About the only “good radio” available anywhere these days is National Public Radio, which most of us in the Kansas City area access through the local NPR affiliate, KCUR-FM, 89.3.
But, alas, even NPR occasionally disappoints its listeners, and just such a disappointment occurred this morning during coverage of a huge story — the shooting in Alexandria, VA, of U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana and four other people, including two Capitol Police officers.
Ultimately, the shooter, identified as 66-year-old James Hodgkinson of Belleville, IL, was shot and killed, either by the Capitol Police officers, who served as security guards for Scalise, or Alexandria police.
Steve Inskeep
About 9:30 this morning, as I was driving home from the bank and listening to Morning Edition, one of the show’s hosts, Steve Inskeep, announced he had on the line Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama, who had been at the baseball field and witnessed the entire event.
Brooks started by recounting how, while standing with a bat near the third-base line, “I heard this loud ‘blam!’ ”
He turned toward where the sound had come from and saw a man shooting a rifle through the holes of a chain-link fence that extended down and outside of the third-base line. Then, he heard someone scream “active shooter!”
Vulnerable and out in the open, Brooks ran toward the batting cage and got down behind a plastic shield at the base of the cage. Realizing the plastic wouldn’t be much help, he then ran toward and dove into the first-base dugout, the floor of which was a foot or so below ground level.
Other players had also taken cover there, and one of them, a congressional staff member, had been shot in the calf. Brooks said he pulled the belt off his shorts and tied it around the man’s leg to slow the blood flow.
Next, Brooks said he began hearing gunshots coming from the dugout and at first thought it could be a second shooter. Instead…”It was a Capitol Police officer who was using the cinder-block dugout area for cover, and he was shooting from around the edge (of the dugout).”
Moments later, as Brooks recounted how the officer was shooting “”across the baseball diamond,” Inskeep interrupted him, saying…
“Congressman, I’m obliged to stop you there for the moment. If you’ll stay on the line, we’d like to come back after a short break — which we’re required to take for our NPR stations — and hear more of your story.”
…It was very disconcerting and frustrating to have the Congressman’s story interrupted, but I thought the break would last a minute or two and then it would be back to his story.
But no. That was at 9:40 a.m. After station identification, it was on to several minutes of national news. Then several minutes of local news. Then to a lengthy local story from KCUR’s Dan Margolies, who’s a great reporter but the last person I wanted to be hearing from just then.
To my dismay, I soon realized that we listeners of KCUR would not be hearing the rest of Brooks’ compelling story.
At the top of the hour, it was another round of national news and then on to the ever-riveting Gina Kaufman and her local Central Standard show.
Within minutes, we were exposed to radio at its best and radio at its worst. It’s a damn shame that NPR is so rigid that it had to break off precisely when it did. Certainly, Inskeep, veteran that he is, could have wrung out another minute or two! What’s the worst that could have happened? The KCUR staff would have had to adjust on the fly and cut a minute or two of local programming and news.
I blame Inskeep. He should have held off on the break and found a way to wrap up the story, even if it meant breaking the agreement NPR has with its affiliates…This was a monster story. There are times for exceptions, and this was one of them.
…Later, I went to the NPR website and saw that, indeed, Inskeep had kept Brooks on the line and had given him about three more minutes of air time…at some point.
In Round Two of the interview, Brooks recounted how he and two other Congressmen, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Brad Wenstrip of Ohio, went to the aid of Scalise, who, after being shot in the hip, had dragged himself from near second base to the outfield grass. At the direction of Wenstrup, a podiatrist, Brooks applied pressure to Scalise’s wound with a cloth.
“He was conscious,” Brooks said, referring to Scalise. “You could tell he was in pain; he was immobile.”
Brooks concluded by expressing “tremendous gratitude” to the Capitol Police. “But for them, it would have been a massacre,” he said.
It was good to get the second part of the interview, but I imagine very few KCUR listeners got to hear it, online or elsewhere.
That was bad radio, a tremendous disservice to listeners not only in Kansas City but around the country.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
There have been a number of times through the years when I wish an interview could go on for longer, but we (and program creators/distributors like NPR) are indeed slaves to the clock.
Allow me to explain.
815 stations carry Morning Edition.
Many stations (like KCUR) operate completely live operations in the morning – meaning, when you hear Morning Edition, Michael Byars is sitting there at our control surface, feeding Morning Edition as fed from our satellite receiver. During breaks, Michael airs a combination of bed music, promos, his own voice, traffic, underwriting, etc. We then return to the network. We are on a strict clock for these breaks. If Steve Inskeep had said “we’re going to skip this station break” – we would have been ready…and it would have created a slight inconvenience. However….
Other stations operate on an automation system: their systems know that each hour during Morning Edition (let’s use the 9 am hour as an example), there are breaks at: 9:06-9:07, 9:18 to 9:19, 9:20:30 to 9:22, 9:30 to 9:30:30, 9:31 to 9:33, 9:41 to 9:42, and so on. (if you’d like a full clock, I’m happy to send you one.) These systems are timed to insert prerecorded content in those breaks. If Steve Inskeep had blown through the break, station content would have covered the interview up. That sounds pretty bad, too.
And other stations use a combination of automation with live assist: their automation systems control when content goes on the air, whether that content be a network feed (like Morning Edition), a prerecorded underwriting message, or a live mic feed from an announcer. In this case, if Inskeep had blown through the break, it would have sounded just as messy — if not more messy from a listener standpoint – than the previous scenario.
In either case 2 or 3, without advance notice, you would have had a (pardon the phrase) cluster at half the stations across the country.
When NPR moves to what they call “special coverage” they will move to a special clock with fewer breaks, and even during special coverage – like the case of a Senate intelligence committee hearing or a Presidential news conference — they will “pull” the breaks and the cues that are sent down satellite receivers so that fewer stations’ automation systems are affected.
But Morning Edition wasn’t covering the shooting story through the entire Morning Edition hour — and did not move to Special Coverage today. They communicate clearly with stations, and if they had turned to special coverage, they would send an email indicating they were doing so, advising station managers/engineers/etc. to change their systems to accommodate that coverage.
Should NPR have moved to special coverage at 9 am? I don’t know. I don’t make those calls. But I have great confidence in those who do make those decisions at the network level.
I do understand your frustration – and I want you to know that NPR and KCUR do everything they can to bring you in-depth interviews and breaking news
coverage, being sensitive to guests and listeners, while ensuring that stations can bring this coverage as seamlessly as possible to their audiences.
We always welcome your feedback.
Stephen Steigman
Chief of Broadcast Operations
KCUR 89.3 | kcur.org
That helps…Thank you for the in-depth explanation, Stephen.
Knowing that — and knowing that Steve Inskeep also was aware of precisely when the break was coming — he should have interrupted Brooks a minute earlier, noting a break was around the corner, and urged him to wrap it up. If you listen to the entire 7 minute 17 second spot, he wasted a couple of minutes at the outset and never expressed any sense of urgency during the interview. Then, all of a sudden, at the climax of Brooks’ story, he says, “Congressman, I’m obliged to stop you…”
He blew it. He also misled the listeners by saying, “We’d like to come back after a short break.” Not a short break…an interminable break, relatively speaking.
“…then on to the ever-riveting Gina Kaufman…
heh heh heh
What with your vast wealth I’m stunned that you don’t have Sirius radio so you can get reliable news while driving. All of the cable news channels can be heard. But if you must be cheap, KANU out of Lawrence is vastly superior to KCUR on all counts.
Quite frankly, KCUR is the worst source for local news in the area given that its original content comes primarily from disgraced has beens like Sam Zeff and a leftist advocacy group out of Topeka.
You know, John, I wondered about that yesterday as I was writing the post. It occurred to me I should have immediately switched over to KANU, which might have gone back to the interview either after a station identification or at after the news at the top of the hour…I’ve got a call in to Darrell Brogdon, programming director, to find out what the experience was for KANU listeners.
Just found out from Brogdon that KANU switches from Morning Edition to classical music at 9 a.m. So no help there…
But had you switched to KANU the classical music would have been soothing and you would have felt better.
I told Brogdon as much, saying classical music “soothes the soul” — an old line I got from a college history professor. And Brogdon replied, “That’s why we do it.”
…I also heard from Elizabeth Jensen, the NPR ombudswoman, who said:
“We’ll pass along your opinions, but yes, the segments are governed by a computer-automated clock that dictates the breaks. Ignoring them would create havoc on the air for those stations that are automated.”
So, I guess my only legitimate beef, with all the facts assembled, is that Inskeep didn’t manage his time well. He knew the break was coming and should have headed Mo Brooks toward the wrap a minute earlier.
John, they play waaayy too much violin music and sometimes it’s not so soothing. Personally, I don’t think their selections are as good as they used to be. And, PHC will never be the same (not their fault, though).