR hosts are the personal connection between the listener and the news. They are the guides who make a show or a podcast a unique journey.

Broadcast news executives know from experience that the bond between the host and the audience is critical. When a show changes hosts, audience numbers often wane.

Right now, a rotating roster of hosts is filling in on Weekend All Things Considered, and an NPR listener and fan of the show asked on Reddit what’s going on.

I reached out to the executive who oversees all of NPR’s news programming to get answers to this listener’s question.

We also have a spotlight on several stories on the pending Supreme Court decision on birthright citizenship. NPR’s correspondents from the education desk, the health desk and, of course, legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg provide a thorough examination of this constitutional challenge. — Kelly McBride

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.

A listener asks: why rotating hosts?

Reddit user Mouselett wrote on April 5: It has now been more than half a year since Scott Detrow left the host chair to replace the departing Ari Shapiro on the weekend equivalent of ATC. Since then, many people have stepped in to fill-in the seat for four-week stints, the latest being Rob Schmitz. With how long this has been going on, I’m starting to get restless. It hasn’t taken this long for the network to find a successor for one of its shows before, so why haven’t we found out who will be the next WATC host after all this time? Has it become less of a priority for them since they laid off the separate team for the show three years ago? Will we even see them announce a new host for the show? I’m just a devoted listener seeking to find closure with this process.

This note captures the classic experience of a news consumer who has developed a useful pattern and a personal preference. The pattern is listening to Weekend All Things Considered, and the preference is hearing the host who steered the afternoon show for two years.

Vice president for news programming Eric Marrapodi told me that NPR doesn’t have immediate plans to name a permanent replacement for Detrow. And even though that goes against the conventional wisdom in news programming, there are advantages for NPR to continue rotating hosts into the slot.

NPR calls them “featured hosts,” and they come from throughout NPR. Some of them are beat reporters or correspondents working on various news desks. Others are podcast hosts. Tasha Diakides, executive producer of newscasts, first pitched the rotation idea as a way of leveraging talent from across the newsroom.

“What we really like about it is they are bringing something specific from their beat into the weekend show,” Marrapodi said. “It gives them the chance to expand on that.”

Emily Kwong is a recent example. As host of the science podcast Short Wave, Kwong has brought several science stories to the show, including this Feb. 14 interview with an evolutionary biologist who studies why humans kiss.

She also interviewed a geologist who had just returned from burying a seismometer below the ice cap on the South Pole.

International correspondent Rob Schmitz hosted the show this past weekend from Budapest, Hungary, to cover the election, including the significance of President Viktor Orbán’s defeat after 16 years in power.

In addition to bringing more specialized reporting to the show, Marrapodi told me that rotating hosts into the slot gives NPR the chance to train a bench of hosts who can competently step into a live show. Weekend ATC is NPR’s only one-hour show. Everything else runs two hours or longer, meaning Weekend ATC is less pressure than a longer show.

But there’s still pressure. The war in Iran and the military action in Venezuela both broke on the weekend. When news breaks, the staff has to scrap many of the stories they had planned to cover and fill in with live reporting.

Hosts must have significant journalistic experience and the ability to use their voice and their own curiosity to continuously welcome the audience into the show. They have to be able to collaborate well with the team of producers, engineers and editors who put the show together. And they must be able to think fast on their feet, both during live interviews and when things go wrong.

“One of my expectations for hosts is that they can hold the air for three to four minutes by themselves,” Marrapodi said. That doesn’t happen often. When an interview drops or technology fails, it’s up to the host to keep talking, while the rest of the team figures out what comes next.

In addition to diversifying the expertise on the show and training new hosts, Marrapodi sees one more advantage to the current experiment. Weekend ATC is where NPR tests out new ideas. Rachel Martin’s Wild Card podcast started out as a segment called “Enlighten Me.” And the podcast Trump’s Terms started out as a segment on the show Trump’s Trials.

These experiments, which were born before the featured host rotation, are important because they begin on the radio, where NPR has a solid foundation, and they grow into podcasts that live on YouTube, NPR One or other streaming services. This transition is the key to NPR’s future and it can happen with a regular host or with a rotating cast.

So I understand why NPR is rotating hosts on the weekend, but does that harm the connection between the listener and the news, which NPR has worked so hard to create?

So far the numbers say no. About 1.8 million people listen to Weekend All Things Considered, Marrapodi said. The audience number dipped after Michel Martin left the show in 2023, but it bounced back after Detrow took over. Since he moved to weekdays, the audience numbers for Weekend ATC have remained consistent compared to NPR's overall performance. So far, NPR has had only one full ratings book, which is the report from Nielsen that measures media consumption.

“I want to see one or two more ratings periods before we decide if we are going to do this forever,” Marrapodi said. “We’re watching the numbers and they’ve held steady without a precipitous drop.”

This is helpful for news consumers who are intentional about their information strategies. Most of us have patterns and preferences that have developed over time because they serve us well. As more and more news consumers move away from broadcast radio, the traditional programs will likely change as well, because the companies that make the news are trying to move with the audience.

I suspect NPR will either hire a single host for Weekend All Things Considered, or they will settle into a predictable roster of featured hosts. But this period of experimentation is likely to continue for the rest of the year. Since the journalism is strong, and since most of the audience is rolling with it, I hope the folks who think that rotating hosts are a bad idea will find a reason to keep listening. — 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.

Coverage of birthright citizenship challenge

Any child born on U.S. soil has had the right to citizenship since its establishment by the 14th Amendment in 1868. That right is being challenged by the Trump administration. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case about birthright citizenship that is poised to make history. From the beginning, NPR has provided its audience with stellar and comprehensive coverage on this major court case. Among the many stories we like are a Weekend Edition Sunday explainer on how a decision could impact education access for future generations, and a Morning Edition story about what advocates say are the implications for babies. On the day of Supreme Court arguments, NPR aired hourslong live special coverage featuring analysis in real time. Throughout its coverage, NPR has also consistently fact-checked statements by President Donald Trump that the U.S. is the only country in the world with birthright citizenship. (It’s not.) The NPR Politics Podcast also featured a special episode with a recap, including audio clips from the arguments themselves. It’s a tremendous public service to have so many options for news consumers to learn about and follow this case. — Amaris Castillo

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.

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