All things considerate: how NPR makes Tavis Smiley sound like Linda Wertheimer.

• Author: Montopoli, Brian

LAST MAY, I HAD THE CHANCE TO PARTICIPATE in an NPR fellowship for young journalists interested in public radio. There were eight of us in all, each of whom worked with a mentor to produce a story that would become part of a Web-based news magazine. In order to decide who would host the magazine, the mentors and NPR folks held auditions: One by one, we were required to stand up and read a few lines to the assembled crowd, who would then compare notes. We weren't allowed to watch the auditions. As we waited in the hallway, some of us tried to make small talk; others found a quiet corner where they could go over their lines. But we were all thinking about the same thing: The Voice, the NPR Voice, and how the hell we were going to pull it off. The Voice is tough to describe, but you know it when you hear it: It's serious, carefully modulated, genially authoritative. It rings with unspoken knowledge of good wine and The New York Times Book Review. We were terrified of it.

As it turned out, I couldn't quite manage The Voice--the hosting gig went to someone else--but I quickly realized that if I wanted anything to do with NPR, I'd need to figure it out pretty quick. NPR's ascendancy has been striking--"Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered," its drivetime shows, are the second and third most popular radio programs in the country, and the network's listenership continues to grow--up 18.5 percent in 2001 alone. A big part of the reason is the unparalleled quality of its news coverage. NPR's journalism is in-depth, accurate, fair, intelligent, and, not insignificantly, virtually commercial-free. In the sea of vituperative right-wing radio, NPR is an island of sanity, civility, and seriousness. And its reporters and personalities are truly talented: Their ability to explain complex issues in plain, sharp, value-neutral language may be unsurpassed in all of broadcasting.

But the network has also become something of a victim of its success. If you listen to a lot of NPR, you realize how similar it all sounds: no matter who is talking, or what they're talking about. There's a simple reason for the homogeneity: The drivetime shows, the 800-pound gorillas of public radio, have become so successful that the sensibilities of their influential hosts and correspondents have come to dominate all other NPR programming. Susan Stamberg, Nina Totenberg, Bob Edwards, Carl Kasell, and their peers have a tight grip on the sound of NPR, especially Linda Wertheimer, whose cadence--a sort of patrician delay--still defines the NPR sound even though she no longer serves as a host. It is a sound...