Trump on soldiers, the First Lady’s dress and naming sex offenders

Readers sound off about anonymous sources, a green-screen meme and naming names [View this email online]( [NPR Public Editor by Poynter's Kelly McBride]( In a presidential election year, the week after Labor Day is traditionally the start of the full-on election season. Not sure what that’s going to do to the Public Editor’s inbox, because the bulk of the notes we receive have been about politics for some time now. This week we look at several comments, and we do some comparing and contrasting. How did NPR address The Atlantic’s bombshell? What does a renowned fashion critic say about NPR’s coverage of the First Lady’s dress at the RNC? How might an investigation into sex-offender registries include pioneering reporting done by others in the public media family? NPR exists not in a vacuum, but in a constellation of other news organizations. As a Public Editor who is paid to look squarely at NPR, I find it illuminating to be conscious of what NPR’s competitors are doing. 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](. Melania’s bright green dress Brett Christensen writes: I listen to NPR every morning on my way to work and then again on my way home. I have always respected NPR as a good news source, but that was damaged [when I saw this article](. I cannot understand how an article like this would be written and distributed by this organization. This is something I would expect TMZ or a far right publication to do on a liberal politician. You can do much better NPR!!! This story on the reaction to the First Lady’s dress choice was published under the Arts & Life section, where the focus is on pop culture, movies, books and more. This article by reporter and producer Andrew Limbong is only a few paragraphs long. The embedded tweets take up as much space, maybe more, than the actual text. This story is really a “Hey, look what unraveled on Twitter as a result of this outfit.” Fashion is a form of communication and self-definition, which politicians and influencers use to sell their image. I learned that from a quick email exchange with Robin Givhan, the Pulitzer-Prize winning fashion critic at the Washington Post. “Mrs. Trump didn't choose a neon green Valentino gown because she wanted to blend into the crowd,” she wrote us in an email, after I reached out to her for a quick analysis. She thought the story was fair game, and I agree. Givhan said it would have been helpful if NPR’s story about Trump’s green dress had contextualized the memes that were projected onto it. Mentioning the references, such as Donald Trump’s relationship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and the immigration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, would have helped explain the story. “People were choosing them based on administration policy and her response (or lack thereof) to specific events. The idea of her as a green screen taps into her reputation as this inscrutable character in the administration and people just sort of project their own assumptions onto her,” Givhan added. Givhan said clothing — or costume — is part of political theater just as surely as setting and rhetoric are. A smart analysis of political fashion, she added, can further a reader's understanding of how a public figure is defining himself or herself. In an email, Limbong told us he and his editors were concerned about the double standard. “I’d like to think that there’s nothing that would be different about the piece if, say, Jared Kushner showed up in a neon green suit that was meme’d upon instantly,” Limbong wrote. “That being said there’s always been a loaded context to what First Ladies wear, which is important to keep in mind, while also being cognizant of the double standard that exists in clothing coverage.” Limbong added that the meme culture is a huge part of how people communicate every day, especially about politics and especially with this president. “I think it’s useful for readers (particularly those who aren’t extremely online) to see how that stuff gets talked about,” he wrote. “That it provided some levity to the RNC coverage was an added bonus, I think.” It would have been good to see more weight and context given to the images projected onto Trump’s green dress, but that wasn’t the point of this story. Meme stories are just that: a moment in time and how Internet users take hold of it and add their own piece or commentary. — Amaris Castillo Naming convicted sex offenders? Jim Hare writes: When did it become NPR's job to assist the police in law enforcement? I was shocked that you "named names" in your story on sex offenders [not registering]( as they are supposed to. It's one thing to point out the problem of lapsed registration, but the two gentlemen you interviewed have served their time. Why should they be singled out when there are hundreds more like them? This approach to reporting seems highly unethical. I share your concern about the burden placed on the men who were named in this story, as well the provocative nature of the reporter asking a woman on the steps of a nearby library if she was aware there was a convicted sex offender living nearby. [Minimizing harm]( is a well-established principle of journalism ethics. Journalists can’t possibly avoid causing some harm, but they do have an obligation to look for alternatives that might minimize the harm. In this case, the journalist could have used only first names. The story did not delve into the underlying problems with the registries. Kelly Socia, the criminology expert who NPR Investigative Correspondent Cheryl W. Thompson interviewed for the story, even pointed out, “It's a bloated, inefficient system that is incredibly expensive to maintain. I don't think it really protects anybody.” Socia wrote into the Public Editor’s office to express his disappointment in the story. He said he made it clear during his interview that there is no connection between recidivism and failure to register, yet the story leaves the opposite impression. The story, “seemed more focused on eliciting fear about 'losing people' than critiquing the actual ineffective policy.” I reached out to Thompson and her editor, Bob Little. Thompson told me via email that she framed her investigation around accountability. “This story specifically was about the government’s failure to track these folks, to make sure they adhere to the law,” she said in an email. “They clearly aren’t difficult to find. So, is keeping track of sex offenders not a priority for authorities? Is it a lack of resources or laziness on the part of law enforcement rather than the way the laws are written?” There were two men named in the story that ran on the air, five men named in the text version. Little said he and Thompson discussed whether to use the full names of sex offenders. “All of the men we mentioned are already listed in public registries, which include addresses and photographs,” he said. “And we found them using public records as well.” Thompson said, “We didn’t print the address of any of the offenders.” And she added that none of the men named in the story contacted her after the publication to report any harassment. There’s a [second part to this investigation]( that ran this week, although it did not address the shortcomings of the registries themselves. If you are interested in a more thorough examination of sex-offender registries, season one, episode six of American Public Media’s 2016 podcast In the Dark [details the origins and the failure of sex-offender registries](. — Kelly McBride Should NPR repeat the claim that Trump disparaged soldiers? James Fox writes: I’m no fan of Pres. Trump. However, Today’s grossly repetitious reports about Trump’s unconfirmed calling troops “losers” occurred on-air so often that it gave confirming credibility to the unconfirmed reports it was trying to clarify as unconfirmed. PLEASE NPR, as my ‘always-on’ radio station, you (inadvertently or not) failed my ‘neutrality-test’ today. Thanks for all that you do, do with excellence. The accusation, first reported by The Atlantic on Sept. 3, that President Trump disparaged fallen American soldiers, is built upon anonymous sources. It dominated the news cycle through Labor Day weekend and into this week, because the president himself kept bringing it up. Washington Desk Editor Krishnadev Calamur told me in an email that his team was wary of the story because of the sourcing, but found it impossible to ignore, especially when the White House kept pushing back on the reporting. You hear NPR White House Correspondent Franco Ordoñez state in this two-way interview with Weekend Edition host Scott Simon, “I’ll note NPR has not confirmed the statements independently.” I would be concerned about NPR repeating this information, except that several other newsrooms did independently confirm portions of the story, including Fox News national security reporter Jennifer Griffin, who documented what her sources said in [a series of tweets](. “We sought to focus more on the political implications of the news," Calamur said. “As Franco noted in his reporting, the president has presented himself as a strong ally of the military, so there was a legitimate question to explore about whether the story might harm his support among members of the military and veterans.” Given all that, the myriad confirmations from other reporters, the loud defense and the relevance to the president’s campaign stance, NPR’s approach to story seemed responsible. — Kelly McBride Spotlight on 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. Investigating the gun movement [No Compromise illustration ]( NPR NO COMPROMISE [A World Where The NRA Is Soft On Guns]( NPR dropped [the first episode]( of a new investigative podcast, No Compromise, this week. Heavy metal and rock music fills the silence in between the voices of gun owners who believe the National Rifle Association is too soft or [too corrupt](. Lisa Hagen and Chris Haxel from the nationwide reporting project Guns & America explain how the gun-rights movement got here. Facebook livestreams and armed rallies make up a new wave of gun owners who believe everyone has a right to carry an assault rifle. Hagen sums up the podcast’s premise: “American gun politics isn’t what you think, whether you love guns or want nothing to do with them.” The first episode introduces citizens that will seem familiar if you saw the large gun rallies that broke out in Richmond, Va., at the beginning of the pandemic. They believe all regulation on gun ownership violates the Second Amendment of the Constitution. Committed activists describe their dedication to protecting their rights, telling NPR they wanted to organize as far back as the 1993 standoff between federal law enforcement and the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. A handful of activists run several video blogs and statewide groups. They use their content to raise money and rile up like-minded gun owners “back home.” This series has a lot to live up to. (NPR’s [last investigative podcast, White Lies]( was a finalist for the first audio Pulitzer.) This first installment sets up an intriguing world ready for a deep dive. New episodes drop every Tuesday. — Meredith Roaten A cultural connection in ‘Mulan’ interview ALL THINGS CONSIDERED ['As An Asian Man, I Want To Represent': 'Mulan' Movie Star On Hollywood's Stereotypes]( After a months-long delay due to the coronavirus pandemic, the live-action remake of Disney’s Mulan came out last week on Disney+. The Niki Caro-directed film is based on the 1998 animated movie about a young woman who dresses as a man to take her father’s place in the Chinese Imperial Army. With the heavy summer news cycles, it was refreshing to hear about an actual movie. (And this film is not without controversy. Some activists are calling for [a boycott]( over lead actress Liu Yifei’s defense last year of Hong Kong’s police crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.) NPR’s Ailsa Chang [interviewed international action star Donnie Yen]( who plays Commander Tung in the Mulan remake. The Chinese actor estimated watching the original movie more than 100 times with his daughter. Yen said the now 16-year-old was drawn to Mulan because she’s a Chinese character and a female hero. Chang asked Yen about Asian stereotypes and his early days before he became one of Asia’s leading martial arts superstars. He spoke about his mother, who in the mid-1970s opened a martial arts school in Boston. There’s a special moment during this interview when Yen describes to Chang how strict his mother was when it came to his own martial arts training. Yen’s mother would drag him out of bed every morning before school to train. Without her, the actor said, he would not be who he is today. “Well, I love that you were raised by a woman who was so gifted at martial arts because, you know, when I was growing up in the U.S. as a Chinese girl, I felt like I saw way more women who were action heroes in Hong Kong martial arts movies than I ever did in American movies,” Chang said. [map of the United States with 10 regions highlighted]( There it is, a reminder that great interviewers bring themselves to the conversation in a way that builds a unique experience for the listener. Chang later [tweeted]( about one thing she and Yen share: Tiger moms. “Here’s to strong Chinese moms making their kids be their best selves.” — Amaris Castillo A national daily podcast with local content [map of the United States with 10 regions highlighted]( NPR PRESS RELEASE [NPR & Member Stations Turn 'Consider This' Into First Localized News Podcast]( Over the past few months, NPR tried a couple of approaches to public service journalism in these uncertain times. First, Coronavirus Daily answered listener questions daily. Then, Consider This launched to help listeners process the day’s news. NPR announced Wednesday that Consider This will [partner with local member stations in 10 regions]( to blend national and local news together into a daily podcast. NPR plans to add more member stations in 2021. — Meredith Roaten Remembering empathy THE ATLANTIC [A Stranger Helped My Family at Our Darkest Moment]( Reporters make their livings by professionally having empathy. This piece in The Atlantic by Morning Edition’s Rachel Martin is a reminder of why she is one of the best in the business. Martin writes about the harrowing experience of watching her 8-year-old son go over a waterfall. She paints a picture that makes hearts stop, describing how she was able to let her guard down on a family hike after so many months of pandemic-related stress and anxiety, and then how that peace was snatched away in an instant. A stranger rushes to her side to help with the emergency while an ambulance is called. Here, Martin documents her realization the pandemic has taken so many things away, but feeling compassion for others can’t be one of them. Martin writes, “I need to feel like we aren’t all floating around in our own bubbles, concerned only with the health, pocketbooks, and survival of ourselves and the ones we love. Because if we stop being able to connect with those we don’t know, if we stop being able to see ourselves in them, our empathy starts to atrophy. And then where are we as people? As a society? What are we left with?” The story has a happy ending. Her son suffered some broken ribs and a punctured lung, but nothing life-threatening. Martin has kept in touch with the woman who came to her family’s aid. This short essay left me with an appreciation for strangers and kindness from unexpected corners. — Meredith Roaten Behind the Scenes This is how the news gets made. We want your ideas for how we can do it better. How to make it through a pandemic By Meredith Roaten Managing Producer Meghan Keane founded the Life Kit podcast so she could help listeners get through the challenges in their lives — and the coronavirus pandemic has presented some of the biggest challenges yet. Keane started working from home in mid-March like many of the employees based at NPR HQ. She said working with remote employees and freelancers before the pandemic set up her team to succeed while working from home. During the pandemic, Life Kit provides listeners with both the escapism and the practical knowledge that they want, making it even more essential, Keane said. Here’s how she works from her home in Washington, D.C. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.) Meghan Keane works from home with her new puppy, Margo. What was the biggest challenge in connecting with your team? I think the biggest challenge at first was just making sure that our workflow could be the same and all the technical aspects of working with audio and not just audio, but long-form audio, and making sure that we had good file management and that we were using MTE [editing software] effectively to make sure that we were passing off projects in a smart way. That was just probably the hardest hurdle. I was so used to the NPR building’s world of connectivity, just getting a lot of the technical setup stuff was not insurmountable, but was definitely a growing pain for myself. What was the hardest thing about adjusting to work from home? I would say another big hurdle for me was just defining my day between work and non-work and being able to shut off and make sure that I wasn't just constantly available for work because it was right there next to me. So that was a big hurdle, too, knowing even though I technically could finish an episode at 10 p.m., I needed to be stricter about when I was actually going to be offline. How do you maintain a sense of connection with your team? We're a small team, so we have a morning scrum and an afternoon scrum, and they're always at the same time. The morning one is usually about what is everyone doing today and what help do you need? What roadblocks do you anticipate? And then the afternoons scrum is what's happening tomorrow. What do we still need to tie up? Are there any kind of bigger questions we have or holes we just need to fill in the calendar? Having standing appointments is really helpful because then you're not always working to just schedule one more thing in your day. I know what everyone is doing. So I always have a sense of how big their workload is and when they're going to meet deadlines. The other thing I did before all this, too, is I would do monthly check-ins with each of the producers to have bigger-picture kind of conversations about how they're feeling and what they like to do and what goals they would like to accomplish. I am trying to maintain the bigger-picture stuff while we're remote so we're not just shoveling coal into the podcast. Let's think about how we can make sure that you feel good about where you're going or how you feel on the show. How has Life Kit’s approach to content changed since the pandemic? Originally I think it was a show that was conceived to be an evergreen reference library that you could kind of pick and choose from this buffet of knowledge. And it could be just as relevant from, hopefully, the day it was reported to when you listen to it. But the pandemic really showed that we had to do some of-the-moment service journalism. And we landed in a place of wanting to do a mix of tonally appropriate evergreen stuff, like how to journal or how to think about anxiety, along with things that were more pandemic specific. For example, we did a show on COVID-19 etiquette or thinking through home-schooling options for the fall for your kids. NPR has seen a big increase in digital audience. How has that affected Life Kit? We had a push in the beginning of the year that was around New Year’s because that's when people want kind of self-improvement type of information. Adding to the mix of escapism-type episodes and the ones that directly address how-to’s in the pandemic, has been attractive to listeners. They've been enjoying the mix of wanting to improve things in their life that they wanted to improve anyway, and also urgent information about safety and how to live in this new world. We are one of the few shows that does a full-on digital build with every episode. We are lucky enough to have a digital editor, and we made it a mission even before the pandemic, too, to really prioritize making really nice digital pictures that have the take-aways set out on them. So I think we benefit in that way, too, because our stuff is very shareable. How have you been de-stressing in quarantine? We talk a lot on our show about taking your vacation, even if you're not going anywhere or if you're just doing like a very scaled-down version of a vacation. I took a week off that originally was supposed to be a trip to Colorado with friends. And of course, I got canceled and I have this new puppy. I used that at the time to bond with her and get to know her and that was very important. And I think you don't have to go into exactly every feeling to your boss about why you need time off. But I think what we've learned on our staff is you need to speak up and say, “I need this time so I don't burn out.” Also a good friend of mine is a fitness instructor. She lives in Boston, but during COVID has gone fully remote. She started her own business, and so I’ve been going to her classes most mornings, which is really nice because it's a way I get to see her and hear her even just for an hour, every few days of the week. I get to basically see a good friend of mine that I normally wouldn't, and I get to move, which always feels good. The Office of the Public Editor is a team. Researchers Amaris Castillo and Meredith Roaten make this newsletter possible. We are still reading all of your messages on [Facebook]( [Twitter]( 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]( Meredith Roaten, National Public Radio Kelly McBride, Public Editor Amaris Castillo, 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]( [NPR logo]