How NPR decided whose voices to include in stories on the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago

In the week after the FBI searched former President Donald Trump's home, NPR and other newsrooms faced a common challenge: With the government silent, the loudest voices speaking publicly about the search were Trump and his defenders.

Some of their statements were false. Some espoused deep-state conspiracy theories. Almost all of it was opinion and speculation.

While the imbalance of available information and commentary was particularly sharp in the first five days after the FBI executed the search warrant, NPR's chief Washington editor Krishnadev Calamur said the dynamic is something his team faces every day. The Washington Desk has developed a strategy, he said, for discerning whose voice gets into NPR news reports.

"The story is the story," he said. "The FBI searched the premises." Immediately after that happened, there was a vacuum of information. The FBI and Department of Justice made no information available, which is typical in an ongoing criminal investigation.

Reporters and editors had to determine what to include in those first stories