NPR Public Editor by Poynter's Kelly McBride

People come to public media expecting the news to look, sound and feel different from commercial media. That’s especially true of the business end of the business, also known as the ads — or sponsorships, in public media speak.

I receive many notes and questions about how NPR sponsorships and ads work. These inquiries have carried even more weight since Congress voted last year to pull all public funding from public media — some $535 million a year. Just how public radio continues to fund its mission is an open question.

So, when an NPR website reader wondered if the advertisements she was seeing from the lingerie company Frederick’s of Hollywood had anything to do with NPR’s need to raise money, I reached out to the man who oversees advertising for NPR.

On another matter, NPR announced this week that it would join the protest against the White House’s ban of journalists from CNN, MSNow and Politico by not using audio from the press pool. I asked the chief politics editor how that would work. — Kelly McBride

Illustration by Carlos Carmonamedina

Here are a few quotes from the Public Editor's inbox that resonated with us. Letters are edited for length and clarity. You can share your questions and concerns with us through the NPR Contact page.

Should lingerie ads show up on NPR.org?

Anonymous wrote on Sept. 19: I want to close NPR.org today because I can’t get the Frederick’s of Hollywood bare butt ad off my screen. I can report the ad but it continues to pop back up. … I’m not in the mood to see that when I’m simply seeking unbiased news. I am really annoyed by this. I get you guys need more money now that Trump cut your funding but come on. Raise your standards.

There’s both big money and small money behind the ads that show up on NPR’s website. The big money comes from the direct sponsorships that public media ad representatives sell directly to companies. The small dollars come from programmatic advertising, which is exactly how Frederick’s of Hollywood managed to place an ad on NPR’s website.

With programmatic advertising, NPR representatives don’t have any direct contact with the company doing the advertising. Instead, NPR lets a handful of third-party companies, like Google AdX, place advertisements in spaces that have not been sold directly.

The network imposes several restrictions on programmatic advertising, said Brett Robinson, senior vice president of ad operations for National Public Media (the for-profit company that sells sponsorships for NPR).

“We’ve got a whole list of prohibited industries and categories,” he said. “Everything from political and advocacy to gambling, tobacco and vaping, sexual wellness, we don’t accept those. All those categories are blocked by default.”

On top of that, NPR uses software to screen for other banned ad content. And then, whenever someone at NPR or in the audience reports an inappropriate ad, Robinson and his colleagues look for it and block it. As soon as he got off his call with me, he said, he was going to look for the Frederick’s of Hollywood ad. (He found it and blocked it.) It’s most helpful if you take a screenshot and email it to NPR, along with the link where the ad leads (which is counterintuitive).

The short answer to this question is: No, NPR is not directly taking advertising contracts from Frederick’s of Hollywood to replace the federal money that Congress yanked out of the public media system. You shouldn’t see lingerie ads on NPR’s website. And NPR is doing a lot to prevent that.

Each measure to limit inappropriate ads means that NPR gets less money than its commercial competitors get from programmatic ads. But it’s all in the name of keeping the distinctive experience of consuming news on public media.

“Users, viewers, listeners, they come to our platform with a certain expectation of a noncommercial environment. And we try to deliver that as closely as we can,” Robinson said. “When you get to our podcasts, though, we’re even more aggressive in our review process. We don't allow loud, jarring sponsorships that sound like it belongs on commercial radio.”

This is true even for podcasts that are never broadcast on the radio airwaves, which is the only part of public radio content subject to the FCC guidelines that restrict advertising.

The FCC still has an open investigation into the sponsorship practices of NPR, PBS and several of the large local member stations. There have been no updates since last year, when the commission requested documents from the targets of the probe.

Donations from the public to NPR and to member stations continue to be strong, though experts predict they will ebb.

It’s an open question how public radio and its funding model will evolve over the next few years. It’s safe to say it won’t be through lingerie ads — or anything else that disrupts the audience experience.

We ask NPR one question about how the work comes together.

When NPR boycotts audio from the White House press pool, what does the audience lose?

After President Donald Trump banned CNN, MSNow and Politico reporters from the White House, newsrooms all over the country joined in a protest. All five national TV networks announced that they would not carry video of the president from the press pool. And NPR editor-in-chief Thomas Evans announced that NPR would not carry audio from the press pool.

Listeners did not hear Trump’s voice from the White House, from Air Force One or from other settings where his words were captured by the White House press pool. Dana Farrington, chief editor, politics and policy, told me that NPR still covered Trump.

“We are continuing to cover the president’s actions and words, so the audience remains informed. In this case, we are reporting the news in a different way — without tape,” she wrote me in an email, while the boycott was in effect.

I'm sure that made some NPR listeners happy, because they dislike hearing the president’s statements.

The protest didn't last long. Overnight, a judge issued a temporary restraining order negating Trump’s ban of the journalists. But it was a worthy exercise to envision new ways of framing stories from the White House.

President Trump is good at claiming media airtime by making provocative statements.

It’s possible there will be lasting effects that benefit us all as journalists find new ways to update the public as they track the president’s ideas and activities. — Kelly McBride

The Office of the Public Editor is a team. Reporters Amaris Castillo and Nicole Slaughter Graham and copy editor Merrill Perlman make this newsletter possible. Illustrations are by Carlos Carmonamedina. We are still reading all of your messages on Facebook, Instagram, Threads and from our inbox. As always, keep them coming.

Kelly McBride
NPR Public Editor
Chair, Craig Newmark Center for Ethics & Leadership at the Poynter Institute

Kelly McBride
Public Editor

Amaris Castillo
Poynter Institute

Nicole Slaughter Graham
Poynter Institute

The Public Editor stands as a source of independent accountability. Created by NPR's board of directors, the Public Editor serves as a bridge between the newsroom and the audience, striving to both listen to the audience's concerns and explain the newsroom's work and ambitions. The office ensures NPR remains steadfast in its mission to present fair, accurate and comprehensive information in service of democracy.

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