From 5,000 words to 4 minutes

NPR journalists regularly interview reporters from other newsrooms about their recent work, called two-ways. Although the type of news delivery isn’t unique to NPR, it’s ubiquitous in public media.

This is particularly true of flagship radio shows like Morning Edition and All Things Considered, which include a balance of the latest breaking news, analysis, longer stories reported by NPR correspondents and a look at interesting stories covered by other newsrooms.

The practice of interviewing one’s competitors isn’t quite as common at for-profit media organizations which often strive to spend more time on exclusive reporting of their own to be valuable to their audiences. (The exception is cable television, which must fill up a lot of time.)

But public media offers a different promise. Rather than first and exclusive, the value is a thoughtful and well-curated look at the issues of the day. It makes sense that if there’s a unique and deeply reported story in a magazine or newspaper, NPR might invite the reporter onto a show to describe what they discovered. 

Today we address a listener who believes one such interview recently fell flat, failing to give the audience enough information. The story in question was a New Yorker investigation into a partnership between private equity technology companies and some county jails that force family visits to happen over video, sometimes for a steep fee. 

It was part explanatory and part watchdog journalism, documenting that such policies prevent children from physical contact with their parents and turn a profit for county sheriff’s departments.  

All of that information was in NPR’s 4-minute interview with the author, and yet the listener walked away frustrated, with more questions than answers. Therein lies the challenge. The journalism that is most ripe for this type of treatment involves months of reporting conveyed through thousands of words. NPR’s audience is going to get a snippet of the experience, and it has to be well crafted. 

That means the host has to ask crisp questions, the reporter has to provide compelling answers, and the editors have to be skilled as they cut down the taped interview so it will fit within a show. If all that happens, the NPR audience will come away with a portion of the knowledge they would gain by reading the full body of the reporter’s work.

Sure, some listeners might track down the original story. But most will not. To find out what happened with this particular interview, we asked the executive producer of Morning Edition. Read on to see what we learned about what happened behind the scenes.
 
We also spotlight a series of stories about the absurdity of federal disability payments. Investigations correspondent Joseph Shapiro illuminates the hoops that families must jump through to get and keep disability benefits. — Kelly McBride

A New Yorker story is distilled for broadcast

Graham Lanz wrote on June 2: [The Morning Edition segment with the New Yorker reporter who wrote the story] about video calls from jails missed some opportunities to give a more balanced, informative, thought-provoking message. How much do the video calls cost? The story paints this as an emotional-but-also-financial struggle for families with incarcerated family members, but without data to give that “sacrifice” context. …

The host asked the writer (twice, really) for why and how the state believes it is permitted to charge whatever they charge for these video calls and she basically sidestepped the question and pulled on heartstrings instead. The story did not lay this issue out well, and seemed to be written to be anger-provoking instead of thought-provoking.

Some jails around the country have ended in-person jail visits and are instead offering video calls, which they profit from, New Yorker writer Sarah Stillman reported on May 13. Stillman interviewed justice advocates who emphasize the need for in-person visits at the correctional facilities, which they refer to as the “Right to Hug” campaign, and she followed families of incarcerated individuals as they navigated the new video call systems. She also talked with spokespeople from several county jails and the companies behind the video technology.

Host Michel Martin interviewed Stillman about her story for the May 30 Morning Edition, largely focusing on the families affected by the policies. This story was originally pitched by one of the show’s digital editors. Other team members researched, booked, taped and edited the conversation, Morning Edition executive producer Erika Aguilar told us via email. Team members also prepped both Martin and Stillman for the interview.

“This conversation was assigned to Michel Martin because of her ongoing interest in telling stories about young people in juvenile detention and with incarceration,” Aguilar wrote. “Hosts are regularly assigned to stories/interviews that they may not have pitched.”

Segments on NPR shows are often only a few minutes long — in this case, just under 4 — which means the production team has to decide what information is best to include, and what gets cut.

Martin’s phone interview with Stillman lasted about 20 minutes, so then producers had to edit it into a 4-minute segment. The New Yorker’s audio version of the article is a 33-minute listen. Aguilar listened to the entire tape and acknowledged that Martin asked compelling questions that didn’t make it into the story, including asking Stillman whether surveillance of the calls may help prevent criminal activity that might be arranged during calls from jail.

Aguilar said another challenge in editing segments with reporter two-ways is fairly representing the original Q&A. For example, Martin asked Stillman how county officials justify replacing in-person visits with video calls that cost money. But her answer didn’t make the final edit. In answer to a different question, Stillman was able to explain some of the jailers’ reasoning, “These county jails say this is the way for them to deal with the fact that they have low staffing.” Stillman told Martin that jailers also erroneously cited contraband as a reason for eliminating in-person visits, saying often contraband in jails is brought in by guards themselves.

Aguilar pointed out that NPR editors won’t mix and match questions and answers, “We never take an answer from another question and make it sound like the person was answering a different question, even if the second take or answer was better or clearer."

In hindsight, Aguilar said she thinks a few things could have been done differently with the story.

“I would have included how much it costs for video calls. I would have also included a statement from the jails or tele-companies, or at least what they said to Stillman when she was reporting on this story,” Aguilar wrote. “I could see how that would be helpful information for the listener who may not take the time to read the original article in the New Yorker. I often expect that listeners may go read the original source; we do cite it in the introduction of the story. But I could see how that may not be possible for some listeners.”

Several barriers stood between the NPR audience and the New Yorker story. The magazine is behind a paywall, preventing many people from seeing the full story. Also, the New Yorker story was not linked from NPR’s website where Martin’s interview lives, likely an oversight. But it would have helped get more of the audience to the original source.

Whether it is produced by NPR or another news organization, taking a short look into deep investigative reporting like Stillman’s serves Morning Edition’s audience well. By interviewing the reporter, the show can highlight a complicated story effectively and efficiently. But it requires a high degree of strategy, in preparing the questions, conducting the interview and editing the material down into a short clip.

One hallmark of powerful short radio segments is identifying tangible details that convey the gravity of the problem (in this case, the costs some families are paying for the calls) in a way that listeners will remember. Finally, listeners would have a more complete understanding of the issue if they had heard more about how jailers defend the policies.

As it was, the editors made a solid choice by highlighting the plight of the vulnerable people most harmed by the lack of in-person visits.

It would be ideal if people who heard the story on NPR were inspired enough to track down the full version on the New Yorker website. Getting more concrete details into the 4-minute radio edit would prompt more listeners to do that. And that would have also served those who chose not to invest the time or money in the longer magazine story. — Emily Barske Wood

Investigations into SSI

NPR has published several illuminating stories on Supplemental Security Income, the U.S. government program that provides payments to disabled children, disabled adults and some elderly folks — and the many ways it is outdated. All of those imperfections make life hard for the people the program seeks to help. NPR News investigations correspondent Joseph Shapiro dug into the SSI program and found that it traps people in poverty by limiting the assets a person can own, and penalizes couples who marry. Shapiro documents that the Social Security Administration, which runs the program, admits that it often makes mistakes. These important stories collectively illuminate issues from a longstanding government program and center the voices of the people directly impacted. — Amaris Castillo

The Office of the Public Editor is a team. Reporters Amaris Castillo and Emily Barske Wood and copy editor Merrill Perlman make this newsletter possible. Illustrations are by Carlos Carmonamedina. We are still reading all of your messages on Facebook, X 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