NPR Host Asks, ‘Where can I add value? What aspect of the story is missing?’

In recent years, an unprecedented number of women of color have risen to executive and shot-calling positions in news media in the United States — but their representation is still far below their proportion of the population. The Women’s Media Center’s recently released report, “Women of Color in U.S. News Leadership 2023,” includes interviews with 20 history-making women of color news executives in television, print, digital media, and radio who shed light on how they have navigated their careers in media, the ways in which they create inclusive workplaces, and why it is crucial for news media staffs to reflect the diversity of their audiences. Below is our conversation with Michel Martin, co-host of NPR’s Morning Edition.

In 1971, after New York City’s WABC-TV fired Black journalist Melba Tolliver for sporting an Afro to President Nixon’s daughter’s wedding, an outraged fourth grader ordered her beautician to sheer off her chemically straightened pigtails. It left that native New Yorker with an itty bitty natural of her own.

Ever since her schoolgirl’s gesture of solidarity with Tolliver, journalist Michel Martin has worn an Afro nonstop — it’s a preference and something of a declaration — including while working at The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and ABC News.

Martin moved from that TV network to National Public Radio 13 years ago, expressly to launch Tell Me More, which she developed and hosted until — against her objections — station bosses canceled it. Martin now co-hosts Morning Edition, NPR’s news magazine.

This is an abridged version of Martin’s conversation with the Women’s Media Center.

On leading from the anchor’s chair: As a host at NPR, you don’t hire or fire people. But you’re the brain trust of the show, the intellectual leadership of the show.

And you’re a part of the emotional leadership of the show, helping people to bring out the best in themselves. One of the things I tell my staff is, ‘If we’re all having the same thoughts, we don’t need to be here. What are you noticing in the world around you that is different from what I’m noticing?’

Diversity isn’t just demographics. It is bringing the totality of people’s knowledge, experience, and learning to the table. It makes for a richer experience for everyone. As a host, I try to stand up for that.

On telling your boss he made a wrong move: When they decided to cancel Tell Me More, its audience was soaring in number, and NPR caught flak from all across the country about the cancellation. I told them point-blank that I didn’t like what they’d done. But this is not a democracy, right?

The seeds of what we planted with Tell Me More still are bearing fruit in other NPR shows that came afterward. Life Kit, for example, runs in segments and is news you can use. I’ll argue that that type of service-oriented journalism, which some people used to look down on, is rooted in ethnic media. Especially at the turn of the last century, those media were answering questions of ‘How do you live in this new world, how do you vote, how do you organize communities.’ Why assume that everyone knows how to buy a car or house or manage debt when they’ve never done that before?

It would be great if more of us were media moguls, creating media empires and having access to those resources that let us do these stories on scale. Having said that, my attitude is that, when a door opens, you walk through it. I’m going to do what I can do in the time that I have. I’m going to tell the stories that I think need to be told in the way that I think they need to be told, with the people that I want to tell those stories.

I have always seen my role as ‘Where can I add value? What voice is missing? What aspect of the story is missing?’ And I’m also obviously thinking about parts of the audience that, perhaps, aren’t top of mind for everybody. All of us should be doing that.

On being a mentor: Years ago, when I moderated a National Press Club panel, one of the lawyers on that panel said, ‘Real mentoring takes place within the context of real work.’

I’ve made that my mantra. I have kids and a husband and, when my parents were alive, I had them to take care of. If I have any bandwidth beyond that, then I expand the circle. I understand that this causes some hurt feelings. I’ll get emails from some nice young person in college, asking if I’ll mentor them. And I’ll often say, ‘I want the best for you, but I don’t know enough about what you’re doing or what you’re trying to do to be helpful to you.’

Plus, NPR has a formal mentoring program that I support. Even there, I’m very judicious; I do not take on a mentee every spring cohort or fall cohort. And the fall cohort is very intense, with us meeting with mentees every week, pushing and probing: ‘What’s been your rose? What’s been your thorn? What do you need help with?’

If I’m in this relationship with you, I’m really in it. I want the experience to be meaningful to the person I’m actually working with, as opposed to some surface thing. I’m not going to shortchange it or be superficial about it.

On why the C-suite is important: Cheryl Deval is general manager of a public radio station in Louisiana. Kenya Young was named last year to the newly created position of senior vice president of WNYC Studios, which is part of New York Public Radio. Those are Black women.

Being on the business side of things used to be the furthest thing from my mind. Now it is on my mind, even if I don’t think that’s the direction that my career is going to take.

Yes, being a host is a position of leadership. But I’m hoping more people of color will understand and look at the decision, for example, to cancel Tell Me More. That was made in the C-suite, not the anchor chair. And I’m hoping that people will look at my advocacy and the argument I made for Tell Me More and for why that kind of programming matters.

I hope that people of color will think about the C-suite because that is where so many opportunities are created.