Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

Farai Chideya’s News And Notes on NPR Has Been Cancelled

NPR is announcing it has cancelled Farai Chideya’s brilliant African American-themed talk show “News and Notes”. Argh.

Aside from being a good friend and a brilliant journalist, Farai has changed the game for people of color’s media, regularly broadcasting a smart, topical, and witty show on a national level. She was the first hip-hop gen host on NPR. Her show, on the air since 2005, was axed along with “Day To Day”. In all 64 journalists will lose their jobs.

NPR leadership blamed the layoffs on a decline in corporate sponsorships. Ain’t that ironic.

The truth is that NPR has been fickle with younger audiences and audiences of color. Its audience continues to age. The median age is 48.

While NPR has experimented with bringing in a more diverse listenership, it hasn’t shown much willingness to commit. The list of casualties includes Tavis Smiley (News and Notes’ predecessor) and Ed Gordon (Farai’s predecessor at News and Notes), not to mention a long list of young producers and staffers of color.

The only remaining show for African Americans on NPR–never mind Latinos and Asian Americans–will be Michel Martin’s relatively new “Tell Me More”.

Farai and her team will be on the air until March 20th. Whether they will be employed after that depends on you. Jasmyne Cannick has already set up email forms and petition forms to the NPR top brass. Let em know…

posted by Jeff Chang @ 8:01 pm | 3 Comments

3 Responses to “Farai Chideya’s News And Notes on NPR Has Been Cancelled”

Maximiliano says:

December 11, 2008 at 5:03 pm

What about Al Letson’s show??
Maximiliano says:

December 11, 2008 at 5:04 pm

i guess thats cpb not npr but stiiiillll!!!
Zentronix says:

December 11, 2008 at 9:22 pm

i don’t know that al letson’s show has been greenlit. anyway, i think you may have missed the point…the loss of farai and her team has huge implications for anyone who cares about smart programming for the hip-hop generation on npr. that’s why it’s worth letting those fools know.

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