Shepard revives weekly NPR ombudsman's column

"My job is not to advocate for NPR," writes new NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard in her first web column. "My job is to explain NPR to the public and the public's concerns to NPR."

Activists want Democracy Now! on WOUB

A professor at Ohio University in Athens is leading a campaign to bring Democracy Now! to WOUB. So far station managers have rebuffed the request, saying the show does not meet their editorial standards, according to a newspaper op-ed inviting readers to join the cause.

Wash Post's Fisher says NPR Music site is better than most pubradio stations

The Washington Post's Marc Fisher reviews NPR's new music website and finds that it's a lot better than the narrow formatting of most public radio stations: "NPR Music sounds more like a creative, genre-busting radio station than do many actual public stations. It's a place where radio adds value, with smart critics presenting and telling stories about music, programs that happily smash through the genre limits that make so much of radio too predictable, and online-only shows such as All Songs Considered which grew out of listeners' fascination with the music producers used to fill the spaces between stories on NPR's "All Things Considered" newsmagazine.