'Kalb Report' hears how Edward R. Murrow influenced NPR's unique sound
The spirit of Edward R. Murrow flowed through the National Press Club ballroom Dec. 9 as Marvin Kalb, host of "The Kalb Report," interviewed five icons of NPR about how NPR news developed and where it is heading.
Discussing “The Sound of News: An Evening with NPR,” veteran public radio correspondents Scott Simon, Nina Totenberg, Susan Stamberg, Mara Liasson and Steve Inskeep told how Murrow in his radio reports from London during World War II set the standard for the NPR sound.
Kalb, who was the last CBS News correspondent hired by Murrow, played a Murrow report from London during the Blitz where the reporting was enhanced by the sounds of air raid sirens and the footsteps of people descending into shelters.
Kalb said that during World War II Murrow gave his colleagues marching orders how to cover the war. Reporters were supposed to “describe things in terms that made sense to a truck driver without insulting the intelligence of a professor.”
Totenberg said that while there were no orders on how to report, Murrow’s influence was felt.
“If there was an example, it probably was Murrow,” Totenberg said. “The idea that the best pictures are painted in the mind -- Murrow did that in the piece of tape that you played. Susan and I were old enough to have actually listened to Edward R. Murrow. I was a really little girl, but I remember his voice.
"My thought [as a young radio reporter] was I have to tell a story that will be understood by everybody and be compelling and that will make people laugh and cry and be enraged and be happy and sad.”
Liasson said that when she listened to the Edward R. Murrow report that Kalb played, “it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up because this is what we still do. We walk into a situation, we describe it, we’re thinking about sounds. He’s thinking about the feet. It is exactly the same. There is no difference. The craft is the same.”
Stamberg said the first NPR reporters were told not to try to copy the stylized voices of most commercial newscasters, but to be yourself. “Those were the most magic words I heard, she said. "We want to sound like we are talking over the back fence to our neighbors.”
Inskeep said listening is a big part of the NPR style that makes it different. “We are actually paying attention to the people we are interviewing," she said. "You hear the stories of people. You hear the accents, and the uniqueness in the way they tell a story. It’s amazing the way people are unconsciously creative in language in the way they tell a story.”
Social media platforms have influenced NPR, Simon said.
“If you have a following onT twitter, if you have a following on Facebook or Instagram, you can post what you do piece by piece or you can post excerpts,” he said. “You can use it as an effective, no-cost form of advertising.
"The social media platform has become a source of distribution for us. That enlarges the audience because this is the way people are listening and reading. People may not listen to the local public radio station, but they will listen to eight or nine NPR stories a day because they get them on Facebook and Twitter.”
But Liasson cautioned that while technological innovations have their place in reporting and disseminating news, they cannot replace good journalism.
“NPR is trying to be as creative on every platform as we can, but the bottom line is content and what we’re putting on there,” she said. “If you don't have compelling stories and really good, hard-hitting news, you are not going to be get anyone to listen to you on any platform.”
"The Kalb Report" is produced jointly by the National Press Club’s Journalism Institute, the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs, Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center, University of Maryland University College and the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. It is underwritten by a grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation.