Why NPR Changed How It Talks About Podcasts

[Commentary] Tensions between the needs of terrestrial radio, the foundational base of NPR, and digital distribution, its future in some form or other, may not always be apparent to most NPR listeners and readers. But they are never far from the surface these days in the public radio system and do occasionally rise to public notice — such as in the disconnect that some listeners now feel when they hear archived newscasts in the personalized mobile app NPR One that start with the word "Live," though they clearly aren't. March 17, a spirited conversation broke out on Twitter and multiple closed Facebook groups as public radio insiders and others who closely follow the digital evolution of journalism debated an internal NPR memo that was posted online. In it, Christopher Turpin, NPR's vice president of news programming and operations, laid out how news employees should refer on air, in NPR's newsmagazines, to NPR One, as well as podcasts, which are widely seen as a key element of the future of public radio listening.