Audie Cornish speaks upon her exit

January 6, 2022 8:48 PM

All Thing Considered host Audie Cornish is departing. She shares, apparently reluctantly, on twitter: "It seems my assumption that I would have a quiet transition was naïve. So I will attempt to provide whatever insight I can… using language the internet understands lol 🧵#NPR". Threadreader version.
posted by hippybear (26 comments total)

Who are the other three hosts who left? I think she’s talking about NPR overall, not just ATC, so Garcia-Navarro, right? I don’t know the other two.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:13 PM on January 6, 2022

Looks like Garcia-Navarro, Noel King and Joshua Johnson amongst others Ahh, and I had missed that Shereen Marisol Meraji had left too.
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:33 PM on January 6, 2022

She took herself out of NPR ... but that thread is exactly like an NPR story: bring up a very important issue; make all the noises like you are who you are and it is what it is; come right up to the edge of really laying it out — and then stick a toe in, decide it's way too chilly, run back inside and act like you’re a member of the polar bear club who belly flopped through two inches of ice and paddled around for an hour.
posted by jamjam at 10:53 PM on January 6, 2022 [44 favorites]

NPR’s internal statistics show that its workforce is 62 percent White, 15 percent Black/African American, 12 percent Asian American and 7 percent Latino or Hispanic.

For WaPo to list the management statistics (*) would have probably been more relevant, since managers are the ones who would likely make editorial decisions that compel people to leave. (*: Slightly worse, in terms of diversity.) Still, she says she isn't leaving out of malice or resentment, in her own words, and that she simply wants to try something new. Nothing obviously controversial about that.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:05 AM on January 7, 2022 [3 favorites]

I'm going to miss hearing Audie on ATC. I wish her the very best in the future.
posted by james33 at 1:46 AM on January 7, 2022 [4 favorites]

All of these losses should just be devastating wake up calls to NPR to start listening to their very best talent before it's too late. Personally, losing Shereen from Code Switch is just heartbreaking. It will not be the same show without her voice and viewpoints.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:15 AM on January 7, 2022 [6 favorites]

Shereen Marisol Meraji tweeted about that WaPo article yesterday, pointing to the percentage of Latinos in the population vs the percentage at NPR.
posted by ceejaytee at 4:27 AM on January 7, 2022 [3 favorites]

Systemic issues are systemic.
posted by eustatic at 4:32 AM on January 7, 2022

Well, this sucks.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:51 AM on January 7, 2022

Pretty good piece on this in The Verge - the entire industry is in such a shift these past few years, so many new platforms and formats and conduits being explored, so many new, fresh opportunities - look at the landscape and it's unrecognizable from 10 years ago and, let's face it, NPR loves nothing if not its traditions (and I'm as guilty as anyone on that).
posted by thecincinnatikid at 7:40 AM on January 7, 2022 [3 favorites]

I will so, so, so miss Shereen Marisol Meraji on Code Switch -- and I will be looking forward to whatever she does next.

If you'd like to hear Audie Cornish talking about some of what it took to host ATC, check out this great interview with her on The Turnaround.
posted by ourobouros at 10:04 AM on January 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

All those gifs. So many gifs.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:33 AM on January 7, 2022 [3 favorites]

Shereen Marisol Meraji is going to be a Neiman Foundation Fellow where she "will explore ways for public media to attract and retain Latino audiences" until July 2022 when she joins UC Berkeley school of Journalism as an assistant professor.
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:27 PM on January 7, 2022 [4 favorites]

I've read the Twitter thread and...have absolutely no idea what's going on? It's completely information-free. The only item containing any actual information on why she left is:

Trust, you have the same issues brewing (pay equity, cultural exclusion, problems of recruitment and retention).

What issues? In what way has NPR had problems in these areas? What specifically happened with regard to her? Her original announcement is similarly detail-free. The WaPo article goes into a little more detail but it's still vague intimations about disrespect and a lack of creative freedom.

Of course, she doesn't owe us any explanation at all, but then she made a thread promising insight into her situation which offers no insight at all.
posted by star gentle uterus at 1:17 PM on January 7, 2022 [5 favorites]

I'm pretty sure this a "not going to burn any bridges while trying to leave some breadcrumbs" sort of thread.

There are articles and interviews being done and stuff. If you google around, you can find more. NPR (which I love from the deepest bottom of my heart) has some real issues, apparently.
posted by hippybear at 1:37 PM on January 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure this a "not going to burn any bridges while trying to leave some breadcrumbs" sort of thread.

But it's not. There are no "breadcrumbs", just repeating that there are problems and it's okay to talk about those problems but then not talking about them. I have Googled around because I really was confused, but all of the articles are the exact same: POC/women are leaving NPR in numbers, this indicates internal problems, no one has said what they are.
posted by star gentle uterus at 1:43 PM on January 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

I initially saw that tweet in my feed without any further context, and my first reaction was to open her profile and check her pronouns.
Took me a minute to realize she wasn't talking about gender transitioning.
posted by cheshyre at 2:08 PM on January 7, 2022 [4 favorites]

I mean Joshua Johnson, who was great on 1A, left for a plum MSNBC job and is getting an NBC prime time show, so that’s not a great data point. I wish there was more here about what the actual problems are. My take is that NPR is doing well compared to other major outlets, but still not good enough, and they appear to be working on it. Or maybe there’s some exec there who sucks and is driving people away? Who knows… this Twitter thread doesn’t say or even really imply anything.
posted by freecellwizard at 3:02 PM on January 7, 2022

POC/women are leaving NPR in numbers, this indicates internal problems, no one has said what they are.

Many PoC voices heard and little listening being done.
posted by Revvy at 4:02 PM on January 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

It's vague and yet pointing, as some of the GIFs also seem to do. Hint hint yes, there's job dissatisfaction and issues, hint hint yes, especially among PoC working there.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:36 PM on January 7, 2022

I'd be curious to know how NPR's POC turnover compares to their non-POC turnover. It would also be interesting to compare to both categories of turnover at other orgs. Without that kind of context, it seems very hard to evaluate the significance of a collection of people leaving around the same time who happen to share certain demographic characteristics.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 5:02 PM on January 7, 2022

I have Googled around because I really was confused, but all of the articles are the exact same: POC/women are leaving NPR in numbers, this indicates internal problems, no one has said what they are.

Think for a second about the kind of internal problems at a network that can't be named without serious career consequences and it should be obvious.
posted by zymil at 7:07 AM on January 8, 2022 [3 favorites]

Ha-Hoa Hamano, who built important digital infrastructure at NPR, discusses her experience with sexual harassment and endless navel-gazing.
posted by Jesse the K at 1:32 PM on January 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

I mean Joshua Johnson, who was great on 1A, left for a plum MSNBC job and is getting an NBC prime time show, so that’s not a great data point.

When your organization's problematic culture makes smart, talented people want to leave, those smart, talented people go on to other prestigious positions.

The second half of that sentence doesn't negate the first half.
posted by BrashTech at 5:45 PM on January 10, 2022

Think for a second about the kind of internal problems at a network that can't be named without serious career consequences and it should be obvious.

I don't know why everyone is dancing around this: it must be a continuation of the same culture of sexual harassment that resulted in serial harasser Mike Oreskes being hired into a leadership position. Occam's razor here, people.
posted by mr_roboto at 9:50 AM on January 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

So, this thread is still open, so I'm putting this here, but it might need its own thread:

@kellyecevers "Hi everybody, I’ve been on vacation. Hey @NPR, what’d I miss??? LOL. OK, so I know I’m not anybody who’s anybody, but I’m still gonna mega-Thread cuz I have some THOUGHTS 1/" [twitter thread link]
posted by hippybear at 8:45 PM on January 14, 2022 [2 favorites]