As the presidential election approaches, a growing number of people are concerned about the possibility of fraud as the votes are counted. This creates a growing sense of alarm and anxiety, which influences how people approach news stories. Today, we address a letter from a listener who is confident that American elections are secure and would like to hear more NPR journalists sound the alarm as they describe the litany of unfounded attacks on the election system.
This is a common request from NPR listeners on a number of different subjects. When you are distressed over events, whether it’s climate change, reproductive rights or the war between Israel and Palestinians, there is a measure of comfort in getting your news from a source that can match your agitation.
NPR, however, does not embrace the alarmist approach. Instead, NPR aims to be a common denominator of calm through measured reporting. We asked a politics reporter and the chief Washington editor to describe why they take this approach, specifically on election material. Read on to hear their answers.
Additionally, after enduring two hurricanes in two weeks from our home base in Florida, we found ourselves on the front lines of disaster and in need of information. We asked our local NPR member station about their strategy for serving their audience. Because it’s hard to get news when the power goes out and the cell networks go down, we were keenly appreciative of critical nuggets of news and the efforts the station made to make sure it was accessible. And we wanted to know how they did it.
Alarm bells over election challenges
This two-way conversation between Detrow and Parks was designed to be a check-in on a number of election-related challenges coming from the Republican Party. Parks’ full-time beat is to report on how voting works in the U.S. He’s been covering that topic since 2017. Former President Donald Trump and his allies are spreading lies about the stability and security of American elections. And it’s having an impact.
A majority of American voters tell pollsters they are concerned about election fraud. Given that there’s no evidence of widespread fraud, experts believe that the Republican messaging is successfully influencing public opinion. Most of Parks’ reporting covers the impact that the rhetoric and the legal challenges have on voters’ ability to cast their ballots.
Parks told us his calm tone on the radio is deliberate. “I don’t think it’s really sustainable to be screaming every single day about everything,” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to get people to engage with our journalism on a regular basis.”
Instead, in his stories Parks describes how elections work, and he repeatedly notes which claims are baseless. For example, in this recent radio story examining the growing trend of local officials refusing to certify election results, even the headline, “Here’s why many election experts aren’t freaking out about certification this year,” is designed to reassure rather than ruffle.
That reporting approach doesn’t deny that the concerted effort to undermine public faith in our elections is unnerving. It’s just not the role of public media journalism to get people riled up. Instead, NPR’s goal is to dispassionately establish the facts, chief Washington desk editor Krishnadev Calamur said.
“It’s the citizen’s job to get alarmed about whether they think elections are compromised or not,” he said. “But it’s not our job to add to that alarm.”
NPR’s approach speaks to a broad audience; more than 21 million people a week listen on the radio. In addition to people who are freaked out by the Republican drumbeat of misinformation, NPR’s audience includes people who have mild concerns about elections and people who don’t follow political news every hour or even every day and aren’t concerned at all. Delivering news to this wide group requires an approach that is accessible to the greatest number of people.
“I don’t inherently have, as a reporter, the trust of every single person who turns on the radio,” Parks said. “I’ve found a more effective strategy is to talk to the people who are actually impacted by these lies and see how it’s impacting them.”
With several years of experience covering voting, Parks is well aware that rigging American elections is impossible. There are more than 9,000 voting districts, each one run by an elected official.
He isn’t shy about calling the lies lies, about describing Republican motivations for spreading false information, or about succinctly setting the record straight. He has frequently reported that Trump and Republicans are deliberately laying the groundwork to challenge the legitimacy of the election if they lose.
A vexed and animated delivery might provide more emotional satisfaction to a subset of listeners, but it wouldn’t make the journalism any better. The calm and steady approach matches NPR’s mission and it serves the greatest segment of NPR’s audience. — Kelly McBride
What role does public media play during a public safety crisis?
Within two weeks, two major hurricanes caused considerable damage and confusion for Florida’s Gulf Coast, as well as the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. The Poynter Institute, where the NPR Public Editor team is based, is in St. Petersburg, Florida. That meant that we were among the many people in Tampa Bay cleaning up the wreckage caused by Hurricane Helene while preparing for a second blow from Hurricane Milton.
Our local public radio station, WUSF in Tampa, was a vital source of information. News director Mary Shedden said the newsroom identified three different information phases as they served their audience.
Before the storms, people needed information about school closures, evacuation routes and how to prepare for hunkering down, she said.
During the storms, “It’s very much a weather event, and (we’re) talking about the weather and tornadoes and things like that,” Shedden said, noting that WUSF reporters were also going live to remind people to shelter in place, because emergency services like the police and firefighters could not respond.
In the aftermath of the storms, Shedden said her team focused on reporting the status of power outages and providing resources that people needed to start recovering. While context is important, Shedden said that in the immediate aftermath of a storm, the community didn’t need deep reporting. They just needed the facts, like where they could get gas for their generators and ice for their coolers.
WUSF focused on sharing contact information for resources and real-time updates on community-specific needs. “So right now it’s gas, it’s the FEMA stuff, it’s getting (information on) immediate assistance for people that are living paycheck to paycheck that is really critical. We are not resharing a lot of social media (posts from people in the area). We’re going to official sources. We’re just giving the information; we’re not trying to go into analysis or political talking points.”
In fact, Shedden said the station has turned down interviews from political candidates. “We’re actually avoiding people running for office if at all possible, quite honestly because there is, I mean, we’re so close to an election. There’s a political spin angle to a lot of what’s going on from both sides.”
That’s not what the community needs right now, she said.
Anticipating major power, Wi-Fi and cellular outages across the region, WUSF also had to think about how to get information to the people who needed it most. They opted for a text-only blog that NPR helped make possible, which was something North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Public Radio also turned to after Hurricane Helene decimated large swaths of communities in the state’s western region.
“We were able to get a text-only website linked so that people who are experiencing outages but had cell service could try to access this text-only website that had the information,” Shedden said. For the people of Tampa Bay, “We know it’s not about pictures right now. It’s about information and having the blog, and people who have limited access on their phones to Wi-Fi or any kind of connection, they need three sentences. They don’t need 14 paragraphs.”
As time passes, reporting on the aftermath of the hurricane will focus on accountability, Shedden said.
“As we move forward, how the cities, the state and the federal government are assessing the damage. Who they are taking care of. Who are they forgetting? That’s our job moving forward.”
WUSF is constantly seeking community input to ensure that the station is reporting on the issues that matter to the listeners. They regularly monitor the social media comments sections and inboxes for input, reach out with specific coverage-related questions, and have a “Citizens Agenda” form on their website. — Nicole Slaughter Graham
The Office of the Public Editor is a team. Reporters Amaris Castillo, Nicole Slaughter Graham 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
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