Published in 2012 based on field research conducted by Nikki Usher from 2008 to 2010, this paper presents an account of NPR’s response to a rapidly changing digital media environment. As audiences increasingly looked to the web for news, management at NPR understood a need for fundamental change in its operations and identity, from an organization focused entirely on news production for radio broadcast, to a digital media company producing multimedia for online distribution along with traditional NPR broadcast content.
Usher observed the early years of this transition by attending two strategic planning workshops organized for NPR by the Knight Foundation, from interviews with NPR executives and staff, and from further meetings at NPR. She recounts the initial failed efforts toward digital transformation as NPR CEO Ken Stern attempted a “top-down” approach to managing change. This was followed by a more successful change strategy under then-new CEO Vivian Schiller, whereby “NPR created the conditions of ambiguity that allowed for innovation to take place” (p.1).
A strategy based on conditions of ambiguity might seem like no strategy at all. But Usher cites other contemporaneous research on change management in organizations during times of rapid change and uncertainty which concludes that success is dependent on accepting ambiguity, and embracing flexibility in development of new digital products and workflows. This concept includes allowing more staff to have agency in defining and solving transitional problems as they are encountered. In other words, embracing ambiguity in times of rapid change is more successful as a strategy for transformation than top managers determining the path forward and issuing directives to employees.
Usher identifies a key failure in management’s early efforts to transform NPR into a digital multimedia organization: a primary focus on production without taking into account process. Many staff saw the first training sessions supported by Knight as efforts to force change, wherein each staff member was expected to become a multimedia storyteller. Reporters perceived a threat to their professional autonomy and identity as producers of high-quality radio storytelling. Some felt management was losing sight of NPR core values and traditions, and were not convinced of the need to change. Ken Stern’s vision included repurposing radio content across online platforms, including digital video, and Adobe Flash animations. But radio journalists refine their craft by writing for radio, which doesn’t translate well into text for the web. Usher doesn’t specifically mention this, but creating Flash presentations required skills in navigating an unfamiliar and complex user interface and/or writing code in Adobe’s proprietary ActionScript format, which (thankfully in my view) was made obsolete by Apple’s decision to disallow its use in iOS devices.
As staff turmoil became more obvious, executives began granting more authority to NPR journalists over how to produce content for online distribution while being true to “NPRness.” The goal of retraining 400 reporters and producers was jettisoned, as training was proving to be insufficient while creating conflicts in the newsroom. Producers who defined themselves as radio producers were allowed to continue being radio producers, and resources for multimedia production and distribution were added. These moves helped mitigate disruptions in the process of technological change. That change arguably accelerated under Vivian Schiller, who replaced Stern as CEO in 2009. “Schiller had actually created an organization whose strategy was ambiguity,” writes Usher. “The lack of clear directives about what change would look like created many opportunities for innovation” (p.18). Those innovations included hiring skilled web developers to build a vastly-improved web presence with high-quality images and video, incorporation of user-generated content, the creation of podcasts like the highly popular Planet Money, and development of the NPR API which allows anyone to query the full database of NPR content.
Usher’s observations and conclusions about the process of change and innovation at NPR are very familiar to me as a web and online media developer at Illinois Public Media during this period. I participated in many discussions with NPR managers, and staff at other NPR stations who were all strategizing about and navigating the transition from “public broadcasting” to “public media.” Conflicts over professional identity and top-down change management were common experiences at my NPR radio station and many others across the U.S. And Usher’s conclusion that “organizations can define success by embracing flexibility as a core organizational value” (p.22) reflects my experience as well.
Usher’s contributions here and elsewhere to the ethnography of newsrooms in a time of rapid technological change provide important insight for management of the coming cycles of innovation, such as adoption of and adaptation to artificial intelligence in the current period.
Reference
Usher, N. (2012). Reshaping the public radio newsroom for the digital future. Radio Journal, 10, 65–79. https://doi.org/10.1386/rjao.10.1.65-1
Adventures in Information Science 