All NPR member station News Directors and General Managers were invited to help map the current landscape of station news production capacity.
At present, only a small number of NPR member stations have more than a few dedicated full-time reporters, producers or editors.
Most of NPR's member stations (81%) have explicit plans to expand local news coverage and are active in the production and use of local news - regardless of station format or market size.
NPR's member stations report constraints in available staffing and funding to support both their existing and planned reporting capacity.
Reporting CapacityThese estimates are based on a 97% response rate from NPR member stations that carry news programming. These estimates do not include non-NPR member stations.
- There are approximately 500 news reporters in the public radio system (of which more than 2/3 are full-time). There are also 160 news directors, 150 news producers, and 100 news editors.
- 33% of stations said they have no full-time reporters. 22% have one. 30% have two to three. Fewer than 15% have four or more.
- Few stations have producers either full-time (25%) or part-time (10%). Only a handful have three or more full-time producers (6%) or editors (4%).
- News and News/Music format stations have more paid news staff than music stations, which rely more on volunteer reporters, interns, and students.
- Most program hosts (69%) also have reporting duties - particularly those at stations in small markets.
- 61% of University licensee stations (which represent 63% of NPR member stations) typically have students working in the news department as part of a curriculum program for compensation or academic credit.
- Nearly all stations (90%) produce local newscasts,
- Stations air both newscast and non-newscast content primarily on weekday drive time, especially morning drive-time. Less than half of all stations carry local news content during the weekends.
- Stations devote the most local news coverage and their reporters' specific beat assignments to state/city/local politics, schools & education, arts & cultural events, environmental, health, and business issues. News format stations provide more coverage on local politics, education, and business. Music format stations are more likely to cover the arts.
- Most stations (78%) said their reporters mix their own pieces.
- Half of all stations that responded to the survey (51%) said that their news reporters are 'general assignment' only. A handful of stations have reporters that work only on specific beats. These tended to be in major metros and in news-only format stations.
- 34% produce their own local newsmagazine program; 48% produce their own talk program.
- Most member stations (83%) exchange news stories with either public radio stations and/or state/regional news networks.
- Almost half of the stations (42%) provide stories two or more times per week.
- Most stations (67%) use stories two or more times per week, with stations in larger markets using stories most frequently-five or more times per week.
- Over half of the stations (63%) said that their local media does not file stories for their station. For those stations that do receive stories, many of these are from local newspapers.
