Our Public Editor inbox is overflowing with commentary on NPR's coverage of the U.S. and Israel's war on Iran and now Lebanon. Much of it is critical of NPR, but there are some compliments as well.
Some of NPR's critics perceive a persistent bias against Israel. Others see flaws in an individual story. These objections come in against a backdrop of political disapproval. President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently suggested that some American newsrooms are rooting for the U.S. to lose the war. FCC Chair Brendan Carr is threatening to refuse license renewals to broadcasters he deems to be reporting "fake news" about the war. A smaller group of letter writers believe that public radio journalists are too deferential to the Israeli government.
News consumers don't want or need a patriotic press cheerleading the government. We need journalists to independently cover wars. People in the United States deserve to know what their government is doing and why. We need to know where our military is dropping bombs. We need to find out what is happening to our fellow Americans — both those trapped in conflict zones and those serving in the military.
And we need to hear the voices of people in the countries that are under attack. This includes the people of Iran, Lebanon, Israel and other places throughout the Middle East into which the conflict has stretched.
I approach every comment on NPR using the same method: I distill the critique into a query, and I look at the journalism in question. And then I do further research to assess whether the criticism is accurate.
NPR has reported 100+ stories since the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran on February 28. Starting with the very first story, which aired on Weekend Edition Saturday and was updated throughout the day, NPR has had correspondents and freelancers gathering news from Israel, Lebanon, Dubai, Istanbul and Iran's borders with both Turkey and Iraq.
On top of that, correspondents from NPR's Washington desk and its national security desk are contributing to stories almost every day as well. The Sources & Methods podcast, which is hosted by Mary Louise Kelly and focused on the Pentagon, has released 10 episodes since the war started and 8 of them have directly addressed this war.
Here are several comments and criticisms about NPR's recent work. — Kelly McBride
Listeners seek clarity on Iran reporting
Laurie Kotlan wrote on March 6: I am an avid listener to NPR and put my trust in your news broadcasts. However, I am wondering why when reporting on the Iran war, you report that its leader was "killed" and not more correctly "assassinated".
Bruce Zolot wrote personally to me on March 24: I would like to acknowledge the excellent reporting by Emily Feng recently. She is stationed on the actual border of Iran and Turkey and speaking to actual Iranians flowing into Turkey and she is reporting back about how the Iranian people feel about the war … NPR is doing a much better job here than the coverage of the Israel response to October 7th and their war with Hamas.
Kenny Braitman wrote on March 27: I am concerned about bias on the report of Israel/Iran. I am Jewish and yet I feel you are giving Israel unfair advantage. You show damage to towns and cities in Israel from Israeli rockets yet little to the damage Netanyahu has done to the Iranian civilians, villages and towns. This is not right
Richard Wilkins wrote on March 22: A Lebanese expatriate, angered at the death of two brothers in an Israeli airstrike, drives his explosives laden truck into a Michigan synagogue, with then more than 100 pre-school children inside, intending to destroy the building and kill all inside. And, NPR's reaction? Sympathized understanding for the subsequent "grief and fear" in his former hometown. Concealment of then public knowledge that those two brothers were Hezbollah terrorists, in a town full of Hezbollah sympathizers.
In a column published on Substack, Batya Ungar-Sargon wrote on March 30: NPR’s headline read, “In a small Lebanese town, grief and fear follow the Michigan synagogue attack.” That’s right: NPR found the real victim of an attack on 140 Jewish American babies—and it’s the Hezbollah-infested town in Lebanon that raised a family of terrorists.
These comments each represent dozens of others. From them I can distill three sets of journalistic questions:
- Why not call the killing of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, an assassination?
- Does NPR's coverage fairly represent the experiences of people in Iran and Lebanon? What about the people in Israel?
- Was NPR's story on the Lebanese village journalistically sound? Was the story inappropriate or insensitive? Why didn't it mention the family's connection to Hezbollah?
Why not call the killing of Iran's Supreme Leader an assassination?
NPR has called Khamenei's killing an assassination, but only a few times, including in a March 2 story about protests among Shia Muslim communities in South Asia and a story about the historical role of assassinations in American foreign policy. And then again by inference in a story that questions how Israel's strategy to "decapitate" the leadership of governments and groups it identifies as enemies is working out.
The purposeful killing of Iran's supreme leader clearly fits the definition of an assassination, according to the AP Stylebook, which instructs journalists, "Use the term only if it involves the killing of a politically important or prominent individual by surprise attack."
Other news organizations are cautiously using the term, including the BBC and The Washington Post in opinion columns. But no one is using it widely. That's because in many news organizations there is a hesitation to define military strikes as assassinations. Last September, NPR's standards department issued guidance after Israel killed a Houthi prime minister and six cabinet members suggesting that a military strike should not be considered an assassination. While NPR's guidance is more conservative than the AP Stylebook, even the AP is not routinely using the term.
Given the political weight, it's more important at this stage for audiences to hear that the initial strike that killed Khamenei has been described as a joint U.S.-Israeli attack, based on U.S. intelligence.
When more details become available about the intelligence, the behind the scenes decision-making, and the intentions of the attack, the term assassination may emerge as the best term. That may take a while. For now, it's more of a distraction than a helpful fact.
Does NPR's coverage fairly represent the experiences of people in Iran and Lebanon? What about the people in Israel?
War journalism often fails to get close enough to the people who are suffering the most, University of Southern California professor emeritus of journalism and public diplomacy Philip Seib told me. He's studied the connection between war coverage and foreign policy.
"It never gets close enough," he said of the reporting. "It leaves the audience so far, so physically distant from the war. The news should make you feel like you care about the people there. Unless you have those intense feelings, you can't affect policy."
NPR journalists based in Israel have ready access to the experiences and opinions of the people who live there. And even though most journalists can't get into Iran to do on-the-ground reporting and internet communication is restricted, NPR has managed to bring the voices of Iranians to American audiences.
International correspondent Ruth Sherlock has been receiving the diary entries of one Iranian woman enduring the war. She describes the information blackout, her fear of her government and what she and her friends do when the bombs are falling. NPR hired an actor to read the entries, which Sherlock discloses at the beginning of both installments of the series.
By sending journalists to Iran's borders, where people are fleeing, NPR obtained additional views from the country. Morning Edition host Leila Fadel reported from Erbil, Iraq, as did senior editor Arezou Rezvani, who obtained dramatic voice memos from people still inside Iran, enduring a harsh security crackdown.
NPR has tapped a number of its journalists and freelancers to find these voices and, most importantly, verify they are authentic. "We do the best we can through the Iranians we talk to who are leaving the country, who we talk to at these various border spots," chief international editor Didrik Schanche told me. "We also have Iranian fixers in Turkey and Iraq who reach out to contacts within the country to get a sense of life in the cities that are under attack."
To be certain, the coverage of the suffering in Iran is not proportional to the number of bombs that have fallen on that country. But NPR's stories evoke empathy and drive understanding in ways that rival much larger news competitors and complement the newsroom's reporting on the military maneuvers and the political gamesmanship.
Was NPR's story on the Lebanese village journalistically sound? Was the story inappropriate or insensitive? Why didn't it mention the family's connection to Hezbollah?
As details emerged about the March 12 attack on the Michigan synagogue housing a preschool, it became clear there was a link to the war. The FBI said that the attacker was Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was from a small village in Lebanon. His two brothers and a niece and nephew were killed in an Israeli airstrike, and his parents were wounded. About a week later, he drove his car, loaded with fireworks and containers of gasoline, into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Mich. Ghazali died at the scene, authorities said, but there were no other fatalities.
By March 14, NPR international desk reporter Hadeel Al-Shalchi was in Mashghara, Lebanon, interviewing Ghazali's uncle about the bombing. The story begins by describing the small town as a Hezbollah stronghold prominently displaying large images of Khamenei.
When the story aired on the March 14 edition of All Things Considered, Al-Shalchi reported that, "The Israeli military did not respond to NPR about why they hit the family's house. Israel says it's targeting Hezbollah after the militant group launched rockets into Israel at the beginning of the war with Iran."
Absent the confirmation from the Israeli army, Al-Shalchi's report led with the strong Hezbollah connections to the town. "After the story aired, as sometimes happens, the IDF spokesman got back to us with that statement," said James Hider, Middle East editor. "So we updated the digital version with it."
The journalistic purpose of the story was to explore the connection between the terror attack on the Michigan synagogue and the family that was killed on the other side of the world. Simply documenting that relationship and humanizing the family does not imply that Ghazali's attempt to kill more than a hundred children was justified.
This story on this village should not be judged as NPR's complete coverage of the Michigan synagogue. NPR ran multiple stories on the attack. In all of that coverage, voices from Temple Israel are absent. I couldn't find any stories that quote rabbis, congregation members or the families of the children who had to flee the building. This story quoted a rabbi from a nearby congregation. A story on NPR's website linked to a Facebook post from Temple Israel declaring that all the children and staff were safe. The Detroit News attended Shabbat services the next day, which had to be held in another location. A story like that would have been the perfect opportunity to examine to community's response to the terrifying attack. NPR or Michigan Public Radio pulled away from the story at Temple Israel too soon.
When important voices are missing from coverage, it distorts the audience's perception of everything else.
NPR's coverage of the wars on Iran and Lebanon have documented the bombings and drone strikes. Correspondents stayed abreast of the political statements, explanations and shifting strategic justifications coming from President Trump and his cabinet members. And in a few cases, NPR has managed to get close to people who have directly experienced the war and utilized creative methods to bring their voices to American listeners.
In doing all this, NPR has given Americans what they need to understand their government's motivations and to hold their elected officials accountable for this war. That's what the press is supposed to do, when covering a war. — Kelly McBride
The Office of the Public Editor is a team. Reporters Amaris Castillo and Nicole Slaughter Graham and copy editor Merrill Perlman make this newsletter possible. Illustrations are by Carlos Carmonamedina. We are still reading all of your messages on social media and from our inbox. As always, keep them coming.
Kelly McBride
NPR Public Editor
Chair, Craig Newmark Center for Ethics & Leadership at the Poynter Institute
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