NPR Public Editor by Poynter's Kelly McBride

A decade ago, NPR released the first episode of the Code Switch podcast. The episode’s title: “Can we talk about whiteness?”

It was May 2016, which can be described as the Obama moment or maybe more aptly, the Hamilton moment. It was becoming widely known that the demographics of the United States were (and still are) rapidly changing, that white people would some day soon make up less than 50% of the population.

Three years earlier, NPR introduced Code Switch as a newsletter and an online section of its website. Gene Demby, who has been on the team the entire time, wrote, “We decided to call this team Code Switch because much of what we’ll be exploring are the different spaces we each inhabit and the tensions of trying to navigate between them.”

Code Switch wasn’t the first podcast about race. Slate had About Race, and BuzzFeed’s Another Round also frequently discussed race, ethnicity and identity. Between 2016 and 2020, more newsrooms and media organizations joined the conversation.

The New York Times in 2019 published the 1619 Project, a series of reported essays that highlighted the role of slavery in the formation of our country, as well as the overlooked contributions of Black Americans that continue to shape our world. A year later, Serial Productions and the NYT released Nice White Parents, a podcast series that focused on a single school in New York.

In May 2020, George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer was captured on video, and led to national protests. Six months later, Apple named Code Switch the podcast of the year. (I called it an overnight sensation, seven years in the making.)

Now Code Switch stands out not just for its longevity, but for being one of the last podcasts that explicitly talks about race. — Kelly McBride

Illustration by Carlos Carmonamedina

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

How does Code Switch fulfill the mission of public radio?

Code Switch was launched with a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Other funders, including the MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation, have given NPR money over the years to pay for the show. On top of that, corporations purchase sponsorships, and 250 local stations pay NPR to broadcast the show (along with Life Kit) to their local audiences.

There was a time when shows addressing issues of race and diversity were popular among corporate sponsors. That was the era when Code Switch had a lot of company and a lot of competition. That moment has passed, and most of the like-minded shows no longer exist.

On top of the decline in the number of corporate sponsors clamoring to affiliate their brand with a smart podcast about race, there are fewer listeners and more podcasts. Apple and Spotify, the largest podcasting platforms, continually tweak their technology, sometimes making it tougher for podcasters to get their shows to their audiences. As a result, the overall listening audience for all podcasts is smaller.

And yet, Code Switch endures. “The show continues to bring in a highly engaged audience,” Juliet Barbara, NPR communications vice president, told me in an email. “Recently, in response to a softening audience trend, we added an additional episode to the feed. This episode is more topical, allowing the hosts to respond to the week’s news.”

Code Switch lives today in part because of its origin. It was driven by curiosity, authenticity and reporting. “There was this sense that we were trying to figure out how to live with each other in a multiracial democracy,” Demby said of the early days.

Of all the qualities that set Code Switch apart, the journalism was the most important, said Chenjerai Kumanyika, a journalism professor at New York University and a guest on that first podcast episode. “What made it good was you have real journalists. You had all these journalists who were going to do the reporting and going to have the smart conversation, and push back on our assumptions.”

Kumanyika has listened to NPR his entire adult life. He told me he believes that Code Switch changed public radio. Before Code Switch, “conversations about race on NPR were always kind of basic, you were teaching to the back of the class,” he said. “It was almost always limited to the binary of Black and white. But suddenly Code Switch is tackling far more complicated conversations.”

As a result, the vocabulary across public radio evolved into a more elevated and nuanced conversation. “NPR was founded in the early 1970s,” he said. “It’s in Code Switch that you see that mission fully realized. This is a podcast that starts to sound like the richness of America.”

Kumanyika and John Biewen co-host the podcast Scene on Radio, which every year explores cultural themes of ethics and morality. The eighth season debuts this week and this year they are exploring what's going on with the news media. They are both Code Switch fans.

“They take race and racism seriously,” Biewen said of Code Switch. “They are completely willing to unflinchingly look at structural racism, but then they do some fun, light things too. Like, look at the way different races approach dating or astrology.”

If Code Switch was launched at a time when it was popular to talk about race and ethnicity, it exists now in a moment where those subjects are the third rail of American culture. The Trump administration has declared diversity initiatives illegal and has punished universities, school districts and even private companies for their DEI efforts.

“Kudos to NPR, especially in 2026,” Biewen said. “We’re in a moment where powerful people would prefer that we not be having these conversations at all. They want us to pretend that race and ethnicity and racism and white supremacy are not a thing we should acknowledge and talk about freely.”

Given the pressure that all of public media has endured with the withdrawal of public funding, it’s a hallmark of independence that NPR supports Code Switch. And it’s an even more forceful statement that 250 local stations broadcast the show to their communities.

What does the future hold for Code Switch? Video! The team has just hired a video producer. Demby tells me we can expect to see more video from the show on social media and on YouTube, which is the largest distributor of podcasts and the No. 1 place where listeners find new podcasts.

At 10 years old, the Code Switch podcast is considered a legacy news product. Getting new audiences to discover it is exactly the kind of investment that will keep NPR relevant.

Demby, his co-host, B.A. Parker, and the entire team of journalists are leaning into the next decade. “We’re trying to do our jobs in telling the story and the history of this multiracial democracy and where it might be going,” Demby said. “And we’re doing it at a time where people in positions of power are actively engaged in tearing those things down.” — Kelly McBride

A note to our readers: In a future newsletter I plan on addressing the ongoing changes happening throughout public radio as a result of clawback of government funding. If you have questions about this, now is the time to send them in: ooffice@npr.org

The Public Editor spends a lot of time examining moments where NPR fell short. Yet we also learn a lot about NPR by looking at work that we find to be compelling and excellent journalism. Here we share a line or two about the pieces where NPR shines.

Code Switch episodes to start with

If you’re new to Code Switch, here’s a sample of our favorite episodes:

Hold up! Time for an explanatory comma
Another Black president says goodbye to Washington
Ask Code Switch: What about your friends?
What’s in a 'Karen'?
White evangelical Christians are some of Israel’s biggest supporters, Why?
Tradwives and the pressures of modern motherhood
How undocumented families are navigating the looming threat of ICE
The Utang Clan

Recent reports on AI by NPR

Artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping our society and the way many of us work. NPR journalists have been digging into the many facets of AI, creating a body of work that informs and enlightens. Recent stories include: Morning Edition’s rare behind-the-scenes of luggage movement at the world’s busiest airport in Atlanta, with the help of AI; an examination of increasing AI usage by therapists and its ethical implications; and an All Things Considered story about the impact of AI on the work of researchers. It’s reassuring to know that NPR is fully engaged in reporting on the continued evolution of AI. — Amaris Castillo

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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