Transcript
BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield with a few of your letters. Most of them concerned Brooke's interview with Morning Edition Host Bob Edwards, who will be leaving that post for a job as NPR Senior Correspondent. Kate Donnelly of Chicago writes: "It was so sad to listen to Bob Edwards grasp at straws to understand his pink slip. The situation smacks of bad and tactless management. Thanks to OTM for a sensitive and revealing interview."
BROOKE GLADSTONE:But that conversation left many listeners deeply unsatisfied: "Hearing Mr. Edwards say repeatedly that he had no idea why he'd been canned by NPR is not informative. It simply points out a gaping, unfilled hole in your story," writes Joshua Tanzer of Hoboken, New Jersey. Did that not make you want to find out why for yourselves? Why not interrogate the people who made the decision and get the answer rather than tell us repeatedly that you don't know?"
BOB GARFIELD:Most wrote in to say they were stunned by Bob Edward's re-assignment. Marty Weston writes: "I love his minimalist morning chatter. It makes getting up in the mornings easy, even when the day's events are troubling, the world is a mess, and the temptation is to pull the covers over my head." And Lee Ann Gilbertson adds: "I think NPR has done a great disservice, not only to Bob Edwards, but to its listeners."
BROOKE GLADSTONE:But there were a few dissenters, like Heidi J. Levin of Chicago. She writes: "In listening to the interview, I was struck by Bob Edwards' more outgoing and assertive personality versus what one normally hears in the morning. While I like Bob Edwards' approach now, as it focuses on those reporting on the news who are there and have something meaningful to say, I wonder if Bob were just a little more like he was on your interview, whether he would be leaving."
BOB GARFIELD:This postscript now, to our stories two weeks ago about VNRs -- video news releases packaged by public relations firms to look like actual news and distributed by various major news feeders, including CNN. In the uproar over the Department of Health and Human Services' VNR which ran as an apparent news story on stations around the country, CNN has changed its VNR policy to segregate and strictly label PR material from its other news feeds. Thanks for your letters. Keep sending them along to us at onthemedia@wnyc.org, [MUSIC UP & UNDER] and we'll ask one more time, don't forget to tell us where you live and how to pronounce your name.