A big name is leaving NPR — and a special announcement from Poynter

The hits just keep on coming for NPR. A big name is leaving. We’ll get to that in just a moment.

BUT FIRST …

Poynter has a major announcement.

Today, we launch the Press Freedom Watch, an ongoing catalog of federal government actions affecting journalists.

What is it? And why are we doing it?

Poynter.org managing editor Ren LaForme explains: “President Donald Trump and his administration have taken concrete steps since January to limit press freedom. While government scrutiny of the media isn’t new, the scope and intensity of actions in Trump’s second term mark a sharp escalation. These measures include defunding outlets, detaining writers, investigating disfavored news companies and harassing journalists — actions that have limited journalists’ ability to report and the public’s access to information.”

So, as Poynter writes in its introduction to the Watch, “To document these developments, Poynter is compiling a list of federal actions affecting journalists, including lawsuits, policy changes, investigations, funding cuts, firings and detentions. The list will be updated periodically and does not include verbal attacks, threats or media companies’ anticipatory compliance.”

Leading our efforts is reporter Angela Fu. For tips or suggestions, you can email Fu at [email protected] or contact her on Signal at angelafu.74.

Fu tells us, “The press has always had an antagonistic relationship with the government — that comes with the territory of acting as a watchdog — and that was especially true during President Donald Trump’s first term. That tension intensified during his second term. Since then, the administration, along with Congress and federal agencies, has taken a wide range of actions affecting media outlets, from funding cuts to investigations to personnel changes. Compiling them in one ongoing list helps readers understand the full scope and scale of what is happening.”

Be sure to check out the Poynter Press Freedom Watch, as well as LaForme’s story on our new project.

Now onto the rest of the newsletter, starting with the big news out of NPR …

As I mentioned, a big name is leaving NPR. Ari Shapiro, who has been co-host of NPR’s signature show “All Things Considered” for the past decade, is leaving at the end of next month. Shapiro has been with NPR for 25 years.

This stunner comes on the heels of the grim news that Congress, at the behest of President Donald Trump, is cutting federal funding for public broadcasters.

However, Shapiro, 46, said in a Substack post that his leaving “has nothing to do with the challenges facing public radio, the news media, or the country. Those are real and profound, and I plan to continue engaging with them in meaningful ways. But they aren’t informing this transition.”

He went on to write, “Working at NPR has been a wild privilege. Since I became a host of ‘All Things Considered,’ I’ve kept the original 1970 mission statement from founder Bill Siemering taped in view of my desk. I especially love the part that says we ‘will encourage a sense of active constructive participation rather than apathetic helplessness.’ Public radio’s ability to evolve and change without sacrificing that unshakable mission of public service is NPR’s greatest strength. As I start the next chapter of my own professional evolution, I can’t imagine an organization more uniquely prepared to deliver the kind of illumination, understanding, and joy that I have treasured my entire life — and that I will continue to depend on as a listener. The work of public radio is more important today than it has ever been. I plan to keep supporting it, and I hope you will too.”

Shapiro’s final broadcast will be Sept. 26, which is close to his 10-year mark as co-host of “All Things Considered.”

In a memo to staff, outgoing NPR news chief Edith Chapin wrote, “Several months ago, Ari came to us to say that the milestone was an amazing capstone to his career here, and it felt like the right time for him to try something new.”

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Helping Donald Trump?

Here are a couple of stories that don’t paint Fox News in a good light.

This all comes from newly unredacted court documents made public this week. The voting technology company Smartmatic has filed a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox over its 2020 election coverage.

First, The Washington Post’s Jeremy Barr reports: “Jeanine Pirro bragged about helping Trump and GOP while a Fox News host.”

Pirro is now the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. But back in September 2020, she was a weekend host on Fox News. According to the court documents, Pirro texted Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel, “I work so hard for the party across the country. I’m the Number 1 watched show on all news cable all weekend. I work so hard for the President and party.”

Barr wrote, “Smartmatic included many of the conversations in 468 pages of filings to bolster its contention that Pirro and other Fox hosts were determined to stay on Trump’s good side for a variety of motives. It said Pirro, a longtime friend of the president, sought to secure a pardon for her ex-husband, Albert Pirro. Convicted earlier of tax evasion and conspiracy, Albert Pirro was the last person Trump pardoned during his first term.”

The documents also showed that, at one point, Pirro’s producer, Jerry Andrews, told Pirro to stay away from claims of election fraud. He wrote to her, “You should be very careful with this stuff and protect yourself given the ongoing calls for evidence that has not materialized.”

Check out Barr’s story for more details, but in a statement to the Post, Fox News said, “The evidence shows that Smartmatic’s business and reputation were badly suffering long before any claims by President Trump’s lawyers on Fox News and that Smartmatic grossly inflated its damage claims to generate headlines and chill free speech. Now, in the aftermath of Smartmatic’s executives getting indicted for bribery charges, we are eager and ready to continue defending our press freedoms.”

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal’s Isabella Simonetti wrote, “Smartmatic Case Documents Show Some Fox News Hosts’ Drive to Help Trump.”

Simonetti wrote, “The documents show at least two Fox hosts were in touch with Sidney Powell, a lawyer at the center of Trump’s postelection efforts, and one urged her to come on air.”

According to the documents, Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo messaged Powell on Nov. 17, 2020, and wrote, “Sidney we must keep you out there. I am very worried. Please please please overturn this. Bring the evidence. I know you can.”

Another Fox Business host, Lou Dobbs, texted Powell on Nov. 7, 2020: “It’s up to us – we few!” He also texted, “Meanwhile I’m going to do what I can — to help stop what is now a coup d’etat in final days — perhaps moments” of Trump’s first term. (Fox canceled Dobbs’ show in February 2021 and Dobbs died in July of 2024 at the age of 78.)

Who knows how this will play out in court — if it even gets to court. Either way, on-air hosts openly advocating to help Trump win an election that he clearly lost is a bad look for a supposed news organization.

What do Americans want in their news?

What do Americans want from their news providers? Three things: honesty, intelligence and authenticity. That’s among the results of the latest poll from the Pew Research Center.

More than 80% of 9,300 U.S. adults said it was “important” that the people they get their news from display those three traits in their work.

My Poynter colleague, Angela Fu, wrote, “Though Pew defined authenticity in news providers as ‘being their true selves,’ people who participated in focus groups for the study were less unified in their opinions of what it meant for a journalist or news provider to be authentic.”

Senior researcher and lead report author Kirsten Eddy told Fu, “Some people would refer to that as sort of being their true selves and bringing their humanity to the forefront. Some people thought of it as things like truthfulness, specifically, whether they’re being honest and accurate and truthful with you. And some people were kind of confused. They knew the word mattered, but they weren’t entirely sure what it means.”

Another interesting part of the survey was this: “Most Americans (79%) agree that someone who writes for a newspaper or news website is a journalist — higher than the share who say the same about someone who reports on TV (65%), radio (59%) or any other medium.”

The report went on to say, “There is less consensus about whether people who work in newer media are journalists. Fewer than half of U.S. adults say someone who hosts a news podcast (46%), writes their own newsletter about news (40%) or posts about news on social media (26%) is a journalist. In each of these cases, roughly a quarter of Americans say they aren’t sure whether these people are journalists.”

It then added, “This pattern aligns somewhat with how long each format has been around: Newspapers were associated with journalism for centuries before any of the more modern media existed.”

Reserving a fact check

On Wednesday, U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the former governor of North Dakota, went on Fox Business and claimed that restaurant reservations in Washington, D.C., are up 30% since Trump sent in the National Guard to patrol the streets of D.C.

He got no pushback. But what he said wasn’t true. Not even close.

According to restaurant booking data, reservations in D.C. are way down compared to the same time last year. Fox5 in Washington, D.C., reported, “Beginning Monday, Aug. 11, seated diners in the District dropped by 16%. The largest drop off was last Wednesday, when the number of diners dipped by 31%. This was just two days after Trump ordered the National Guard to patrol the streets of Washington.”

It added, “Additionally, as of Aug. 17, D.C. is the only city among the 20 largest in the country tracked by OpenTable that's experienced a decline in reservations from August 2024.”

The Washington Post’s Tim Carman and Warren Rojas reported, “Business owners are concerned that the continued surge in law enforcement could impact their revenue during a vital period of the summer.”

Look, I get it. It’s sometimes hard for a newscast to fact-check someone in real time. But when Burgum threw out the stunning (and false) number that he did, it should’ve at least been questioned. Even if you don't know the actual fact in front of you, those interviewing Burgum should’ve at least followed up by asking where he was getting that number that he clearly just blindly threw out there.

Trump joins TikTok

The White House is now on TikTok. The account launched Tuesday and had amassed more than 160,000 followers by Wednesday afternoon. By that point, it had posted seven videos.

Of course, the big question is how much longer TikTok will be available in the U.S. During the Biden administration, a law was passed that said TikTok’s Chinese owners, ByteDance, must sell off TikTok or it would be banned in the U.S. The U.S. government fears the Chinese government could force ByteDance to hand over data that would compromise U.S. users. TikTok has said it has not shared U.S. data with the Chinese government and would never do so.

Trump has pushed the deadline on the sell-or-ban law back several times. The next deadline is in September.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday, “The Trump administration is committed to communicating the historic successes President Trump has delivered to the American people with as many audiences and platforms as possible. President Trump’s message dominated TikTok during his presidential campaign, and we’re excited to build upon those successes and communicate in a way no other administration has before.”

Going off course

LIV Golf, the professional golf tour trying to rival the PGA, has been under a cloud of controversy since its inception in June 2022. That’s because the tour is financed by the Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia.

From the start, LIV executives and players, for the most part, have ducked questions about a tour being financed by a government accused of various human rights violations, its ties to 9/11, and the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. When they aren’t avoiding questions, many have tried to justify taking the money.

That part of the LIV story, however, kind of died down. Until this week.

Now comes word that LIV pulled the press credentials of someone who asked about the Saudi financing during a podcast conversation with a LIV golfer.

Tony Paul of The Detroit News reported that Michigan-based golf personality Bill Hobson had his credentials for an upcoming LIV event in Detroit because he asked golfer Pat Perez two questions about the Saudi financing. It was also reported that Perez answered the questions with no problems.

Awful Announcing’s Drew Lerner wrote, “Hobson reportedly did not have any directive from LIV about what topics were on or off limits, though he was hounded by LIV officials to edit out the questions after the fact. When he refused, LIV Golf pulled his credential.”

Hobson told The Detroit News, “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, talking about the lack of freedom ― talking about the lack of tolerance, all of the things that regime is known for plays a factor in what just took place. And it’s super unnecessary. You talk about unforced errors, goodness gracious.”

Incredibly, LIV even admitted to taking Hobson’s credentials, saying, “LIV Golf values open and honest dialogue with media partners and has welcomed a wide range of perspectives since our inception. We are committed to working with journalists who approach interviews with fairness, integrity, and respect for the players and the sport.”

Lerner wrote, “If your eyes rolled all the way into the back of your head reading that statement, fear not. We here at Awful Announcing took the liberty of helping LIV craft a better, far more accurate response.”

Here’s Awful Announcing’s suggestion:

LIV Golf values open and honest dialogue with media partners, except when it comes to human rights violations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We’ve welcomed a wide range of perspectives since our inception, unless, of course, you’re interested in how we can pay our golfers nine-figure salaries when we struggle to get six-figure TV audiences. We are committed to working with journalists who approach interviews with fairness, integrity, and respect for the players and the sport, lest we revoke your access.

Seriously, just when you think LIV Golf couldn’t get any lower, it managed to get out a shovel and see if it can dig even deeper.

Media tidbits

• Washington Post contributing columnist Adam Lashinsky with “Can the news industry stop AI theft? It might be a long shot.”
• The New York Times’ John Koblin with “Come One, Come All! Buy Your TV Subscriptions Here!”
• As someone who loves to use em dashes — I use them every chance I get — I highly recommend this piece from The Ringer’s Brian Phillips: “Stop AI-Shaming Our Precious, Kindly Em Dashes — Please.”
• Mediaite’s Colby Hall with “Jonah Goldberg on the Real Reason He Left Fox News: Backing Trump ‘Requires You To Lie.’”
• ESPN will officially introduce its direct-to-consumer product today. Here’s Front Office Sports’ Eric Fisher with “Inside ESPN’s ‘Industry Shaping’ DTC Plan, What’s at Stake.”
• And here’s Sports Illustrated’s Jimmy Traina with “ESPN Comes Through, Will Provide Multiview Options in New App.”
• James Poniewozik, the chief television critic for The New York Times, writes about Comedy Central’s “South Park” in “Eric Cartman, Welcome (for Now) to the Resistance.”

Hot type

Just one item here today. I wanted you to carve out time to read it. For ESPN, the incomparable Tom Junod with “The Unforgotten: Two QBs and the game that tied them together forever.”

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Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].

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