Can We See Some ID?

The Ombudsman's Office awoke last week to this email from a Baltimore listener: "Good morning. Please forgive the stark phrasing. I love NPR but am becoming desperate at the lack of context and institutional knowledge in the morning rush for 'experts.'"

This listener was concerned about a Morning Edition interview with Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation (more on that later), but her concern echoed a regular stream of complaints from listeners (and less often, readers of NPR.org) who question how NPR identifies (or doesn't) the many experts who are guests across its newsmagazines.

While NPR is sometimes quite of the Open Society Foundations – at other times the ID is perfunctory, labeling a think tank or speaker by the very broad terms of "liberal" or "conservative." That is sometimes sufficient, but more often it says very little. Sometimes the person's history is only partially identified, with key information missing. And sometimes at all.