The experimental origins of NPR

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Today National Public Radio is a well-established mainstream news organization with an even, consistent voice that is characterized by an earnest, serious tone. But in the years after its founding in 1971, NPR's sound was radically different. Stories would blur the line between fact and fiction, deploy the tools of radio drama, and take risks with narrative form. Through interviews with producers whose work appeared on NPR's flagship news-magazine, All Things-Considered, during this formative period, as well as through textual analysis of broadcasts from the NPR archive, this study seeks to examine and explore the experimental origins of NPR, to better understand why the institution's voice changed so radically over the years, when and how that change occurred, and to investigate the tensions and resonances between news on the one-hand, and imaginative documentary forms on the other.