Western States Public Radio (WSPR) President’s report on the NPR Board Meeting in Washington (February 2005)

To WSPR Stations,

Below you will find a report on last week’s NPR Board meeting.  A few additional observations:

First, the regional organizations are being with viewed as increasingly important by the national organizations.  The regional conferences, with WSPR as a very strong component, are also now being seen as growing in value as venues for holding useful medium-sized conversations about issues.  Both CPB and NPR seem to be turning to the regionals more frequently for counsel than may formerly have been the case.

Second, while there has generally been cohesion among the regionals for “coordinating positions” on various matters, that sense of unity is growing.  Each regional has energetic and thoughtful leadership and our meetings have become increasingly productive during the time I have been representing WSPR.

Lastly, big KUDOS’ to WSPR Vice-President/NPR Board Member John Stark for launching a very thoughtful and probing conversation about a-Reps and the NPR Annual Meeting of the members.   I believe the NPR Board found that conversation stimulating and useful – and John is the guy who introduced the topic for discussion.  Good work John!

Ron Kramer

WSPR President

Report on the NPR Board Meeting, Washington DC

February 10/11, 2005

Board Committee Activity:

Distribution/Interconnection:  The Committee received a report on the ContentDepot implementation which is still due to become operative this summer.  NPR was pleasantly surprised to have the vendor equipment being supplied to stations come in slightly under budget.  A very impressive demonstration of the system’s operation was also given.

Governance:  The Committee:

• Received a report on the implementation of NPR’s internal “whistleblower” program
• Reviewed several provisions of California nonprofit law, and considered/adopted several amendments assuring NPR’s compliance with them, regarding auditing requirements and monitoring of administrative compensation levels for conformity to nonprofit industry standards.
• Had a very useful conversation about the NPR Annual Meeting/A-reps discussion.  WSPR VP and NPR Board Member John Stark asked for conversation on the topic which resulted in the Committee’s soliciting comment from Patty Wente, PRIMA, and yours truly.  Both encouraged the Governance Committee to comprehensively re-think the structure under which the annual meeting; a-Reps meetings were currently being organized.  Kudos to John for raising this discussion with the Committee which then voted to recommend to the full board that a re-examination of these events be made to determine more effective methods of achieving participation by member stations.

The Board, meeting as a Committee of the Whole and received a report from Bruce Drake, NPR VP News, on the Journalistic Integrity/Ethics standards adopted last year and the context in which they are now working.  In an excellent Powerpoint presentation (which I asked to have posted to the NPR stations site and which I would encourage you to view), Drake provided important information about the overall decline of public trust in the media and, by implication, the expanded opportunity/obligation which falls upon public radio. 

Full NPR Board Meeting:

During Public Comment I reported upon WSPR’s Fall Conference including the conversation which occurred there about occasional instances of NPR reporters appearing on commercial media and the possibility that the “billing” of their appearances seemed to cast them, NPR and its member stations, as “liberally” slanted.  Since this issue had been previously covered, in a general way in the Drake presentation on the previous day, I acknowledged NPR’s sensitivity to the matter but also reported that many WSPR stations had specifically asked that I raise this with the Board and commend it to the Board’s attention.  Having privately told company management in advance that I was going to raise this during Public Comment, it is my sense that Board discussion on this point had already occurred during one of the Board’s Executive Sessions last week.  Several members of the Board went out of their way to lightly convey that sense to me and to offer private assurance that the Board and company management now have this issue “on their radar screen” for attention.

Following Public Comment, the Board received reports from its various committees including the Governance Committee’s report on its discussion about the NPR Annual Meeting/a-Reps.  The conversation which followed on that topic occupied the greatest portion of the Board’s meeting.  Different board members observed that Annual Meetings might be convened electronically and others staunchly defended the idea that annual meetings were necessary for NPR’s health.  Several Board members asked for comment from the regionals (which is, in and of itself, some unusual outside of Public Comment).  Representatives of virtually all the regionals spoke expressing the view that it was important for NPR annual meetings to be successfully held.  Many joined me in also observing that the a-Reps meetings were hard to conduct successfully sandwiched between the Public Radio Leadership Forum and NPR’s Capitol Hill Day.  (That placement allows about 3.5 hours, maximum, for a-Reps and the NPR Annual Meeting.)  PRIMA’s Patty Wente stated (following a meeting of the regional presidents the day before in which this was vigorously discussed) that the ability to hold the Annual Meetings in different parts of the country, as formerly had been the case, was important to assure broad participation over time.  (That principle would likely mean disconnecting a-Reps/Annual Meeting from Capitol Hill Day).

Following what essentially had become a conversation with the regional presidents, several Board members expressed the view that they hoped to find a structure which would re-create a meeting structure that would more successfully maximize attendance, participation and critical thinking/planning.  Kevin Klose summed up by acknowledging that the observations being shared were extremely helpful and that NPR clearly needed to devote new energy to figuring out a more effective structure for these activities.  Privately, I was told that several public members of the Board were hopeful that something would develop which they might also usefully attend.  It was also suggested privately to me that members of the NPR Foundation would also value the opportunity which such a gathering might afford them to have closer contact with stations.

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