If it’s not broke, break it

Posted on March 24, 2004 by Gene

More detail has emerged in the ouster of Bob Edwards from NPR’s Morning Edition.

“I would have loved to have stayed with ‘Morning Edition,’ ” said Edwards, 56. “But it’s not my candy store.”

An NPR announcement that he would become a senior correspondent for NPR News was premature, he said yesterday.

NPR executive vice president Ken Stern called the change part of a “natural evolution” that “had to do with the changing needs of our listeners.” It was “a programming decision about the right sound,” said Stern, who expressed confidence that Edwards would remain with the network.

… Edwards said he thought that Jay Kernis, NPR senior vice president for programming, had been “primarily” responsible for his ouster. Asked if he’d had any warning about the change, he said: “That’s hard to say. Did [Kernis] express his feelings that he would prefer somebody else or that he didn’t like my style? Yes.” But Edwards said he never thought he would actually lose his job.

The idea behind it, Stern said, was “to make sure we were in the best position to serve the changing needs of our listeners.” In today’s news environment, he said, people demand both immediacy and depth, which is a hard thing to achieve. “It’s not about Bob, who did wonderful things,” Stern said. It’s about “who are the right people to meet these needs.”

If NPR was committed to the needs of their listeners, they’d have left Bob where he is. Morning Edition is the number 1 morning radio show in the country, topping such heavy hitters as Howard Stern and Don Imus. It’s the number 1 fundraiser for most NPR affiliates.
And yet, they say that it doesn’t have the right sound? To what do they attribute it’s success? Cripes, here in Washington the show repeats several times over 4 hours, filling my morning with Bob.
Morning Edition already has immediacy and depth, and coupled with Bob Edwards it also has humanity and a certain personal softness.
Have they nothing better to do than tamper with a huge success?
Welcome to the new Morning Edition. Remember New Coke?

[Update 5:54pm: KQED alone reports over a hundred thousand e-mails and phone calls in support of Bob Edwards. A staffer there says that it's possible that Edwards. who is reported to be angry over the situation, may not stay even if NPR has a change of heart.]