Covering Lebanon + listener thoughts on trigger warnings, TikTok and more

The Beirut explosion coverage is a window into NPR's international journalism [View this email online]( [NPR Public Editor by Poynter's Kelly McBride]( This Week's Column As news broke last week of the massive explosion that damaged over half of Beirut, we became fascinated at how NPR covers such a dramatic disaster in the middle of a pandemic. Where do you start? Who identifies what stories to pursue? How does a relatively small international team contribute new and valuable information that is distinct from the work done by large newsrooms like the AP, Reuters and The New York Times? We listened, and compared coverage, and interviewed the head of the international desk and the Middle East editor. This week’s column takes you inside the newsroom from the moment the blast occurred to the recent resignation of the government. We didn’t find major flaws with the coverage; however, we did identify two areas where NPR could improve. Take a look at the column to see our recommendations. [destruction in Beirut]( Hassan Ammar/AP ['Lassoing Facts': Coverage Of Beirut Explosion Reveals Strengths And Flaws]( [Read the column]( From the Inbox Here are a few quotes from the Public Editor's inbox that resonated with us. You can share your questions and concerns with us through the [NPR Contact page](. When the photo and headline don’t match Christopher Humphrey writes: [In this] story today on Facebook [regarding felons in Iowa being able to vote]( the picture of a Black man [implies he is] a felon, but how would you guys know? … Does NPR consider that this could be considered racist and biased and gives a very derogatory depiction of Black men? When you look at the cutline, it's clear that the producer or editor who selected the photo intended to connect the pressure from demonstrators to the new policy regarding felon voting rights. The effect you point out was unintentional. That said, the photo has been replaced. — Kelly McBride Getting serious about TikTok Sam Jen writes: Though not a TikTok user, I do appreciate how popular it is with teenagers as mentioned in this piece. However, I think it's not entirely accurate to paint TikTok/ByteDance as the innocent victim of a capricious president. TikTok [censors]( Americans and actively [works with the CCP]( to repress Uighurs in Xijiang according to an Australian study from 2019. Although stories about American TikTok K-Pop fans and their activism are amusing, I don't think we should treat TikTok or ByteDance as harmless, fun little apps. The first time NPR wrote about TikTok was in early 2019, when “Baby Shark” shot to the top of the pop charts. Since then, NPR’s coverage and relationship with the social media app have grown more tangled. Now NPR’s Planet Money has its own TikTok account for explaining complicated economic news in easy-to-understand videos. More than that, Planet Money gets a grant from TikTok to make these videos. And where there’s funding, there’s always a little bit of suspicion. Chief Business Editor Pallavi Gogoi told us that while reporters and editors are aware of the new partnership, any suggestion that it influences editorial decisions are unfounded. She referenced [this story on a class-action lawsuit against TikTok]( and [the exclusive on President Trump suing TikTok]( as proof that NPR has explored all sides of the political battle. “We have talked to enough experts on both sides to know that that some of the worries against China are warranted — that when the Chinese Communist Party demands information, we really don't know how much of a say these companies have in terms of not turning over information,” she said. “That being said, we also have voices from the users who would say, “What information? What information will the Chinese government want from me as a user, given that all I did was dance?” We agree that TikTok coverage shouldn’t be limited to dancing videos, but based on the breadth of context and deep-dive reporting from NPR’s business coverage, it seems like NPR is not treating the company overly gently. Plus, NPR is transparent about its connection by including an editor’s note about the sponsorship, as it does with the sponsorship of other big tech [companies]( under scrutiny. We are going to do a deeper dive into the TikTok partnership in the future because it brings up a lot of interesting issues. But we don’t see any evidence that the arrangement impacts news decisions in any way. — Meredith Roaten Should a trigger warning include the words, ‘trigger warning’? Alex Berry writes: Hi there - In the Facebook post where NPR [detailed this story]( there was graphic depiction of abuse, including mentioning rape and violence, all with no trigger warning in the headline. I would like to see NPR be better about using trigger warnings and leave graphic depictions of abuse and violence inside of their articles instead of detailing them in the headlines. In the [broadcast version of the story]( a clear warning appears at the 22-second mark. This “share copy” appeared at the top of NPR’s Facebook post: “For many Yazidi women, the trauma of being enslaved, raped and beaten by ISIS fighters didn’t end when they were freed. Here’s one survivor’s story.” We spoke to Justin Bank, senior director for digital news and strategy at NPR, about this. He told us NPR stories occasionally have an editor’s note at the top with a warning for the audience. “I think that the share copy used on Facebook, in conjunction with the headline that was also shared on Facebook, are a pretty good prep for what’s going to happen after readers click over,” Bank said. The words used to promote the story on social media serve as an implicit editorial warning, he said. “I feel our editors did as good a job as they could to signal that warning, and to honor the piece and give a fair representation of what’s coming,” he added. Should a trigger warning use those specific words? Or can it be more subtle, simply alerting the reader of the distressing nature of the content? Both approaches have merit. In this case, the treatment on Facebook seems to serve that role, even without the explicit label. — Amaris Castillo On My Mind There’s so much NPR content worthy of praise, criticism or just a bit of conversation. Here I share a line or two about things that caught your attention or mine. The massive student strike you’ve never heard of Shereen Marisol Meraji/NPR CODE SWITCH [The Long, Bloody Strike For Ethnic Studies]( California State University — the largest public university system in the country — will now require all students to take an ethnic studies or social justice course in order to graduate. Code Switch took in this news and brought back an episode that traced the [history of those classes to a bloody strike]( more than 50 years ago, the longest of its kind in U.S. history. The unapologetic voices in this episode give you a clear view of the country’s racial tensions and complex politics at that time. We hear archival clips from George Murray, a graduate student and English instructor whose suspension in 1968 from what was then San Francisco State College helped ignite the strike. He spoke out against the Vietnam War, adding that Black soldiers, poor white soldiers and Mexican soldiers were being used as “dupes and fools” to fight against other people of color, a point of view the College took issue with. We hear the voices of student and community organizers involved in the strike, a professor and a historian who adds needed context for today’s audience and old audio clips of the strike chants and college leaders at the time. Co-host Shereen Marisol Meraji leads us through a compelling history lesson of this largely forgotten struggle. Along the way, she helps us understand the connection between that strike and today’s college curriculum. — Amaris Castillo COVID-19 long-haulers share a similar struggle [portrait of Marjorie Roberts]( Marjorie Roberts Morning Edition [What It's Like When COVID-19 Lasts For Months]( It's been months since the spread of coronavirus began in the United States, and rarely do we hear from those who have battled the disease for nearly as long. [Morning Edition on Monday weaved together the voices of two women]( with very similar stories: Marjorie Roberts, a 59-year-old life coach from Atlanta, Ga., and Natalie Nowell, a 34-year-old mom of three from Memphis, Tenn. Both women tested negative. Both women were initially dismissed by doctors who didn’t believe they were seriously ill and didn’t believe it was COVID-19. Back home, they got even sicker. They were eventually able to find doctors who took them seriously. Their stories are eerily similar. It’s a close-up look at living with COVID that will reinforce how scary this new virus can be. — Amaris Castillo Wilkerson’s exquisite metaphors [I am Man protest]( Bettmann/Bettmann Archive THROUGHLINE [America's Caste System]( NPR’s Throughline podcast is deep and thoughtful, connecting events from our history to the modern-day world. This month, the Throughline team is reprising past interviews and turning them into a curriculum for teachers to use in the classroom. And last week, it featured Pulitzer Prize-winner Isabel Wilkerson, whose new book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent just showed up in bookstores. In this episode, titled [America’s Caste System]( Wilkerson gives us a new frame through which to view American history. The 40-minute listen is worth every second of your time. There are two particularly beautiful metaphors we couldn’t stop thinking about: Somewhere in the middle, she describes the meaning of the word cast/caste as the thing that holds your broken bones together, the roles prescribed to actors on stage and the system that keeps people in their place. It’s all really the same thing, she says. And then, toward the end, she tells us to think about America in this way: “This is the house that we have inherited, I have come in like an inspector of an old building and have worked to create a report on the structure of the building. It’s an X-ray of our house. And it’s up to each of us in our own way, wherever we can, to find ways to come together, to understand it, confront it, deal with it, and work together to heal ourselves from all that’s happened before.” — Kelly McBride Behind the Scenes This is how the news gets made. We want your ideas for how we can do it better. Producing It’s Been A Minute in 2020 By Meredith Roaten Producer Anjuli Sastry is used to making interesting conversations with a team of people in different places. She helps produce It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders, a podcast made by collaborators on the West Coast and the East Coast. She was living in Los Angeles when shelter-in-place orders first went into effect in March, but she’s now staying with family in the San Francisco Bay Area. While communicating and working remotely has been a relatively easy switch for her, she said finding a work-life balance has been particularly difficult, especially as she tries to coordinate the mentorship program that she co-created at NPR. At the end of the day, Sastry said channeling her worries about the state of the world into producing meaningful conversations helps her feel like she’s making a difference. Here’s how she works from her home in Alameda, Calif. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Anjuli Sastry works from home in Alameda, Calif. How has your work changed during the course of mandatory work from home? We're not having celebrities and guests come into studios, so we have to teach them how to record themselves with their iPhone, which is something I normally would do if people couldn’t go into a studio. But it's teaching them how to do Zoom or having them connect via Zoom and have their headphones plugged into their computer so that they're not recording Sam’s voice coming through the computer — all of that technical stuff they normally would not have to worry about. Also think about a producer cutting a two-way or an interview on their laptop. Maybe you have a mouse or maybe you're using your touchpad to make intricate edits on a small screen. In that sense, it gets difficult, and all producers at NPR have had to adapt. What’s been personally challenging about working from home? I don't really have a work-life balance, and I'm working on that. It's hard for me to separate myself [from my work], so I'm always thinking about work. Before I could leave the office and go work out and or get to actually drive home. Now, it's like work and home is all wrapped up into one. So I have to be very careful about setting boundaries, but I have not been perfect. Is there an episode or conversation that you’re most proud of having worked on? I’m just proud of the entire show. Being part of it, growing it. Every single episode I look back at them and think: ‘We put our heart and soul into this.’ And we were really intentional about it ever since the beginning. It's so cool to be able to work with Sam and the whole team. We really love what we do. My motto has always been to be successful, you must be passionate about what you do. And I feel really grateful and blessed during this time, that I have this position to be able to elevate voices of color, Black voices, especially this summer. We each infuse our paths of life into it, and also teach our listeners something. Whether it’s Sam and Kenya Young in conversation about [that emotional talk that Kenya has to deliver to her sons]( or Sam’s conversation with a[ctress Tracee Ellis Ross](. It's really awesome things that you don't hear anywhere else on public radio. I also love how Sam brings out another side of a person that you may not hear in other interviews on public radio. Whether by opening the interview asking about a silly video or how they’re feeling (because we don’t often ask guests that, or put it in the final cut if we do), he has a way of humanizing our guests that makes the interviews/episodes more relatable. IBAM has been getting a lot of recognition recently. What has that been like to see? It's really awesome. One thing I do want to emphasize is that we have been doing this work for a few years. Sam and producer Brent Baughman created the podcast in June 2017. I came on in October 2017, when we launched the radio version of the show, I've seen it through different iterations. Our editor Jordana Hochman has helped us have a little bit more focus and experiment with format more, but we haven’t been doing things drastically different in terms of what we cover or who we have on the show, from when we first started. What has changed these past few months though is that the show is being marketed differently. [In the past] we could have been doing great work, but we didn't have the same kind of marketing campaign behind it. We’ve seen major growth in our audience because of that. It’s a team effort across the organization to make this happen. What do you like to do to de-stress? I work out every day. I also go on long walks with my family. That's what's great about being in my hometown. There are a lot of little paths and spaces where we can walk on with our dog, Astro. Having a dog itself helps immensely. I can take a break and go play with him and de-stress that way. I also read a lot of books outside the news. At the end of the work day, I just can't read any more news. Also, getting certified as a yoga teacher is something that’s always been on my bucket list, but I didn't have the time to commit or the money to pay for it. Maybe now that I have the time, I can look into affordable ways to get my yoga teacher certification remotely. Astro stays close to Anjuli while she works, usually sitting under her desk. You co-founded the Marginalized Genders and Intersex People of Color Mentorship Program at NPR. What has it been like to do this work during this time? There were already some people, some pairs who would have to meet remotely because they work in different bureaus — like me at NPR West. But before the pandemic, not everyone had to go virtual, which is a whole other life change. What we've heard from a lot of colleagues of color at NPR is that they want a safe space to discuss microaggressions in the workplace, the protests against racial injustice this summer, and issues around coronavirus. Maybe you're a parent, you're working from home, and you're dealing with the pandemic and you're taking care of your kids and your elderly family or something like that. Having another person of color to talk to you about these kinds of issues and what you're going through is just so invaluable. How do you maintain your mental health when the news is so bad these days? I always channel everything into my work, for better or worse. I feel I can give back or take action through work. I pitched a series for the podcast Life Kit on workplace diversity because I was seeing everything going on and wondering what companies are actually doing about racial inequities within their organizations. Is it just performative? So it’s sort of a tool kit for leadership to listen up and hopefully implement diverse change within their companies. What would you want listeners to know about what it’s like to produce the podcast during this time? We are a small but mighty team (at our most, we have been six staffers, at our smallest, two) working on It’s Been A Minute every week, trying to cover stories and have conversations you don’t hear anywhere else. That’s what brings us joy. I miss seeing my teammates in person every day to create this awesome work. Also, we are nothing without our listeners — thank you for supporting us and listening to the show! The Public Editor column and newsletter is the work of a team. Researchers include: Meredith Roaten, NPR Amaris Castillo, Poynter Kelly McBride NPR Public Editor Chair, [Craig Newmark Center for Ethics & Leadership at the 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 [Twitter](. 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](