John Donvan

Hi, everybody. Thanks so much for joining us for a very special edition of Intelligence Squared US. I’m John Donvan. And today, I’m gonna reveal a debate we produced at the 35th Annual Public Radio Program Directors Association Conference that was held in New Orleans. And this is the kind of place where hundreds of public media professionals from across the nation get together every year, and they discuss ideas and topics that are most important, the things that are going on in their fields, and to ask some really hard questions of themselves and of their profession. So in that spirit, we went there and decided to ask a hard question of our own. In fact, uh, calling it hard may downplay it just a little bit because, for this particular crowd, you might call this question existential. And it was, is public radio still relevant?

Now, keep in mind, we recorded this debate in a hotel conference room, and we didn’t have the usual bells and whistles for our normal setup. So, it’s gonna sound a little bit different than what you’re used to. That said, I think you’re gonna like it. It’s a good one. So let’s get to it.

Terrific, it really is an honor for us to be here. And I wanna, um, thank the RPD for, for giving us this slot, um, in part to, uh, show us what it is we do, but also in part to assist in the process that I think is going on at this conference: Is public radio still relevant? We really are going full on existential here.

Typically, over the years, since we were founded in 2006, we would have a- a- assemble a group of people and we would ask an audience to tell us whether they agreed or disagreed with the, with what we were then using as a motion. We’ve opened that up to turning it into a question which we think allows for more possibilities and more nuance. So, we ask people, “Are you yes or no on the question?”

And on your table you have a coin that has a yes on one side and a no on the other and you’re not going to be held to this or, uh, or account for, but just to play along with us. Take a look at the question and decide for yourself before you hear what the debaters have to say, whether you’re a yes or no, and just put it down in front of you with your response pointing to the sky whether you’re a yes or no.

I suppose if you tried really hard you could stand it up on edge, and, and find that middle ground, but I think that might be tricky. In any case, we’re not gonna be, uh, doing any serious accounting of that.

Um, we’re delighted also, uh, at the guests who we’ve been able to bring into, uh, New Orleans for the conversation. And I would like to ask your help in welcoming them to the stage, Kmele Foster and Eric Nuzum.

Please have a seat. Thank you.

What I’d like to do actually, before we start, is just ask each of you to, um, take 30 seconds and tell us your connection to this whole issue, sort of your, your bona fides for being in a conversation about the future of public radio.

So, Eric, why don’t you go first?

Eric Nuzum

Um, I started in public radio as a captive backseat listener in the back of my parents’ Ford Granada. Um, when I was in college, I started working as a board up at the same station I listened to as a child. When I was 31, I was that station’s program director. And a couple years later I went to NPR where I worked for 11 years.

John Donvan

Excellent. And Kmele?

Kmele Foster

Like Eric, um, although not in a station wagon with his parents, but with my own family, I could say that I’ve been a long time, lifelong in many respects, public radio listener, consumer. I have never worked in public radio but I’ve worked in media for a number of years in a bunch of different capacities, um, both as kind of an on-air commentator and, now, a media executive, uh, for my own firm where we do documentary content and tell complicated, important stories to our audiences.

John Donvan

Excellent. Well, thank you both for, for joining us here.

John Donvan

Thank you. Um, so what I wanna do is establish who’s on which side, just very, very briefly. So, I’ll go to you first, Eric, just very basically on the question, is public radio still relevant? Are you a yes or a you a no?

Eric Nuzum

I think the public radio is essential, and valuable, and personally important to tens of millions of people. And that number can grow. So, yes, I am thinking the public radio is relevant.

John Donvan

So, you are the yes in this conversation.

[NEW_PARAGRAPH]Kmele, we now know that that makes you the no, but for the sake of the formality, on the question, is public radio still relevant, are you a yes or a no?

Kmele Foster

I am still definitively a no, but I do want to say because I recognize where I am (laughing) that, that I come in peace, and all is not lost.

John Donvan

All right. So, let’s dive into the conversation and the arguments. Um, so Eric, as the yes, that gives you the position to go first, just to lay out your case that you just hinted at for why you are yes to the answer to this question.

Eric Nuzum

Uh, 36 million people listened to public radio last week. That’s pretty essential. That’s pretty relevant. It’s hard to dismiss something that means, means something to 36 million people. When you add in digital platforms, that number grows to… in excess of 50 million. Nobody’s quite sure that the unduplicated number is. Right? That’s relevant. I think someone said to me the other day just say that and walk off the stage. (laughing) But I think it’s much more nuanced than that, and I think that’s where the conversation gets really interesting to me.

Uh, just real briefly, if you look at that statement, is public radio still relevant, is will toss out… we’re not gonna have a Clintonian debate.

John Donvan

Do we know what the meaning of is-

Eric Nuzum

Right, right. But public radio it’s a structural organizational term but it actually is describing many many different types of stations in many many different types of competitive situations and communities, some places where it is the only media source in that community. Period. Right?

Uh, so what is public radio? How… and, and that… is discussions of its relevance really are almost station by station by station? Um, and though is public radio still, still is a really interesting word in this because it implies that there was once relevance and that that is now in question or has declined. And I think that there’s a lot of conversation about the decline of public radio. It’s even in the description of this session, and I think that is both, um, misunderstood and over, and, and overstated. It’s, it’s, uh, it is exaggerated.

And, uh, relevance to me is the word… I think I spent hours looking up every possible definition I could for that word. I… even you probably felt the same pain I did, right? I never want to be involved in anything that the goal is relevance. Relevance is a byproduct. It is an outcome. It is like fame. There are people who pursue fame for the sake of fame, and end up walking away being incredibly unsatisfied with that. The point is not to be relevant. In fact, in a, in E.B. White’s letter to the Carnegie Commission, he included the phrase, the public broadcasting… he’s probably talking about public television, public broadcasting should set itself to the idea of excellence not to the idea of acceptability. And so, there are times when you don’t want to be relevant, when you’re following a mission. And I think the, the conversation is where does that mission, where’s that mission today, where it has it been historically, and where does it need to go in the future. And that’s where I think this conversation gets interesting to me, but I think it’s almost by any definition, in my mind, relevance is been satisfied.

John Donvan

And, and, and the primary piece of evidence for that is the size of the audience, the continuing size of the audience? Is that your primary argument?

Eric Nuzum

I think the size of the audience is an indication of the success at achieving the mission. It’s not always successful. There’s failures every day. There’s… And, and there are failures of opportunity, which I think are the things that frustrate me now as a listener of public radio is the failure of opportunity to reach and to broaden that mission. Um, but-

John Donvan

You’re slipping over to the other side, Eric.

Eric Nuzum

No, I’m not.

John Donvan

Okay.

Eric Nuzum

No, I’m not-

John Donvan

No? Okay.

Eric Nuzum

… because, I, I, I… the thing is I, I’m not critical of public radio as an entity. I see opportunity, opportunity based on a track record of incredible success, often a paltry and modest investment by the American people to create this institution. They’ve got a lot of return for their dollar.

John Donvan

All right. Thank you.

[NEW_PARAGRAPH]You can do a little applause if you like what you heard.

Eric Nuzum

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

John Donvan

You don’t have to. You don’t have to but-

Eric Nuzum

I got to do it for him [inaudible

]-

John Donvan

Yeah, exactly. [inaudible

] He will have to do it for him but he’s gonna conserve it.

[NEW_PARAGRAPH]Kmele, it’s your turn.

Kmele Foster

Yeah. Well, I, I actually agree with a great deal of what Eric shared there, especially the fact that, you know, when 30-odd million people are listening and think you’re important, like that, that, in a way, is a kind of relevant. But when we ask a question, is it still relevant? The question that I think of next is relevant relative to what. And I think as Eric also mentioned, the mission, although Eric didn’t define that mission, he says relevance matters in different contexts, which is kind of fair but let’s talk here. I mean you’re all at the same conference together which suggests to me that there is some broad context, in which public media, and in this particular context public radio is supposed to be relevant. And I’d say that having perused the federal legislation and the various mission statements from some of the most prominent members of your, uh, August assemblage, um, that what I see as the common themes are you wanna educate, you want to inform, uh, and you wanna serve the public interest. Say that’s probably a fair distillation of the mission.

The question though for me becomes what do you need to have in order to potentially have any chance of achieving that mission? Um, and I’d say that you have to have credibility. And it’s on those grounds that I would suggest that, no, we’re not fulfilling that mission in the sense that you have in the past. What we know and what we used to talk about with some regularity is the fact that media broadly is losing credibility with the public writ large and that, every single year, we are seeing media reach new lows in terms of its trustworthiness and credibility, and public radio has not been immune from that. And to the credit of the people in this room there have been some conversations about this. But I think a lot of those conversations, unfortunately, have not led to meaningful results. Uh, I think, unfortunately, there have been some both kind of cultural in the broader societal context, but also within your institutions context, some cultural headwinds that you’ve been unable to navigate in a way that actually allows you to accomplish the goal of being genuinely relevant in the sense that a broad swath of the population can listen to public radio, can think public radio, and think, “I see myself there.”

There is a, a, a massive contingent of Americans who define themselves as public radio listeners in precisely the same way that someone might de- declare themselves a Star Wars fan. They support public radio with their money, with their time, they put the bumper sticker on their car and their windows. But the real question is what about the rest of the people who aren’t listening to public radio? What about the, the large number of Americans, and not merely Republicans and not merely independents? Even among Democrats, the numbers are distressingly. Low what is it that, that we’re getting wrong? Um, and I, I use the, the corporate we here. Um, and is there anything we can do about it? I think there is, um, but we actually have to face the problem in order to address it.

John Donvan

So, K- Kmele, you, your argument centered on, uh, public radio is losing its credibility, and the question is whether it’s losing its relevance. So, what’s the bridge between credibility and relevance?

Kmele Foster

I think in order to have relevance relative to the mission of informing, educating, and um, uh, addressing the, the needs of the public like one actually has to have credibility. I think that’s the critical connection there.

John Donvan

Okay. So, you get your round of applause now.

Kmele Foster

Maybe, if I deserve it.

John Donvan

Okay. But we’ll, we will stop it after that.

Kmele Foster

Okay. We’re stopping it now, right.

John Donvan

Uh, I’m interested… You both have made a little bit of a reference to the word “still.” And w- w- was there sometime w- when there was a relevance that’s not there now? Um, you’re arguing that, that it’s still relevant but I’m wondering if you see any modulation in its relevance or how… what you feel about that word “still?” Was there a golden era when this question would not even have been asked do you think?

Eric Nuzum

Um, no. Uh, I have long argued since I was 20-year old, snot-nosed kid who was y- yelling at the general manager about what I thought public radio should be, that the public radio has never been relevant enough. It’s relevant to a lot of people but it’s never been relevant enough. If 11% of the US population, 15 if you include digital, interact with, with, with, with public radio content, what about the other 85%.

John Donvan

You’re slipping over to that side.

Eric Nuzum

No, I’m not. No, I’m not.

John Donvan

No?

Eric Nuzum

There are no other institutions other than public radio who are up to addressing that challenge. When you look at the idea of in the war against misinformation… and it’s a war, right? If you look at the importance of facts and storytelling based around facts, when you look at the belief, and it’s an idealistic belief that if you give someone facts, the, the true patriots in this country are the people who can see facts and draw truth from that fact, instead of challenging those facts, and then they will feel empowered to make change in the world. That’s really the mission. Let’s give people power.

John Donvan

Right.

Eric Nuzum

And let’s let them make the decisions what is best for their country. And I think that the… I believe that public radio has shown that, and that there’s no other player that does that, and makes it free, accessible to everyone in the country. Nobody. And I think that’s the place where I come to of public radio is built for this mission. It has a lot of challenges, and a lot of work to do to start working on another 85%.

John Donvan

But you’re basically saying there’s nobody there… out there to do it better.

Eric Nuzum

There’s no… I- i- if somebody started from scratch, it would take them years to catch up with where public radio’s infrastructure is now and ability to answer some of these questions. And I work in the podcast industry, and I spend a sizable portion of every day watching podcasters struggle with problems that public radio figured out years ago.

John Donvan

Kmele, a- again to the question of still, what you are arguing, it’s less relevant that, at some point in time-

Kmele Foster

Yes.

John Donvan

… what was that point in time and what was relevant at that point in time?

Kmele Foster

Well, I say that, in terms of our, our sort of public polling about the question of the sort of credibility of our institutions, be it the Congress or the Supreme Court, military, policing generally, um, that the downward trend in terms of the credibility of media, the sort of… more, more so talking about sort of national media, um, has been pretty continuous and precipitous. Um, so, it’s hard to say when the zenith was but I would certainly suspect that, in the transition from sort of newspaper to radio or radio-centric kind of broadcast, um, oriented, um, news, uh, uh, e- and information ecosystem, um, the reality is that I think there are a lot of institutions that are kind of competing for that mantle are able to give people different kinds of information to, to serve the needs for, uh, information in the context of audiences who are looking to figure out what’s going on in the world and how should they… what kind of decisions should they make for their families.

John Donvan

Do you have some examples of that?

Kmele Foster

I think… Well, the best example of this might be the, the pandemic that we are all just coming out of. I mean, when we do in fact look at the numbers and, again, I, I completely concur that 30 million, you know, odd people listening to public radio is important, but we did see the numbers go up dramatically between 2015 and 2016 in terms of listenership. You got that Trump bump where everyone was looking for news media, but we also saw those numbers start to decline. And it wasn’t yesterday, you know after the pandemic “ended,” it was 2017, 2018. Like what was happening there? Decline was dramatic, and it continued. Worse yet, during the pandemic listenership declined further.

John Donvan

Are you talking about, are you talking about public radio or all media?

Kmele Foster

For public, public radio broadly. For public radio-

John Donvan

Not all media.

Kmele Foster

Right, not all media.

John Donvan

Okay, mm-hmm.

Kmele Foster

Um, this is based on a, a Pew poll. Um, and the question one has to ask themselves is how, during a time, when people are distressingly concerned about the future. They’re worried about this pernicious pandemic. They’re worried about a, a presidential election cycle that’s coming up. They’re worried about, um, a, a, an economic turmoil, and they’re worried about civil unrest that is unfolding across the country, paroxysms of violence. Even if we’re informed that it’s mostly peaceful, that was happening, and people weren’t tuning in. That is a red flashing light that suggests that something is desperately wrong.

Eric Nuzum

So, when you talk about public radio, this is what I meant about public radio, the story you just described is what happens when you look at all the numbers together. And there is not a universal story-

Kmele Foster

True.

Eric Nuzum

… even among news and information stations of what happened during the pandemic. I was one of the few people at the beginning of the pandemic was saying, “Relax. This will, this will come back,” and here I am now… You know, I always say that being a program director was, you know, you make a decision, everybody says you’re wrong, 10 months later when you’re proven right, nobody remembers what you said before. So, right? And so, so there… a, a lot of that has come back. The story… there are stations that grew during that time, right, that if you look at, uh, uh, if you look at the classical music industry for example, which really had seen a lot of suffering and decline, big, big gains during the pandemic. Right?

Um, I will concur and I agree, it was alarming to me to see that the pandemic was the… and then the, the summer of, of social injustice issues that we’re surfacing following the beginning of the pandemic, that period of time was the only time I’m aware of in the history of public radio where there was a national event where listening did not spike up. But if you look recently after the Uvalde, Texas shootings, the Ukraine war… I’m sure there’s something else too… those two I know many stations like… as in like I think 30 of the top 50 became the number one news station in their market, and some the number one station in their market, so people were turning to it during those times.

I think what is happening when you talk about decline, decline is, you know. I think we’re in a media era now where decline is normal. You have now Netflix worrying about decline, right? You know, radio has been in decline since 1983 when you look at the use of radio in this country, since 1983. Uh, people always wanna write off radio including, frankly, a lot of you people in this room, (laughing) writing off broadcast.

Broadcast is the golden goose that everyone takes for granted, and that’s the truth. I’m not saying that digital is not important. Digital is the future, but you’re writing off broadcast way too much right now. But besides that, uh, in 1952, Diana Washington released a song called TV is the Thing This Year. “Radio was great, but now it’s out of date. TV is the thing this year.” Right?

I’ve been the… I’m the first person ever sing at a debate. (laughing) Thank you very much. I will take your applause for that.

But I think it’s a natural life cycle progression. We’re even seeing signs of TikTok starting to show, uh, signs of decline. So, radio listening is a sign of decline. It’s not an indication that public radio is in decline. And public radio is a lot of different things, a lot of different platforms. I’m gonna stop on this but I will say one more thing.

John Donvan

Okay.

Eric Nuzum

A lot of digital platforms have seen tremendous growth during the pandemic, podcasts-

John Donvan

Mm-hmm.

Eric Nuzum

… online views for, for station websites. All these things have gone up during the pandemic. So, if radio l- l- listening goes like this like it’s done for years, that’s, that’s not necessarily a sign.

John Donvan

Before you answer, I wanna, I wanna let folks know that at a certain point, we’re gonna come to you for questions, and there will be some mic stands, uh, to, to walk up to. So, you can be thinking in terms of what questions you would like to put to our panelists. You do not have to sing but, uh-

Kmele Foster

I do sing. (laughing)

John Donvan

Yeah? Well, let’s go for-

Kmele Foster

Go on the record there. I have to stand up. It would be a whole thing. I do a very mean Moon River.

John Donvan

Well, we’ve got a few minutes. (laughing)

Kmele Foster

Yeah.

John Donvan

Um, I, I, I, I’d, I’d like you to address some of what, in the instance of public radio you feel is causing the loss of credibility that you say causes the loss of relevance.

Kmele Foster

I think that’s a perfect question. Yeah. It’s interesting-

John Donvan

Uh, thank you. I- (laughing)

Kmele Foster

Butter up the moderator, check.

Um, I think, uh, one of the things that I did in preparation for this conversation was take a look at some of the kind of principal sponsors of this organization, a lot of the umbrella organizations that member… a number of your networks are… or your stations are members of, um, but also the top stations as well, and I took a look at what you’re evaluating with respect to your performance. Um, and audience numbers are certainly something I saw a lot. Um, but what I saw more often than not on everyone’s page, uh, and in some cases very detailed reports with pretty graphs, um, detailing your progress were a lot of statements about diversity, equity and inclusion. Um, and I think there’s a very real sense in which, quite ironically, um, public radio has, like many, um, national institutions, become monomaniacally obsessed in a detrimental way with diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Um, and it’s the, the narrowest kind of most, uh… I, I want, I wanna be respectful ’cause again, I’m, I’m a friend, I’m here to help. Uh, in the most kind of cosmetic performative sort of way with gender, with race, with ethnicity, we talk about these things incessantly as if we don’t appreciate that viewpoints are something else entirely. And I don’t see anyone, quite frankly, in all of my looking at the various reports who’s doing anything more than providing lip service about viewpoint diversity. Um, there’s this, this adage, um, you measure what you value. I see folks tallying up the number of minorities that they’ve hired that work on their staff, adorable. I see folks talking about the number of black people who work for them; again, adorable. What is the composition of viewpoints in your institution? Do you know Your listeners do.

My suspicion is that there are plenty of people in America who find a lot of the current obsession with identity the particular interests in pronouns et cetera, et cetera is something that’s just a little strange to them. And in some cases, they’re even a bit hostile to it, and the approach in many circles has been to regard people who have those feelings as racist, as bigoted, and to, in many instances, push them out of our institutions, stop addressing them all together beyond issuing condemnations. It is not an effective way to build an audience. It’s certainly not an effective way to have a conversation. It is a great way to build insulated mono- monochrome, um, fundamentalist organizations that are not able to meet the demands to provide nuance, complexity to complicate important narratives around vital issues that are, that become kind of stale, um, or to meet the mission, as I described it earlier, with respect to serving the public interest.

The number one problem facing America right now… we could talk about a bunch of things but I think we would agree on this, I think so… um, is polarization. And the question is if public radio doesn’t actually reflect America and if public radio isn’t in a position to help people actually understand these issues in a complicated way and have serious conversations, are you contributing to that polarization or not, which interestingly… I mean there’s a kind of relevance there but that’s not the relevance that you’re going for. Um, and I think at the moment, you’re actually running afoul of that.

[NEW_PARAGRAPH]I, um, I took a look at the agenda for the conference. We’re at a content conference. I saw multiple instances of conversations about diversity and inclusion, I didn’t see any panels that are explicitly about trustworthiness. That is your raison d’être. If no one trusts you, what is the point?

Eric Nuzum

Yeah, yeah. This is a, um… I see this with different perspective than you , but you and I really, I think, have a lot of agreement on this.

Kmele Foster

It’s good ’cause I’m right.

Eric Nuzum

So, uh- (laughing)

John Donvan

It’s debate people.

:

Eric Nuzum

Yeah. (laughing) So, I see this from an audience service perspective. Credibility comes from many things, right? Um, but the authentic desire to, uh, serve an audience, I think, is something that public radio has to think a lot about. Uh, uh, this won’t make sense to you, but it will make sense to you. I don’t believe any station that talks about serving new elements of its community and lives in a community where there’s another station airing the same programming. It happens across this country a number of markets, two people airing Morning Edition, two people airing All Things Considered, 16 airings of [inaudible

] over the weekend, I don’t believe that commitment.

I… You know, so here’s an interesting fun fact. In the, uh, UK, BBC, what percentage of the population do you think listens to BBC Radio? Percent of the British population? You wanna shout out I guess? 65.7%. They have five signals.

I live outside of New York City, I can see it from my office. Right, I have an office in New York. But I can see it from my home office, I could see New York City skyline. I mean the New York City metro area. There are seven public radio stations in New York metro area, five different formats. What do you think the combined share, combined share of the New York market is for those seven stations? 6%. I can’t believe that if you have seven stations in the nation’s largest city that you can’t find a way to use those seven stations to serve more than 6% of the population of that city. That to me is a failing of imagination and failing of opportunity. So-

John Donvan

How is, but how, how is that a response to Kmele’s point?

Eric Nuzum

He was talking about credibility. You can’t-

John Donvan

No, no, but he was talking more deeply more deeply about his sense that, um, stations, you know, making endeavors in the DEI realm are perhaps becoming relevant in one way, but making themselves broadly irrelevant in another way. To, to… your… Am I correctly assessing what you’re saying?

Kmele Foster

I think it’s a pretty good, it’s pretty good summation.

Eric Nuzum

Yeah. Uh, I, I, I, I think that there’s two elements of inclusion. Uh, one is who’s in front of the microphone, which I think Kmele was really talking about. And I’m talking about the speaker, who, who is the speaker facing? What community is that facing? And I… So, I look at a lot of those issues as being both the core public radio service needs to be more inclusive of more ideas. That actually makes the case, and it’s relevant, and it’s important that those perspectives are on there. Um, but it needs to be speaking to more people. It needs to take that experience of the 15%, and make that more into experience the 60% have. Expand that relevance. I think, I think I already said this, the real question in my mind is is public radio relevant enough?

John Donvan

But during this time when we’re saying still relevant that there was an era when it was more relevant-

Eric Nuzum

Mm-hmm.

John Donvan

… there were… in an era before, there were endeavors in the DEI direction. And before, there were more people of color behind the scenes and in front of the microphone.

Eric Nuzum

Mm-hmm.

John Donvan

You’re saying that there was a higher level relevance.

Eric Nuzum

Generally regarded as relevant amongst even some of these groups that were excluded. There were certainly less women but, broadly speaking, but these institutions had more credibility which suggests that it isn’t always what you happen to be. It is often, and I would say always, what you do that matters.

John Donvan

So, what were, what was, what was public radio doing during the… this time of greater relevance?

Eric Nuzum

Well, let’s say in general, and, and we can take it beyond public radio, we can talk about the news in general, I would say that there was probably… it could be a couple of things. And now, I’m speculating in a little bit. There is probably a, a set of kind of expectations amongst the public with respect to the… whether or not the news media is giving them, uh, the, the best information. Um, but there was also a broadly shared expectation amongst journalists and amongst the public, that there would be broad coverage of complicated issues that represented different perspectives all of the sides.

Um, in one of the, the polls that I found kind of the most surprising, um, was a pupil from, I believe, the beginning of this year… may have been Gallup as well, um, but that suggested that about 50% of journalists working in media believe that not all stories deserve kind of equal treatment, that there, that there is not a need to provide the other perspective on a variety of stories. Something like 70 or 80% of the general public actually believes that that is essential, that that is critical to do which suggests that we’re talking about more than just conservatives there. We’re talking about more than just independents. There are a number of people who, when they do not hear another perspective articulated in an earnest way, the steelmanning of perspectives we dislike, um, that they just don’t trust you. They know that you’re not being honest, that there is something that’s wrong.

[NEW_PARAGRAPH]And, and I think it’s important to acknowledge what happens when you have an institution that becomes kind of rigid. In one note, when there isn’t a sufficient diversity of perspectives, you can often become sloppy, you can become incurious, and worse than that… and this is the worst thing yet but we can all think of examples of it in the media in the last couple of years, you start to stack the coverage in a way that serves your interests. You exclude certain stories from consideration. You’re not even addressing them because this isn’t the right thing to worry about. People shouldn’t worry about that even if they’re talking about it. You don’t cover it.

John Donvan

What’s that? What’s that? Can you think of an example?

Eric Nuzum

I, I, I can think of a very prominent example that’s in these headlines right now. Mark Zuckerberg was just on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Joe Rogan, who’s frequently denigrated as a racist but speaks to millions and millions and millions and millions of Americans who don’t regard him that way, um, and often denigrated in the media as a racist. Um, but he was talking to Mark Zuckerberg, and Mark Zuckerberg talked about the FBI, and the Hunter Biden story, which there was, in fact, an effort to suppress that story amongst technology companies but, in a lot of mainstream media organizations and newsrooms, there was a complete disinterest in the story. Do I think that was a vital story of national importance? Kind of, yeah. I don’t really care what’s on Hunter Biden’s laptop. I’m, I’m generally disinclined towards most politicians. I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them. So, to the extent, it showed any kind of corruption with respect to Joe Biden, and we’ve seen more of it now. It’s not all that interesting. That said, you don’t get to decide. This isn’t something that we’re gonna talk about. We can’t touch it.

John Donvan

Mm-hmm.

Eric Nuzum

You don’t get to decide unilaterally. This is definitely Russian misinformation, I think that’s a mistake.

John Donvan

E- Eric, you said e- early in the conversation that, with all of its flaws, uh, no, no institution is better prepared to deliver the kind of ser- service that you feel we’re all talking about here than the public radio as an institution. But the kind of critique that Kmele is making says what to, to, to your positioning of public radio as being in a fantastic position to do all of this if he’s saying that it’s not, that it’s kind of going down a path of, of pulling its horns to a certain degree, and making choices to a certain degree that are harming its credibility and not living up to the mission.

Eric Nuzum

I think that a lot of those criticisms are warranted really, um, but I also see a- effort inside of public radio, both at the station level and nationally, to try to open up some of those and learn, and try to adapt in a way that is, uh, anything that is done that is new is gonna involve missteps. And I think what you’re describing as far as the DEI efforts you see in stations and networks, I hear that, um, you have to start somewhere and try to make some change. And I think that’s what these stations are trying to do. I’m not, I don’t speak for them.

But when I, when I look at that, that’s what I see of like understanding the urgency of being more relevant to more people to including more perspectives inside of content and trying to figure out how to do that. And so I think that there’s… there are efforts happening. And I think that when you look at, look at, look at a lot of those, uh, uh, trust and credibility polls, who’s the organization that tends to emerge at the top? You know, NPR is always at the top of that list, sometimes, the most trusted place. It’s not satisfying, but there’s an effort there in an attempt to focus on that that I think is genuine. And I think that as the, the normal ebb and flow of making change happens, that the, the arc of that will be in the right direction, towards the things-

Kmele Foster

Although, although it’s been heading in the wrong direction consistently. Even if it is near the top and I don’t dispute that, it is heading in the wrong direction, and it’s been doing so consistently. And it’s been doing so during periods when people are acknowledging the problem saying they’re going to work on the problem and not apparently making any progress. Perhaps, it would be worse but for their efforts. But if that’s the case, then that’s a real problem too.

Eric Nuzum

Yeah. I don’t think progress is, is, is happening fast enough, and it should have started earlier, and it shouldn’t have needed the events that have happened in order to inspire them.

You know, there’s a lot of media organizations in this country-

Kmele Foster

Mm-hmm.

Eric Nuzum

… that do not give a about this.

Kmele Foster

Mm-hmm.

Eric Nuzum

Right? And I think public radio, because of its mission, is willing to take a hard look and figure some of these things out, willing to expand the number of people at the table to have those conversations. They even acknowledge this as a problem.

Kmele Foster

Although they… not with respect to viewpoints. They do it with respect to cosmetic things, stuff that you, you can, you can see, and you can essen- in an essentialist fashion presume that because someone looks like me, they think like me, but this is an absurdity. It’s an absurdity that we actually understand when we interrogate the idea but we’ve created, cloistered institutions that make… they’re hostile to having conversations that are nuanced and complicated about this. There are letter writing campaigns behind the scene to purge people who have the wrong kinds of ideas, and the wrong kinds of ideas on a universe of things that only moments ago would have been considered completely above board.

It’s not so terrible that perspectives on things change. They do. They should. They must. It is, however, terrible when there becomes this just inertia, this drive to censor, this, this determination to de-platform people or to rob people of the opportunity to sort of speak to audiences. And when journalists are more interested in kind of sorting out and segregating what can and can’t be talked about as opposed to doing the hard difficult work of kind of mining difficult issues, serving them up to their audiences in complicated and nuanced ways so that they can see them from different angles and make up their own minds. People can tell the difference.

Eric Nuzum

But they aren’t… I mean, isn’t… aren’t the vast majority of reporters in the public radio world doing that kind of daily work. They’re not… Their, their, their name focus is not on, on acting as commissars, but on going out, and getting facts, doing writing, and doing reporting, and doing interviewing.

Kmele Foster

I don’t have a data point that I can give you right now, but I will say that I have a, a dear friend of mine, we were joking shortly before I, I came down here, actually, and said to me, “You know, what I do when I turn on public radio is I track to see how long it will take for someone to give me a story about diversity, racism, inclusion, something along those lines. And usually, it’s within three or four minutes.” I’m not saying that those aren’t important issues, but I do think it becomes really important when these particular fixations are invading every single story. They’re, they’re, they’re, they’re transforming the nature of the topics. And granted, most of the time, the time the perspectives that are articulated there aren’t perspectives that represent the… a broad swath of the population and, generally, they don’t represent my perspective. I am not someone who is capital B, Black. I think race is a social construct, but I’ll go a step further. Race is an ideological commitment.

Do you have anyone in your buildings, in your institutions who agrees with me, who would rather be regarded as an individual as opposed to someone who ticks a particular box on your corporate census determining-

Rima Dael

Yeah.

Kmele Foster

… who works for you?

Rima Dael

Yeah.

Kmele Foster

That’s good. Then their voices ought to be amplified because I don’t hear them.

John Donvan

So-

Eric Nuzum

I, I, I, I wanna say one thing.

John Donvan

I, I will give you one moment. I, I wanna go to questions right after this. So, if you can come up to the microphones, um, go for it and, um, now you speak please. I just wanna give that position.

Eric Nuzum

I recognize the truth in what you’re saying. I hear the truth what you’re saying. I’m learning from the truth and what you’re saying. And, I, I’m not saying that that is wrong, I do note that you are coming at this and painting with a very broad brush about journalists-

Kmele Foster

Mm-hmm.

Eric Nuzum

… and a lack of specifics regarding specifically to public radio. Now, that’s… I said that we can come up with a list, right? But I think it’s really important to recognize… And I think one of the things that adds to the relevance argument is the ref- self-reflection-

Kmele Foster

Mm-hmm.

Eric Nuzum

… and belief that I don’t think you’re gonna to find people in this room who disagree with you. It’s the action that comes out of it that I think you’re talking about.

Kmele Foster

Well, I think-

Eric Nuzum

There’s a lot of other… Just real quickly.

Kmele Foster

Yeah.

Eric Nuzum

There’s a lot of other institutions that wouldn’t even be in having this conversation, let alone prompting any.

Kmele Foster

I think, the, the issue though and, uh, I’ll come back… I’ve said this moment ago, but I think it’s important to restate it here, I can find reports about DEI. I cannot find reports about viewpoint diversity, just not seeing them. And if you’re not measuring that, it’s difficult for me to believe that you actually care about it in a meaningful way.

Eric Nuzum

A- and I think that’s a valid thing to, to, to, to say.

John Donvan

Any questions to… Anybody wanna come up and, um, join in the conversation?

Eric Nuzum

Really? No one wants to touch this with a 10-foot pole? (laughing)

John Donvan

There you go. Come on up.

Rima Dael

Hi. Thank you for the conversation. Rima Dael, general manager, WSHU. I was the one that yelled yes.

John Donvan

Excellent.

Rima Dael

Um, I think, uh, comment more than a question because I think this is a really great framing on how to have a conversation about the public radio system as a whole versus, um, the role of the individual member station at a local level because there, there are two different conversations that are being kind of represented here, and, and really are at a tension on where we are as a country with, um, the information ecosystem that we consume, um, news. Right? There’s something that happens on a local level. So, I will have donors. Um, we’re a news talk format with classical music. I will have donors who, um, will only consume Fox News for their news, but live and die for the classical music at my station. Right? A- and then I also have other people who will only listen to me for, for local news. Um, but I think there’s that tension again of local news and the relevance of member stations in the local ecosystem for information versus then what we all collectively represent. And this is a conversation we need to have more of so we can find places where we align and where… places where we can do better.

So, I just really wanted to say thank you, and just, you know, note that tension in that framing. Thank you.

John Donvan

I, I wanna say thank you for being the only person to come up to the microphone. (laughing)

Eric Nuzum

So, real quickly, I think one of the opportunities that public radio does not think about enough is the, the, the type of local news that’s done. And this is where you start to square up a, a lot of what we’re saying. Um, I did this project, uh, for Ted… uh, just wrapped up the second season called Far Flung. Um, it’s a great podcast, 10 episodes, happened in 10 different cities around the world about transferable ideas that we can learn from those places. And oddly in this season, four of the locations ended up having something to do with local media, and we ended up asking just by coincidence in these four cities. It was Caracas, Venezuela, Mexico City, San Juan, Puerto Rico and, um, crap, uh, Bangkok, Thailand.

John Donvan

There’s no need for salty language. (laughing)

Eric Nuzum

Sorry. I, I, I, I’ve restrained myself so far. Um, and we asked them what they wanted from local news, and people in all four cities said the exact same thing. They said, “I don’t want to hear about power.

John Donvan

Mm-hmm.

Eric Nuzum

I hear about power all day from everybody else. I don’t wanna hear about government, which doesn’t have m- my interest in mind. I don’t wanna hear about elite people. I don’t even wanna hear an author of a book who is a person of power probably writing about another person of power. I wanna to hear about people.” And I’m paraphrasing this, but they all said the same thing. “I wanna know what’s happening in my community. I wanna know if that person is doing that is interesting, that impacts my life. I wanna be proud of my community because I hear about their work.” It was this idea of power, no; people, yes. It’s awful hard to debate somebody’s life and lived experience, and you can learn from it. And I think that when you look at, like, how you bring other perspectives like the practical, what do you do now of this conversation is that, I think a lot of it centers around that question and local news which you brought up is part of that. How do we get away from reporting the same, uh, uh, uh, uh, station of record bullshit that our, our, our industry seems obsessed with, um, of talking to politicians, covering press conferences, talking about legislation, but that’s not what people want. That’s not what they need. To get through that polarization is they need to understand people’s lived experiences.

John Donvan

Uh, there’s, um, uh, uh, few people at the mic.

Speaker M

Yeah.

John Donvan

:

Very hard to see you. Yeah, we… Sorry for all the-

Speaker M

The lights? (laughing)

Right. I mean, normally, I need a, a better flash. Uh, I’m dark skinned so, I’m, I’m gonna l- lean in. (laughing) Right, it’s a thing. But I, I knew Rima and I were gonna stand up at the same time. (laughing) But, uh, thank you for bringing it up. I think the conversation around DEI is incredibly important especially considering how we’re talking about it at this conference. You are also correct, I was one of those panelists talking about DEI at this conference, so I am owning my bias in this moment. But I acknowledge that public media as a entity has had a very one-on-one freshman conversation about DEI, and that has pervaded into how we talk on air, how we engage in the communities in which we exist. My challenge in that work is always a conversation of intersectionality and how we show up in each of our own individualities, and what makes us who we are ’cause I also identify as black, lowercase B, and, and how I exist in the world is very different. But I also challenge the fact that if you look at me, you don’t get to see all of the other identities that I hold.

Rima Dael

Right.

Speaker M

So, yes I do need you to have this conversation about my blackness because I don’t get the chance to tell you that I am a terminal degree holder. I don’t get the chance to tell you that I identify as pansexual. I don’t get the chance to tell you that I am a die-hard NC State Wolfpack fan. (laughing) Yes, I’m a masochist as well. (laughing)

[NEW_PARAGRAPH]But, the one thing that I don’t get to tell you before you get to hear any of those other things is that I am Black. So, having that one-on-one conversation is indeed im- important but my question to you is where is the space to… where is the space for public media to have an elevated conversation, and take this one-on-one conversation to the next level. And do you think that next level of conversation or maybe even the graduate level conversation is pertinent to how we see relevance in ourselves moving forward.

Kmele Foster

:

I feel like that’s a question for me because it feels like we’re making eye contact.

Speaker M

:

I didn’t mean to square up to you. (laughing)

Kmele Foster

:

I just wanna be sure. (laughing)

Speaker M

:

This is not Black on Black crime.

Eric Nuzum

:

There’s like a halo.

Kmele Foster

:

I just wanna make sure. (laughing)

Rima Dael

:

Calm down. No, I just… The mic was situation this way, so.

Kmele Foster

:

Yeah, yeah. Um, I think there’s a lot, there’s a lot there that I would, I would fundamentally agree with. I would disagree pretty fundamentally with the notion that I personally need anyone to recognize that I’m black. Generally, I’m trying to dissuade them of that erroneous belief. I’m also not an octoroon or any of these other kind of nonsense concepts that we no longer traffic in, although we’ve retained Blackness and whiteness. And I think, in many respects, well-intentioned people of good faith have reified these concepts and are working to refurbish these concepts, and presume that they get in the way in all sorts of circumstances whether or not they do. Um, and importantly, when institutions are being directed to think about their pro- their employees, their team members, their staff as someone who is primarily or fundamentally in this essentialist way, fixedly Black, white, Asian, they begin to do things like hire people, even declined to hire people on the basis of whether or not we have someone who looks like you’re already.

Rima Dael

:

Right.

Kmele Foster

:

It is powerfully, potently reductivist.

Rima Dael

:

Mm-hmm.

Kmele Foster

:

And that is what we are actually seeing playing out with a lot of the, the sort of DEI-inclined work that’s taking place in these institutions. And to the extent that’s happening, even a little bit, that’s a meaningful problem. And look, public radio has plenty of programs where it talks about race and identity, lots of them. Code Switch, for example. Again, I don’t hear people who sound like me-

Rima Dael

:

Mm-hmm.

Kmele Foster

:

… on that program. And when I say sound like me I don’t mean that they have the, the sort of blaster of-

Rima Dael

:

Right.

Kmele Foster

:

… someone who has my melanin, uh, composition. I mean that they don’t have the same sort of ideas that I do, and to the extent-

Rima Dael

:

Right.

Kmele Foster

:

… we’re talking about viewpoints and we’re talking about diversity. I think we need to get away from talking about it in cosmetic, trivial ways, and talk about it in much more fundamental ways.

Rima Dael

:

Yes. That’s the piece that I want to fervently agree with, that we have to do DEI work in an elevated manner, that we cannot continue to engage in this kind of like freshman level conversation-

Kmele Foster

:

Yeah, yeah.

Rima Dael

:

… that we need to elevate, we need to step it up.

John Donvan

:

So-

Rima Dael

:

Come talk to me if you want to but-

John Donvan

:

I’m, I’m gonna jump in because of time wanting to get to more questions.

Eric Nuzum

:

Can I… But can I give one little droplet on this?

John Donvan

:

14 seconds?

Eric Nuzum

:

Yeah. You asked at the end of your question how can we have this conversation? If you wait… Uh, welcome to public radio. If you wait for someone else to do it it will never happen.

Speaker M

:

Oh, yes. I’m well aware. (laughs)

Eric Nuzum

:

Right? You, you go find some compatriots. That’s what makes that change happen or that conversation.

Rebecca

:

Hi. So, my name is Rebecca McEnroe. I’m an independent producer now but, for the past 20 years, I’ve been producing content for public radio stations with goals in mind that have to do with how does this serve the community, how does this bring us together how does this inform the community that supports us. Now, I’m producing content which is for-profit and for big companies. And although the content is really great, there’s a completely different mission behind that content. And so what I would like to know is what role does the business model of public radio play in the relevance or non-relevance of public radio today?

Eric Nuzum

:

Yeah, well, you know, trust me, a lot of podcasting, even the commercial realm, is non-profit at this point. Right? (laughing) People are burning tons of cash. Right?

John Donvan

:

M- most of them, yes.

Eric Nuzum

:

Your primary compe- competition are people who have been… You know, I, I said to someone the other day, do not confuse the absence of, temporary absence of a profit motive with a mission, right? And that’s what a lot of these places have.

:

Um, I think there is so much that I wish podcasting could learn from public radio about the dynamics of depending on your audience as a primary source of revenue, and not on advertising. Advertising as a primary source of revenue is, is poisonous. It leads to… You know, we just talked about decision making based off of, of, of, of, of the perceptions of race and, and, and difference, um, in advertising, uh, and as primary, uh, vehicle for support. In podcasting is how do I spend a dollar and make $2. And the only things that get green-lit are the things that fit in that equation. So, from a business model standpoint, there’s actually a lot that commercial podcasting and commercial media can learn from public radio. You guys are way ahead of the game in that, of understanding how to build a, a community relationship that is based not only around the delivery of programming but the input from that community and a financial component to that as well.

:

I have no idea if that answers your questions.

John Donvan

:

We, we have four minutes before we need to wrap. So, we have one more question I want to bring in. If you can do your question in 30 seconds, I’d really appreciate it.

Kris Wotipka

:

Yes. Uh, Kris Wotipka of KRVS Public Media down in Lafayette, Louisiana. Topic, slight topic shift in the fact in keeping with the is radio relevant or is public radio still relevant, and then the diversity and inclusi- inclusivity, uh, it’s not just about news. Public radio isn’t just about news. There are those of us who or have… we’re a public music station. We’re, you know, we’re arts and culture. And we’re fighting irrelevancy on our front as well, and I was kind of hoping to hear some feedback from you guys today on that, but we’re fighting the Spotifys and the Apple Musics and all that, and we’re coming up against licensing issues-

John Donvan

:

Mm-hmm.

Kris Wotipka

:

… as our big, our big pushback is that, you know, we don’t have the licensing in place.

John Donvan

:

Thanks.

Kris Wotipka

:

So, in… that’s the… that was the question.

Kmele Foster

:

Yeah, and, and I actually thought about that in preparation for this. I, I definitely know and then I actually benefited from public radios, kind of offering of classical music. Growing up, it just was not something I would, I would have encountered but for the local public radio station. Um, that said, while it can’t… public radio can be a discovery mechanism, I think that the challenges that public radio faces with respect to what’s happening in the, in the evolving media landscape are… I’m not sure they’re surmountable.

John Donvan

:

Yeah.

Kmele Foster

:

Like, when it comes to discovering obscure kind of artists I’ve never heard of, or, or listening to old favorites, like, the number of options that I have available to me that are immediately available and absolutely free is astonishing. And if I’m actually willing to spend $9 a month, the, the possibilities are astounding. I don’t know what you do about that. I mean, there’s a sense in which, you know, you’ve got rotary phones, and you’ve got phone books, and they were nice when we needed them, but we don’t really need them anymore, um, in which case, will someone always have an interest in those kinds of things? Perhaps. Will it be relevant and kind of a, a, a critical vital way where you’re serving the public interest by providing it in this narrow format? I’m not sure.

John Donvan

:

So, Eric, I want you to respond to-

Eric Nuzum

:

Yeah.

John Donvan

:

… respond to that. But the other thing I want you to do is to inclu- wrap that up into your closing one-minute statement.

Eric Nuzum 53:31:

Yeah, okay. So, um, I would say that the clock, the flaw in what you said, which is also, I think, uh, every music station needs to think about is that you’re fighting Apple Music and you’re fighting Spotify. As Kmele alluded to, you’ve lost that. That’s not, that’s not a winnable fight. Right?

:

Uh, there are 80 million songs available in Spotify; anyone of them available to you at 300ths of a second. They actually set that up on purpose. So, the question for a music station is how do you create a meaningful musical community in a Spotify world? And that… when you look at that perspective of, “Look, they’re going to do that, but what can we do that they can’t do, and especially in a community,” you, you win.

:

So, I wanna read, uh, uh, uh, as my closing thing that E.B. White letter. I don’t wanna read the whole thing. He, uh, uh, some… many of you have heard it but there’s a little part I wanna read, and it’ll take very quickly. Um, uh, E.B. White, for those of you don’t know or have never read that letter, the Carnegie Commission asked him to contribute to the Carnegie Commission report that created public broadcasting. He wrote a letter back, said, “I have nothing to say,” and then he wrote this one paragraph which is intense, uh, that many of you have heard before that he said it should be the counterpart of the literary essay. That’s the part that gets quoted all the time.

:

But what he says afterwards is really inspiring, and it applies today which is it should arouse our dreams, “It should satisfy our hunger for beauty, take us on journeys, allow us to participate in events, present great drama and music, explore the sea, and the sky, and the woods, and the hills. It should be our lyceum, our Chautauqua, our Minskys, and our Camelot. It should restate and clarify the social dilemma and the political pickle. Once in a while it does, and you get a quick glimpse of its potential.” And that last line is the part that always gets me. “And when I listen to public radio today, every once in a while I get a glimpse of its potential.” And I see the relevance that it’s developed over the past 55 years. And I think if we, you, not me, you can capture more of that potential, we start tapping into that 85%, we start having conversations that are more relevant to more people. And I think that is the, the goal in the end game.

John Donvan

:

Thank you. Closing thoughts?

Kmele Foster

:

Yeah. Well, I, I said I came to help. Um, and I, I wanna offer some recommendations at this point ’cause I think I’ve made my case pretty robustly. Um, but specific values that I think are worth talking about and embracing, um, curiosity, empathy, transparency, these are things that we’ve heard before in many respects. Um, the goal has to be coverage that complicates the narrative, that forces people to, or at least gives people an opportunity to confront issues in a way that they haven’t thought about before, um, to lead with questions and inquiry. Uh, oftentimes, we get caught up with this, uh, this sense of ourselves as being completely objective journalists when, of course, this is an actual impossibility. Like we’re always trafficking in this objective, we’re necessarily bringing our perspective to the story. What we can do however is show our work, be transparent about where our biases may lie and offer people opportunities to think about open-ended questions, what might come next.

:

Um, and finally, I’d say that the shoeing fundamentalism and contributing to a culture and a climate of free speech is absolutely invaluable. I think that in, in a determined effort to try and help people to keep them safe, we have, in many instances, embraced a perspective that says that there are certain ideas and certain people that are too dangerous to have a voice, that there are certain things that are too dangerous for people to hear. I think it is a disastrous mistake. You cannot prevent bad ideas from getting out into the ether. You can’t suppress them out of existence. You have to confront them. Um, and if you imagine that you can sort of banish Donald Trump from so- social media, he’ll no longer have a voice. I have news for you. It’s just not a thing. Um, we have to do do better than that. Um, and if we, if we resort to censorship as kind of o- our mode of operation, then we’ve already lost.

John Donvan 57:52:

Thanks, Kmele.

Kmele Foster

:

Hear, hear.

John Donvan 57:53:

I wanna ask you… Thank you. I… Do, do you remember when you came in, I asked you to put the coin on your table with the side of the question you would answer? I’m just curious to know we don’t need to know which side you’re on. We’re just interested in persuadability, which is the thing that we… to us, it’s the evidence that we’ve succeeded that there are, that there were people willing to change their minds because they truly listened. So, to us, it’s evidence of listening.

:

How ma- did anybody change their minds in the course of, of this? Anybody flipped their coin over from one side to… Yeah?

Eric Nuzum

:

A couple.

John Donvan

:

A few? That’s great. That’s great. It’s, it’s, it’s… We’re not, we’re not saying yes or no is right, but the fact that, that, um, you were able to hear… And, and what that is is an example of what we set out to do at Intelligence Squared. We wanna prove that there is such a thing as argument, that can be good argument, and respectful argument, and that argument serves a purpose when you can work your way through to difficult questions and start looking at answers, which I think is what we all just witnessed here. Thanks to these two gentlemen, who I’d like to thank one more time. Thank all of you.

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Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Intelligence Squared, made possible by a generous grant from the Laura and Gary Lauder Venture Philanthropy Fund as a non-profit. Our work to combat extreme polarization through civil and respectful debate is generously funded by listeners like you, the Rosenkranz Foundation, and friends of Intelligence Squared.

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Robert Rosenkranz is our chairman. Clea Conner is CEO. David Ariosto is head of editorial. Julia Melfi, Shea O’Meara, and Marlette Sandoval are our producers. Damon Whittemore is our radio producer. And I’m your host, John Donvan.

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We’ll see you next time.