WDUQ 90.5 FM - A Statement on NPR's MIddle East Coverage by Kevin Klose

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May 13, 2003

A Statement on NPR's MIddle East Coverage
by Kevin Klose
President, National Public Radio

Over the last several years, as conflicts in the Middle East have intensified, NPR has deepened and broadened its coverage of the events in the region, including the Israeli-Palestinian issue. That coverage, unique among American broadcast organizations, has helped us expand our audience and our service to inform, educate and enlighten the American public. As with all other news organizations that cover the region comprehensively, we have received much comment about our coverage. We have received thousands of emails about our Middle East coverage: some supportive, some negative, some arguing that we are pro-Palestinian in our coverage, some arguing that we are pro-Israeli in our coverage. All of them reflect the indisputable and underlying fact that this is a story of great personal importance and emotion to many listeners and that they are listening to our reporting with a finely tuned and critical ear.

Our increased coverage has meant not only more reporters in the region, but also an intensified editorial self-assessment process within NPR News, with the specific goal of making our coverage as accurate and as meaningful as possible for listeners. Recognizing that many listeners often may hear only snippets or small portions of our comprehensive coverage, NPR has developed a specific area of our website, NPR.org, where we have in one place put all audio and transcripts of Mideast coverage carried on NPR newsmagazines in the past year and made them available to our listeners free of charge, contrary to our normal practice.

As a public and listener-supported institution, we take seriously our obligations towards transparency and public accountability. Over the past year, I have traveled to Israel and made more than 40 trips to meet with listeners to discuss our coverage, to listen to their views, and to help them understand the rigorous nature of our internal editorial practices. I know that many of you have had similar encounters and that evaluative information from NPR can help explicate this subject to your stakeholders. In furtherance of that goal, I wish to share with you the latest of our regular internal reviews on our Middle East coverage, and, as always, I invite your comments on this matter.

Though this document will focus on our regular internal review, I first would like to share with you recent affirmation of our Middle East coverage. Last fall, NPR ran a seven-part Morning Edition series on the history of the Israeli and Palestinian questions. Entitled The Mideast: A Century of Conflict, the series was intended to give listeners something that is often difficult to convey in daily coverage: a perspective and context to issues that have roots going back hundreds of years. The series, reported by NPR's Mike Shuster, was carefully researched and edited by NPR News. Despite our care, the series drew some aggressive criticism, including a lengthy critique that was published even before it began to air. Last month, the Overseas Press Club awarded the series the Lowell Thomas Award for the best radio news or interpretation of international affairs. This award, one of several that the series has already won, is generally regarded as the most significant international reporting award made each year. The award citation described the series as "[a]n excellent multi-part detailed series on the Middle East. A complex topic presented with brilliant texture and historical perspective." We are very proud of Mike and the editors at NPR for this accomplishment.

The Internal Review

Periodically, NPR News collects all of our reporting on Israeli and Palestinian matters and undertakes a comprehensive assessment of our coverage. This assessment, intended solely to enhance our coverage going forward, considers five factors: (1) was our coverage accurate, (2) was our coverage balanced and did it provide a reasonable range of perspectives, (3) was our story selection appropriate and extended to all important news events, (4) did we give listeners adequate depth and context, and (5) was our choice of language appropriate to the circumstance. In this latest review, we looked at the first quarter of 2003, the period from January 1st to March 31st. During this time, NPR News aired 60 produced pieces, interviews and two-ways. This report details our findings for this one period:

Accuracy. Ultimately, accuracy is the most important goal of a news organization and fact checking is thus one of the most critical and highly valued parts of the editorial process. Even the finest journalistic organizations make mistakes, as evidenced by the daily error boxes in the morning newspaper. Minimizing mistakes is the highest goal. We have reviewed more than 60 reports and interviews conducted by NPR during this period and have found no factual mistakes or errors of a substantive nature.

Fairness and Balance in Sources and Voices Heard on Air. The goal and responsibility of a news organization like NPR is to provide the listener with a range of voices and opinions. In assessing our success or failure in this area, we have reviewed the identity, background and affiliation of all persons heard or quoted on air during the period, and found, through quantitative measurement, the following facts:

The person most frequently heard or quoted during this period was Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel (eight times). The second most frequently cited source was Major Sharon Feingold, spokeswoman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Hirsh Goodman of the Jaffe Center in Jerusalem was interviewed four times during the period. Arab journalist Rami Khouri was interviewed twice.

Reporting showed a tendency to rely upon Israeli governmental sources during this period. In addition to Prime Minister Sharon and Major Feingold, six other Israeli governmental officials were quoted during the period. In comparison, eight Palestinian leaders were quoted, five of whom were quoted twice (including Yasir Arafat).

In the 60 pieces, Israeli voices were heard 65 times and Palestinians (or other Arabs) were heard 49 times. In addition, Israelis were quoted (but no tape played) 61 times, and Palestinians (or Arabs) were quoted an additional 57 times. All told, Israeli perspectives were heard more frequently, by a percentage difference of 54% to 46%.

As with all major news organizations, NPR from time to time interviews American sources to seek their analysis of events. During the period, NPR interviewed only two such experts: Dennis Ross, the former U.S. special envoy to the region, and Henry Siegman of the Council on Foreign Relations.

We have also analyzed whether stories, on balance, had an Israeli perspective, a Palestinian perspective, or neither. Typically, perspective is dictated by subject matter. A story on the Israeli election containing interviews of Israelis will have an Israeli perspective, a story on the effects of violence in Gaza on Palestinian society will have a Palestinian perspective, and a story on U.S. engagement in the Middle East peace process in which both Israeli and Palestinian governmental sources are cited will have neither. There is a subjective element to this analysis, to be sure, but our analysis shows 40% with an Israeli perspective, 27% with a Palestinian perspective and 33% with either both perspectives equally weighted or an essentially American perspective on the story. We have carefully reviewed the transcripts and believe that the modest statistical deviations described above are acceptable and appropriate for the following reasons: First, news organization should not fall into a trap of quantitative equivalence in complex stories and we believe that the current numbers fall within reasonable tolerances that will even out over time. Second, for much of the period, the principal stories in the region were Israeli stories related to the election and to that nation's preparations for the US-led war in Iraq. This naturally led to more stories engaging Israelis directly. During other periods, it might well be that the preponderance of voices would be Arabs depending upon the nature of news events in the region. Third, for a variety of reasons, Israeli society is highly pluralistic. Thus, any effort to include the full range of political perspectives from the region might very well drive a statistical tendency towards more Israeli voices in any one period. These three factors reasonably account for any modest imbalance towards Israeli voices during the period, and reinforce our general conclusion that there is an appropriate balance between Israeli and Arab voices during the period.

During the period, however, we encountered a tendency to return to predictable sources. The fact that Mr. Goodman, a well-known centrist academic and analyst, was so frequently interviewed reflects an understandable, if not entirely, laudable tendency to return to known quantities. NPR will work towards a broader range of voices in the future.

Story Selection. As suggested above, during the period, NPR concentrated its reporting on several critical stories: the Israeli elections, the planning for the US backed roadmap, the violence involving both Israelis and Palestinians, and preparations in Israel for a potential attack from Iraq. A narrow majority of stories focused on Israel, reflecting our editors' decision that events in Israel were of higher news value during the period. One example of a story that received intense coverage was the January 5th bomb attacks in Tel Aviv, the largest attack in Israel in nine months. That attack was covered on January 5th by Linda Gradstein, on January 6th in a second piece by Gradstein, on January 6th in a Michele Norris interview with an Israeli humanitarian worker in Tel Aviv, and in newscast reports throughout the period.

Several acts of violence in the West Bank and Gaza (from both sides) were not covered in full stories, though covered in newscasts. On balance, the assessment reveals that editorial resources were appropriately assigned to major stories such as the Israeli elections and the preparations for the war in Iraq. The modest tilt of stories towards Israel reflects reasonable and appropriate editorial choices. As is the case with all complex and significant news events, had extra resources been available, the coverage would have appropriately been extended to other events that would have broadened the overall range of story selections.

Depth and Context. At bottom, NPR distinguishes itself by reporting not just the what and the when, but the why. This is a difficult task when daily coverage consumes almost all of our reporters' time and when broadcast time allotted to a particular story is limited to three or four minutes a day. Indeed, during the period January 1st to March 31st, NPR's coverage was consumed by the run-up to war in Iraq, and comparatively little programming time was dedicated to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Some NPR reporting distinguished itself during the period, including Peter Kenyon's careful descriptions of the effects of violence on both Israeli and Palestinian society and the reporting by both Kenyon and Linda Gradstein on preparations in Israel for a second Gulf War. Nonetheless, our self-assessment is that NPR News should invest more resources into providing context and depth to listeners, as it did last fall with the The Mideast: A Century of Conflict series.

Choice of Language and Identification of Speakers. In this area, we have attempted to assess NPR's ability to accurately and fairly describe individuals and organizations in the news:

NPR, like every major American news organization including The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times, typically describes members of Hamas and other similar organizations as "militants" or the like. The rationale for this widely adopted convention is manifold. The goal of news coverage is to provide facts to listeners sufficient to let them develop their own views. Language in this area is scrutinized carefully from all perspectives, and NPR has attempted to ensure that the facts, rather than descriptive labels, speak for themselves. For purpose of this review, we looked at whether the facts as presented by NPR provided the listeners the opportunity to draw their own conclusions about these organizations and their activities.

We have reviewed each relevant piece for context, clarity and factual accuracy. While acknowledging subjective elements to this part of the review, we believe that, in this period, NPR did a particularly effective job at providing information about these groups and their actions to listeners, in two respects. First, during the period, NPR provided detailed description of the violent activities of these groups, including extensive coverage of the Tel Aviv bombings in January. This coverage graphically described the actions and presented the viewpoints of victims and Israeli governmental officials on these suicide bombings. Indeed, on air, people interviewed by NPR reporters frequently described these actions as "terrorist" actions, providing this particular perspective to the listener. Thus, regardless of whether NPR reporters labeled these groups as"terrorists" or not, we presented facts and information necessary for listeners to draw their independent conclusions on the matter. Second, during the period, NPR provided a three-part series describing the growing popularity of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and similar groups within the Palestinian communities. This series helped explain to our listeners why such violent organizations have gathered increased credibility within their communities. This reporting, in its totality, provided a broad range of information to the listeners on this difficult issue, fully reflective of NPR's journalistic obligations.

We also analyzed whether adequate attention was paid to describing and attributing sources heard on air. This is a particularly difficult issue, given the fact that reporter pieces are frequently edited to fit into the broadcast clock. In reviewing the transcripts, we believe additional efforts are needed to provide listeners with information about people or organizations that are not fully known to all listeners. For example, Saeb Erekat was quoted without describing him as Yasir Arafat's principal spokesman; B'Tselem was described only as a "human rights organization" without discussion of where it stands on the Israeli political spectrum; Hanan Ashrawi was quoted without describing her as a critic of the Palestinian leadership; and other individuals were variously described as "peace activist," "legal commentator," or "reform advocate" without giving listeners any concrete idea of where they stood in the context of Israeli-Palestinian issues. Additional efforts in this area would better serve our listeners.

Our reporters and editors work under tight filing deadlines and report under dangerous and uncertain conditions. The format of radio often demands multiple filings during any given day and forcing stories into predetermined broadcast clocks. Despite these circumstances, our review indicates that the reporting for the period was accurate, balanced and generally complete, as indicated by both objective and subjective methodologies. To the extent that the statistical evidence pointed towards a modestly intensified coverage of Israel, we believe that this was justified by the locus of news events during the period.

We recognize that the issues of the Middle East create enormous interest on the part of our collective listeners, and NPR will continue to dedicate resources to enhancing our coverage of these complex matters, to continuously reviewing our reportage and to making information available about this reporting to you and to our listeners. We will continue to work with our Member stations and our listeners to be open about our processes and to ensure that NPR News will continue to provide the broadest and mostin-depth reporting possible on this matter.

Kevin Klose,
President, National Public Radio