One of the interesting sidebar conversations at several Morning Edition Grad School workshops has been the role of News Director vs. Program Director.
Ideally, "versus" should not be used in the above sentence, but practically speaking there are times the two areas will have conflict.
We believe there is a simple rule that PD's and ND's should follow - with some more complex corollaries.
The News Director is in charge of the station's journalism. The Program Director is in charge of everything else.
This means the ND selects and assigns stories, edits reporters, and evaluates sources. S/he makes the final call on whether a story is ready to go on the air. A News Director evaluates whether a story is treated fairly. A News Director plans the coverage of major events and issues in a community.
But the PD also must be involved in news as it airs on a station. For example, if a reporter has a laconic delivery, a PD would work with the reporter to present him/herself effectively on the radio.
A PD's involvement goes deeper, however, and may conflict with a ND's judgement, when it comes to time and style of reporting.
A Program Director would appropriately make a decision on how long the "news hole" is within Morning Edition. It would be the PD - not the ND - who would say "we're going to do four minutes at the top of the hour rather than six." That's because it is the PD's job to decide the programming elements that will be presented to listeners, and how to most effectively mix those elements.
Also, a Program Director would decide that a station would drop newscasts in favor of in-depth reporting. This is a matter of programming strategy, not of journalistic integrity. And that is the PD's role.
Most Program Directors and News Directors work well together on a daily basis. But a little bit of conflict is not necessarily a bad thing. A frank discussion of roles and programming strategies would be beneficial for many stations as they work through the decisions that need to be made to serve listeners in the best possible way.
