We were alerted to this item by NPR's public relations department, and we relay it to you with all deliberate speed: Justin Timberlake was photographed wearing an NPR t-shirt. Carl Kasell was then photographed wearing an 'N Sync t-shirt.


Keith Kelly has news about our favorite unnerving British ex-flack/ ex-celeb mag editor, Rob Shuter, former executive editor of OK!, is hooking up with the AOL pop culture site Popeater as a new Hollywood columnist. His column, Naughty and Nice, is slated to appear Tuesday through Friday." Rob Shuter has the evolutionary persistence of the cockroach!


News-and-museum combo The Newseum is laying off 13% of its staff, the second round of job cuts since the place opened just in time for the total collapse of the newspaper industry. These are the most predictable museum layoffs since...whatever is the auto industry museum. They probably had layoffs recently, too. [Related: the Miami Herald is down to a church bulletin.]


Rupert Murdoch is keeping busy: News Corp just finalized a deal to buy a 10% stake in Rotana, a Middle Eastern media conglomerate owned by Saudi Prince Waleed. Pay no attention the Australian behind the curtain, Middle Easterners! I guess this makes MSNBC and Al-Jazeera spiritual cousins.

And today in Mediabistro news:

Carl Kasell, the NPR newscaster known for saying things in that voice of his, is retiring from the morning newscast (but continuing to appear on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me). "The biggest change in his life may be not having to wake up at 1:05 in the morning in order to be ready for the network's 5 a.m. ET newscast." NPR has been literally trying to kill beloved newscaster Carl Kasell, all these years.


Not to get back on this subject again (please), but a tipster tells us there are still more AP layoffs going down, today: "one biz writer in nyc who was on vacation last week. two people in los angeles," our tipster says. We are hoping and assuming these are just leftovers that didn't get done last week.


James O'Shea was a Chicago Tribune editor who got pushed out as the entire company went to hell. Now he's starting up a rival Chicago news organization. But when the NYT asks him about all the BEEF he must have he says, "No, I don't have any interest in any of that." Ridiculous! On the internet, "news" is just a code word for BEEF. You will learn this soon enough, Mr. O'Shea.


What's this, one guy writing in True Slant defends the continued existence on earth and in our daily newspapers of NYT nature writer and most annoying essayist in the US of A Verlyn Klinkenborg? No. He is indefensible.

Writes our tipster:

Wow. I wasn't expecting him to dance like a monkey, but neither was I expecting to leave the bookstore depressed. You know the scene in 30 Rock where [Tracy Jordan] gives a speech at his High School and has a breakdown? It was like that, only not funny. At one point, while talking about his father and his mother, he broke down crying. Nobody knew how to react, so we gave him an awkward round of applause. Maybe three laughs in 45 minutes.

Here's the clip in question:




Well, it might not have been funny, but at least it wasn't a downer. Writes another tipster:

I also attended the reading last night and like other Gawker attendees, I was surprised by the tone and content of his talk. However, I left feeling slightly inspired. He spoke at length about how we need to interact more as a community, that we need to get off the computer and stop listening to our iPods and interact with fellow New Yorkers. He even mentioned Kanye West and how he was saddened by what he did to "that young girl." It was certainly not what i had expected but not entirely depressing.

Either way, it sounds like Morgan had a really emotional day. First he was breaking down on NPR and then this. There aren't many people we'd want to give a big hug and tell them that it will be OK, but Tracy is at the top of the list.

Were you there? Got pictures? Let us know!

Oh shit. Dylan Ratigan aired an embarrassing clip of Jonathan Capehart scarfing a bagel. So this morning Capehart's mom called in and chewed Ratigan out for mocking her son. She is cool, but somehow we think this isn't making Jon look cooler. [Jon Capehart is actually cool!]


NPR's Mara Liasson is sorry that she said the "Cash for Clunkers" program was "like a mini-Katrina." What she meant to say was "like a mini-Holocaust." We are hypocritically giving you a hard time, Mara! We are worse than Pol Pot.


American psycho Glenn Beck called President Obama "racist" and now he's lost three advertisers. Procter & Gamble refuses to have its brands associated with anyone who even mentions the name of Obama, the racist fuck.


Experience! A bunch of J-school students from Alaska went with their professor to be embedded in Iraq for a month, and before they even got their press credentials they already "came within a few minutes of being hit by an IED." This is maybe America's only worthwhile J-school program. Good luck, kids.

Malakoff pleaded guilty to downloading and watching videos of children being raped. According to court documents, "at least 150 images of child pornography" were found on his computer last year by an NPR tech support worker after Malakoff complained that his laptop had been infected with a virus.

Yesterday, according to the Washington Examiner, U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle—ignoring federal sentencing guidelines that recommended six to eight years in prison for his offense—sentenced Malakoff to five years' probation, a $5,000 fine, and 600 hours of community service. He must also register as a sex offender.

Huvelle's reasoning, as reported by the Examiner, was that Malakoff had already suffered enough:

In explaining the exceptional step of sentencing below the guidelines, the judge said Malakoff had already thrown away a successful career and has to live with the stigma of being a sex offender for most of the rest of his life. But the strongest argument for the lesser sentence, Huvelle said, was that Malakoff had been raped as a 9-year-old boy and he had looked at the child pornography over five hours last year to relive his own rape.

How ugly and painful and sad. The victim-becomes-victimizer dynamic of sexual abuse is complicated and horrible to contemplate, but—the justice or lack thereof of Huvelle's mercy notwithstanding—we're confident that O'Reilly will gloss over the nuance when he goes batshit over the confluence of NPR, child pornography, and a lenient judge.

indieWire and the other outlets that picked up the story misconstrued the timeline of the events, making it sound like Nathan Lee, the film critic whose review was censored, didn't know about the alterations before the story went up. That is not true: he knew NPR would only run a bastardized, censored version of his review, without the names "Larry Craig" and "Charlie Crist," when they informed him of this fact a day after the piece was supposed to go up. At which point Lee asked that his byline be removed and a disclaimer attached.

That seems like a relatively unimportant detail, considering that the larger point—that NPR is proving the film's argument that media outlets are complicit in the hypocrisy of closeted conservatives—but it was apparently worth it to NPR's management to keep this story alive, so the record has been corrected.

And this is still the record: despite plenty of speculation on the sexuality of random pop culture figures, NPR refuses to mention that Larry Craig—who was arrested for soliciting sex from a man in a public restroom—might be gay, in the context of a review of a film about how media outlets refuse to mention that lots of people who legislate against homosexual rights are secretly gay, themselves.

Here is some material from the film Outrage, about how those repressed closeted gay Republicans are totally great at immoral filthy gay homosex.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Crist is the governor of Florida, where he is wildly popular. He will basically win in a walk, even though he's facing challenges from more Conservative Republicans.

So the thing is he was totally just one of those "whatever, I'm gay, just don't tell anyone" conservatives, for years, hanging out in gay bars and things, until he became a Bigger Deal, at which point he was fabricating girlfriends, and then he married a woman. An actress. This is when he thought he was going to be John McCain's vice president. That didn't happen, and he already got that wife, so... let's run for the Senate, maybe?

Don't worry about him, though—only the trashy Florida alt-weeklies and blogs like this will ever tell his terrible secret! Like when NPR aired their review of the documentary about outing hypocritical closeted politicians and, oddly, removed all references to Crist and even Larry Craig, who was arrested for soliciting bathroom sex.

"NPR has a long-held policy of trying to respect the privacy of public figures and of not airing or publishing rumors, allegations and reports about their private lives unless there is a compelling reason to do so," Dick Meyer, NPR's executive director of Digital, told Indiewire.

And, hah, the guys at Movieline immediately went out and found the NPR piece on how American Idol contestant Adam Lambert is probably a big gay gay person. He is not even a hypocritical politician—he's never said gay people shouldn't get to adopt kids or get married!—he is just a flamboyant dude on a singing show. There is just as much "proof" that Crist is gay, even if he doesn't wear guyliner.

Anyways, as long as Crist remains precariously closeted, he will be a ticking time bomb of hilarity waiting to happen. Good luck with that Senate run!

NPR is laying off 13 employees and sending all employees on five-day furloughs to help close an $8 million budget gap this year. Oh and in a new creative twist they're also not paying employees for three standard holidays this year, so there's a new and exciting tactic to try out and screw your workers with, corporate plutocrats! Who's to blame for this? You, for not donating enough. If you have some interesting NPR layoff dirt to share, email us.


Newsweek editor Jon Meacham is writing a new biography of Dubya Dubya's dad. [We corrected the subject of the book here, but we leave the subsequent snide comments]. Who wants to read more about that guy? No idea. Maybe he's done some interesting stuff, since getting the fuck out of office? Newsweek editor Jon Meacham aims to do some findin' out of that.


Now we take a big deep breath and spit out all the bad newspaper news of the day all at once: McClatchy and the NYT Co. ("four notches into junk") had their debt ratings cut, pay cuts at the Star Tribune and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Boston Phoenix, and asshole CEO of the broke-ass bankrupt Philly papers, Brian Tierney, made $1.175 million last year, including hundreds of thousands in bonuses and 81K for "transportation costs," and another exec there called his own pay "very low," so suck on that, newsroom.


New York magazine is cutting two issues this summer, and one in January, because they can't sell enough ads for them.

And in an admirable bit of public service, Keith Olbermann has pledged to give $1,000 for every second that Fox manimal Sean Hannity has himself waterboarded, as he said he would do. Sean?

NPR is worried its listeners will not know which set of financially inept radio taxocrats they're sending all their hard-earned money to, presumably because their total libtard sheeple. "There's plenty of opportunity for confusion," NPR's flack told the Wall Street Journal.

Ha ha, of course there is, just look what happened in Boston:

At WJIB, a commercially licensed oldies station... a listener once sent a check with the subject line marked "WGBH" — a prominent local public-radio station. Owner Bob Bittner says he sent the check back.

Oh, liberals, never knowing who to send their checks to.

Anyway, it should be pretty easy to keep the two left-leaning radio organizations straight: One pays taxes and has faced financial issues and management shakeups; the other doesn't pay taxes and has faced... financial issues and management shakeups. Hmm.

Maybe it's better to focus on the gifts: NPR will give you tote bags, DVDs and hand-cranked radios; Air America would probably offer, more impressively, "access to Air America talent and tickets to special events." (Read: More teabagging with Ana Marie Cox and Rachel Maddow.)

[WSJ]

Conservative media outlets are obviously doing much, much better, due to their innate business savvy and understanding of free markets (*cough*).

(Image via)

This is interesting in light of the fact that Fox has made a practice of stalking people who refuse to come on the Factor Zone and face Bill O'Reilly's tough-but-fair stream of sexual innuendo. A Fox producer recently explained the tactic to the New York Times: "We're trying to get answers from people.... Sometimes the only way to get them is via these methods." Jesse Watters, another Fox producer who actually has the job of following slight young women for hours while they go on weekend trips with their boyfriends and then ambushing them with a camera crew even though they never had any idea that Fox wanted to "get answers" from them because they were never asked to come on O'Reilly's show, has summarized it thusly: "If they don't come to us, we'll go to them."

When the reporter who wrote the above-mentioned Times piece tried to "get answers" from Watters, the big-talking manly man declined. But at least Fox was willing to put someone up to defend themselves.

No such luck for NPR. Said host Michel Martin:

And I should mention at this point that we asked Fox News for a representative to come on the program to characterize how they view their coverage of these tea parties. We worked at it all day and after repeated requests, they declined to provide a guest or issue a statement or assist in our conversation in any way. So, I think it's fair to point that out.

And balanced!

On Monday we showed you a memo from XXL magazine to media buyers (which XXL's publisher denies came from his company) telling them that Giant magazine would fold soon. Hey check it out, Giant publisher Jeff Mazzacano left this in the comments: "GIANT is NOT shutting down and while all magazines are experiencing challenges due to the current economic climate, GIANT continues to grow. GIANT magazine is an integral part of Radio One's business and a valued contributor to their business as a whole. Under the editorial leadership of Emil Wilbekin, GIANT is well positioned for the ever-changing media landscape. We think it's unfortunate that someone would craft such a malicious post. Our May issue with Naomi Campbell is on newsstands April 14th, and our July/Power issue closes April 28th, reserve space now."


Public radio is a vicious dog-eat-dog world! NPR—which has had some serious budget cuts recently—is in a little feud with its member stations over how much money from local fundraising drives should stay with the local stations, and how much should be sent up to the mothership. But is money more important than a shared affinity for All Things Considered?


There's been quite a bit of ad creep in magazines lately—specifically, ads creeping onto the covers, which is a violation of ASME rules. So ASME is like "Hey guys, if you do that too many times, we might say you're not eligible for National Magazine Awards," and the magazines are like "Hmm, lemme see, award or going broke?" And then they keep putting ads on the covers.


Everybody is pissed about the black hole of money that is the Boston Globe. Bostonians are pissed because no one's stepped up to buy the paper, naturally. Globe employees are pissed at how the NYT Co. handled its communications about maybe shutting down the paper. And a former Globe writer is pissed at Pinch Sulzberger for being a pimp.


A college newspaper wrote a negative editorial about the school's baseball team, and then the editor "woke up Monday to a front porch littered with dead animals including rodents, a deer and a goat." This is the kind of passionate community engagement that will save newspapers.


To reiterate our earlier updated item on Nylon replacing print subscriptions with digital ones: that email "only went to a small number of readers who had picked up free subscriptions as a gift-with-purchase this past holiday at Urban Outfitters stores," okay?

Details editor Dan Peres had a little red meat for the crowd at his speech at Columbia J-school last night: "He called a neighbor in Westchester an 'asshole' after the man wondered aloud why anyone would pay j-school tuition... 'We'll be around a lot longer than his investment bank will,' said Mr. Peres." No comment. Whatsoever.


Sure, high school journalists like Josiah Jones of Lee's Summit, Missouri, know that the journalism industry is in rough shape, but "Jones plans to pursue a journalism career, completely undeterred by the forces buffeting the profession." Yea well millions of high school kids also plan on being NBA players and rock stars. The odds are against you, my friend.


Bad media news roundup: Media General is closing its DC bureau and laying off six journalists; NPR, of all places, is canceling all of its newspaper subscriptions; and a new report from Barclays Capital predicts that US advertising revenue will decline by 13% this year. Only three things, it's a good day!


NYT publisher Pinch Sulzberger: ""The immediate future looks, at a minimum, grim...Traditional revenue streams are anemic and getting worse." This is true. Though admirably direct, by NYT standards! He says the paper may start charging for some of its online content, which is inevitable.


See a family resemblance here? Eh? That's right, it's young AG Sulzberger, intrepid rookie NYT reporter and son of the man pictured above! The Observer reports he has the "attitude and presence of an intern." Buck up son! [Pic via]

What is happening in the land of dying newspapers today? Only the usual tragedy and grief. The Miami Herald is laying off a fifth of its staff, and giving the rest pay cuts; the Seattle P-I looks to be going online-only soon; More cuts in KC, Denver, Sacramento, Modesto....just keep refreshing Romenesko.


Ha, Myspace had the bright idea to capitalize on all the god damn bands on there by starting its own label. So they signed a band called Hollywood Undead, which I judge to be some sort of ICP knockoff. But then a bunch of News Corp execs came in and told the Undead they needed to clean up all their lyrics, and they were like fuck that, so they took their music somewhere else! I thought News Corp execs would be cooler.


About diversity-oriented programming, the CEO of NPR said: "Have we done a good enough job? No, we have not, but we are going to keep trying until we get it right." Here's how you get it right: Give Tavis Smiley a blank check.


Last month, our very own Ryan Tate called for the New York Times to sell its corporate jet. Now, the NYT Co. is doing just that! Hopefully we'll all share in the consulting fee.

The short version: Malakoff downloaded at least 150 images of child porn on the work computer issued to him by NPR. When he brought it into the tech people at work because he thought it had a "virus," they found it all and turned him in. Now Malakoff has signed a "Statement of Facts" admitting that he did it.

[The Smoking Gun]

Ha, the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association is suing Gannett for covering the news. Really. The WIAA says that they control all rights to "transmission, Internet stream, photo, image, film, videotape, audiotape, writing, drawing or other depiction or description" of high school games. Oh no, the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association has outlawed news!

Today in Media Outlets that Are too Erotic for the Average American: Quilting magazines and NPR.

Last night, Hugh Jackman presented an award to wrinkly News Corp vampire Rupert Murdoch. Was the award for "Sexiest Man that Hugh Jackman Would Secretly Like to Make Out With?" You'll have to read the story to find out!

Robert Guskind, a blogger who formerly wrote for Curbed and Gowanus Lounge, was found dead in somewhat murky circumstances.

We hear that downtown NYC mag Tokion might be having serious (life-threatening?) financial problems. If you know more and would care to confirm or deny, email us. We'll update with new info.
UPDATE: In response to this, a company PR rep simply forwarded us the January press release announcing Nylon and Inked owner Don Hellinger's acquisition of Tokion, and said Hellinger "plans to continue operations." We heard from a separate source, however, that Tokion has been slow paying invoices from its last issue.

According to this piece on National Public Radio by Laura Sydell, there are now 100 million HD televisions in the United States. And that means 100 million more chances to be distracted by the buzzing colors of an anchor's tweed jacket — or the poorly blended foundation at an actor's jawline.

Just as every advance in film has led to attendant changes in makeup artistry, lighting, and cinematography, the advent of $400,000 high-def cameras capable of registering the hairs on a sitcom star's forearm is an opportunity for budding Max Factors - the man himself, seen in the image at left - to swoop in from the wings, pots and potions in hand.

Some of the changes are simple — Erin Kruger, a makeup artist for Nip/Tuck, mentions in the segment that she always airbrushes on foundation when the show is shooting in HD, since sponge or finger strokes would read on camera — but other adaptations in technique are the result of trial and error.

HD filming requires a different understanding of color, and the common TV makeup with-a-trowel look also won't read naturally on an HD camera. When she first made the switch, said Kruger, "there were a lot of issues with making sure reds weren't flaring — a lot of time, red lipsticks will really flare on [HD] camera." The handful of makeup artists I know who work in television with any regularity all seem to speak with a measure of awe about the brave new world of HD; most of them prefer to mix their own concoctions, rather than rely on any of the HD-focused cosmetic lines currently available on the market, like Cargo or Smashbox. It must be an exciting time to be in the industry, with an ever-changing scope for what's possible in terms of color and technique.

Watching HD television for the first time gave me a big shock — the vivid colors and detail are so divorced from regular TV, let alone the fuzzy YouTube videos that comprise most of my audiovisual input, that HD images looked frankly tactile, almost granular and seething with hyperreality, to my under-exercised eyes. This made me remember reading about a study that seemed to show that the generations raised on monochrome television still, even today, report unusually high numbers of black-and-white dreams. Younger people, who've only ever known color television, rarely dream in black and white. If the television we consume in our youth potentially has such far-reaching influence on our subconscious selves throughout the rest of our lives, what might the 21st century explosion of visual media mean for the dream lives of people today, now and in future? If we watch enough high-definition TV, will we start having high-definition dreams? I'm not sure I want to be able to see the beads of sweat on the upper lip of the hideous, deformed man who is, for reasons unknown, chasing me through the dark creaky house which is sort of like my childhood home but not really, or to see the different shades of blue in the glistening water that's lapping at the sides of the ferryboat I've just missed because my luggage is too heavy and I'm in a city where I don't speak the language and my wallet is inexplicably full of sand (I've been having — coincidentally? — weird dreams lately). But then again, if watching enough HD means I might always dream of friends who look radiant and glowing, and who always wear the right shade of red lipstick, I suppose I'd have a team of industrious makeup artists to thank.

HD-Enhanced Blemishes Keep Makeup Artists Busy [NPR]

Related: Black-and-White TV Generation Have Monochrome Dreams [Telegraph]

The Department of Justice says that David Malakoff, who resigned last June as a science editor and correspondent for NPR (he's also written for Science magazine), possessed child porn last year, right around the time he left his job:

There aren't many more details than that at this point, but we don't look forward to this becoming a hot media trend in 2009. [The Smoking Gun; pic via]

Juan Williams is not white, not Republican, and works for NPR, making him one of Fox News' favorite legitimacy-lenders. Which is fine, but it's making NPR a little squirrelly. They constantly get complaints! (One NPR listener said: "NPR should severe their relationship with him"). Now NPR has ordered him not to identify himself as an NPR employee when he appears on Bill O'Reilly's show. Juan Williams will be the next Alan Colmes. You heard it here first.


Your latest entrants in the Great Magazine Die-off: "plus size" fashion magazine Figure, which was published by Meredith, and Craft, a uh, craft magazine, which had its print edition folded by O'Reilly Media. Seven layoffs went with the magazine deaths, which, sadly, is not all that bad.


Lookie here, former Gawker DC relative Wonkette has launched a new site called Wonkabout, dedicated to various social goings-on in DC. This is Wonkette editor Ken Layne's way to take advantage of DC's new "cool" status, and to grind his bootheel into the dying corpse of alt-weeklies. Why is Ken Layne a predatory capitalist?


A high school newspaper in Illinois did a special issue about "hooking up" (CHILD SEX), and all the issues mysteriously disappeared. They suspect students and parents scooped them all up, but don't rule out the secret involvement of Dov Charney.

Outsourcing is in! At newspapers. The Tribune Co. is trying to strike a deal with the Washington Post to use the Post's foreign coverage, which is really a testament to just how fucked up and decrepit Tribune has become. And the NY Daily News wants to use foreign coverage from the newly launched GlobalPost.com, which, hey, sounds like a good idea, because GlobalPost is gonna need a lot of clients to support all those foreign correspondents it hired. This is probably the new model for foreign coverage for papers who are just slightly too prestigious to run foreign sections composed totally of AP wire stories about BUS PLUNGES in Peruvian mountain towns. [WSJ]

Dreary media layoff news roundup of the day: PlanetOut, which is merging with Regent Media, is rumored to be laying off 50% of its remaining staff. The Boston Globe is cutting 50 newsroom jobs, through buyouts. A tipster tells us the FT has laid off at least four sales reps (the company recently announced 80 total layoffs coming). And American Express publishing is laying off 33, presumably including the Travel & Leisure victims we heard about yesterday. Read Media Crack every day, or you miss out on bad news.

Uncool Bush-appointed Republican FCC chairman Kevin Martin is running, full of Obamafear, straight to a new job with the Aspen Institute think tank, where he will ponder how to eliminate sexual thought in America, or some such foolishness.


Press release: "NPR will be the only radio broadcaster of “We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at The Lincoln Memorial." Weelllllllllll, isn't that just fancy, hmmmm? We just wanted to imagine Homer Simpson saying that in his mocking falsetto. [UPDATE: Just-received additional NPR press release: "SEVEN YEAR OLD SHARES HIS BELIEFS ON NPR’S THIS I BELIEVE SERIES." Fancy.]

Oh look, talking person Glenn Beck's new show on Fox premieres Monday, and his first guest will be none other than Wasillan elected official Sarah Palin. Who is clearly still not paying attention to our advice. [TVNewser]

Rumored to be gone:

Linda Wertheimer, senior national correspondent and former host of All Things Considered
Noah Adams, senior correspondent and former host of All Things Considered
Howard Berkes, rural affairs correspondent
Doug Mitchell, project manager of "Next Generation Radio"

Annnnd UPDATE, FishbowlDC says NPR is assuring staffers that Wertheimer and Adams have not been laid off. So we'll see. UPDATE 2: Howard Berkes was not laid off.
We also hear further rumors that plant specialist correspondent Ketzel Levine and entertainment correspondent Kim Masters have been cut loose, but who knows what to believe now?

Here's the internal memo sent out to NPR staff from interim CEO Dennis Haarsager:

To the staff of NPR:

Over the past few months, we have all witnessed the deterioration of the national economy. NPR is not immune to this severe downturn, and our revenue sources will be affected. A sharp drop in our current and projected corporate underwriting has compelled us to reduce expenses immediately. This memo describes our plan to ensure that NPR will weather this economic crisis.

NPR’s Financial Environment

In late spring, we began to see a decrease in NPR corporate sponsorship, which makes up nearly a third of our operating budget. While we made budget cuts at that time and continued to do so as the economy faltered, all our revenue sources are under pressure. Corporate sponsorship has decreased even more sharply since mid-September. All industries, including the financial, automotive, and media industries, historically our biggest underwriters, are cutting back significantly. Additionally, the philanthropic foundations and major donors who support NPR are cautiously watching the economy and their future giving is uncertain.

The manageable $2 million budget deficit we projected in July for Fiscal Year 2009 has now risen to a projected $23 million deficit.

It is clear that this serious financial situation can’t be responsibly resolved through short-term or temporary cuts. Rather, we must take measures that provide long-term savings, and that preserve our effectiveness and ability to generate vital income in the years ahead.

NPR’s Budget Reduction Plan

Today, we are announcing the cancellation of News & Notes and Day to Day, and significant budget reductions across the organization. These cuts include the elimination of 64 filled and 21 unfilled positions, many of which are associated with the two cancelled programs. Positions have also been eliminated across NPR, including reporting, editorial, and production staffs; station services; digital media; research; communications; and administrative support. Overall, this is a 7% reduction in NPR’s current workforce.

It is important for you to understand why we chose to cancel News & Notes and Day to Day, and the implications for programming strategy and commitments. Neither program was attracting sufficient levels of audience or national underwriting necessary to sustain continued production under these tough financial circumstances.

Given the publicity that surrounded the bequest from Joan B. Kroc in 2003, it is understandable to wonder why NPR doesn’t draw on it at this time. Legal restrictions severely limit expenditure of the NPR endowment, which includes most of the bequest made by Mrs. Kroc.

Fortunately, even though the endowment lost value and did not generate earnings for this year, the NPR Foundation was able to fund a separate $10 million distribution against what NPR had budgeted for FY 2009. The NPR Board also authorized us to access up to $15 million from the NPR operating reserves, allowing us to cope with the immediate situation and limit the depth of the cuts to staff and programs.

In November, we sent a memo to all staff relaying our need to address growing budget concerns. In return, we received thoughtful budget suggestions from staff members across the organization. We reviewed them all, and investigated options such as furloughs and fringe benefit reductions. In the end, we concluded that it was necessary to eliminate some activities completely to achieve the long-term savings we require while protecting our core mission.

Laying off valued colleagues was a difficult decision and the last thing we wanted to do. You may have been directly affected by today’s announcement or work closely with someone who was. These cuts are based on the nature of positions, not a judgment of the contributions of those who are losing their jobs. We are losing talented and hardworking staff. The cuts are a reflection of the difficult economic times we are being forced to confront, and we know you will give those who are losing their jobs your personal support.

The show-related positions will end March 20, 2009, the date of both programs’ final broadcast. This date allows stations the necessary time to adjust their program schedules. Most of the remaining affected positions will end on January 12, 2009. All affected employees will receive payout of accrued and unused vacation time. Regular employees will receive NPR’s standard severance which is one day of severance for every month they have been continuously employed by NPR, to a maximum of 125 days, or about 6 months of pay. Regular staff will also be eligible for up to 6 months of continued health, dental, and vision insurance coverage and outplacement assistance.

In addition to these programming and staff changes, we are greatly restricting the budget for discretionary expenses such as travel, NPR-sponsored events, conferences, training, and consultants in FY09.

We have eliminated all FY09 merit increases for the senior team, which includes all vice presidents and executive staff. All other staff will receive their January merit increases as planned. (Severance packages for affected employees will include their January 1 salary increases.)

I have personally focused on the alignment of NPR’s senior team, our current executive position vacancies, and the roles of our senior vice presidents, in an effort to better align work and make changes that will contribute to the net savings for NPR. This resulted in the decision to reclassify several positions: Ellen Weiss, VP for News; Kathleen Jackson, VP for HR; and Joyce Slocum, VP for Legal Affairs and General Counsel are promoted to the SVP level. Debra May Hughes, Executive Director of Public Interactive, is promoted to VP. These changes were made to better reflect the scope of their responsibilities and contributions. Three of these were title changes and did not involve a change in pay.

Additionally, the Board of Directors has asked me to stay on as an Executive VP during the first six months of new CEO Vivian Schiller’s transition. I have also made a decision to eliminate the Senior Vice President of Strategy and Partnerships position, and Dana Davis Rehm has accepted a new role as SVP of Marketing, Communications, and External Relations. This expanded position replaces the currently vacant VP of Marketing and Communications.

The Future

We believe, but cannot guarantee, that our budget plan and the one-time infusion of funds from the reserves will allow us to weather economic declines over the rest of FY09 and into FY10. We also see promise in digital underwriting, which makes up 12% of our total corporate sponsorship revenues and has actually seen an increase of 9% to date as on-air sponsorships have fallen. While this trajectory must be read with caution, it is nonetheless a good sign.

NPR is losing revenue, not audience or relevance. To the contrary, our audience has continued to grow in the face of declining journalism investments elsewhere in the nation. We are encountering immediate budget challenges, yet we have just completed a year of near-record audience levels on-air, online, and on mobile platforms. NPR will always be deeply committed to providing audiences and stations with the best reporting and story-telling in America. With public radio’s expansion into digital media and continued on-air excellence, we are poised for even greater relevance in the future.

Now more than ever, the nation is looking to NPR to better understand the extraordinary events occurring in the world. Stations are depending on NPR for our trademark storytelling and superb journalism. We ask each of you to dig deep and hold fast to the mission that has made this organization great, and your fierce dedication to the 882 stations, more than 26 million listeners, and 8 million online users who want NPR to be part of their lives for generations to come.

Please join Mitch Praver and me to discuss this announcement, today from 4:00-4:30 p.m. in Boardrooms East/West. You can also watch the Intranet for remote listening and video options. Additional information on today’s announcement can be found in a FAQ posted to the Intranet homepage.

Sincerely,

Dennis Haarsager

Interim President and CEO