National Public Radio

I commute to DC from Silver Spring and just as the roads are predictably terrible and have been for years (especially Blair Road, but none are even mediocre and deserve to be called ‘good’), NPR makes it (the commute) even worse. Tired of hearing the words «NPR is supported by…» or «this traffic report is brought to you by…» or «you have been listening to», I decided to do an experiment. For several days I would turn the radio off so I didn’t hear those sacred business model (substitute torturous) plugs. I kept it off until the promotion was over. The result is that the radio was hardly ever on. In one hour there is, maybe, 10 minutes of meaningful content. It’s a big new space. Does anyone do anything for the public over there? What a scam. The advertising plugs are relentless and unlike every other station (except WPFW), the commercials (and have no doubt they are commercials) are monotonous drones and aren’t the least bit entertaining. It’s propaganda, pure and simple, with a mind to sway thought in the most mind numbing way. It gives a whole new meaning to their mantra: «the mind is our medium». Just don’t listen you say? Dont worry I’ll be turning it off at least 30 times on my way home. And for the record, I am not republican.

Pretty cool to visit HQ for NPR, even if the person guiding the tour is not an official employee. Those folks are too busy, of course! However, the tour guide was pretty knowledgeable, so you’ll be on good hands.
Here’s the play by play:
1. Register to tour the building via the website, and await your confirmation email.
2. Arrive 15 minutes early, choosing train, car or bike– all are relatively convenient.
3. Sign in at security desk, receive badge/​sticker with clip, and wait by the timeline of info. about NPR from start to 2013, when building became NPR HQ.
4. Meet tour guide and hear house rules– rule number one: no food. Rule number two: pictures only when explicit permission by your guide is given.
5. Tour studio 1. Tour main news floor from above. Tour green roof from inside. Tour another studio. Exit through gift shop.
It’s a neat building, LEED gold certified, so that’s pretty cool, too! It’s a large building with room for growth, so you won’t feel cramped like touring a college radio station. It’s a great space with lots of natural lighting, helping with mood and productivity. Enjoy it!

I found out about free one hour tours each weekday at 11 am from a colleague. I signed up and went today and arrived 20 minutes early to check in and store my stuff in secure lockers. Since I had a few extra minutes, I went to the NPR Commons, the official NPR shop. The shop has t shirts, books, gifts, cards, and other items for sale. Today, they also have the All Crafts Considered event from 3 — 8 pm.
Regina, the docent, gathered the group of 20 or so in the lobby and proceeded to tell us about the move from the Mass Ave location to its current location in the NoMa hood. The NPR location is housed in the former Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co. and remade into a beautiful LEED certified facility. Workers have stand up desks, multiple monitors, open cubicles and lots of natural light to bolster their environments. The place is stunningly beautiful, and I hope everyone working here is appreciative and happy. A lot of people on my tour were in awe of the beauty of this place.
Furthermore, we found out the roof has 7 satellite dishes and many plants that seem to survive through some of the last coldest days we’ve seen in months. Regina also pointed out the honeycombs and some other interesting tidbits about the place.
There is a staff cafeteria, which the general public does not have access to, but I think I caught a glimpse on the way out and it’s called Soundbyte Café. They also have an unofficial mascot who they named Nipper. They feed him soundbytes. Cute, no?
We were able to take pictures in very limited places during the tour such as in the lobby, a studio where recordings are made, and the gift shop.
Too bad we didn’t see any live or taped broadcasts but we did get to see a studio and see people working. The egg chair looked awesome!

National Public Radio is a welcome part of The Great Society.
They are accessible in mountains, often forests and the like. Their presence is felt on nearly any kind of device imaginable.
Their reporting is usually good. They go into depth and cover lots of kinds of issues. Sometimes they’ll go into territory like Carl Castle discussing the difference between deep dish and thin crust pizza.
Sometimes, they do have very strong biases. Many of their questions are loaded, specifically on issues of government funding. There have been very few things that they have not brought up the prospects for the government funding, even impractical considerations.
Some of their styles of speaking are silly. Once they discussed rises in the housing market by saying something like «This is Cathy, she is showing us around a house that she’s selling». That’s like saying «Jared, a 36-​year old programmer from Colorado, breathes air». We know what a house looks like.
The National Public Radio service will continue to be a source of understanding America in a mostly intellectual way.

This is the ultimate tour for all NPR fans and nerds out there. If you’re in DC, I highly recommend making a reservation and joining a volunteer docent led tour. The tour included the newsroom, studios, and the distribution center (I want an egg chair now!). If you can’t get a tour, you can at least enjoy the lobby which has story boards, and will eventually have video and audio as part of the display. And the gift shop is open to the public. Warning– it was hard to resist all the branded t-​shirts and mugs. Can’t wait to go back for their Christmas sale. Only downside, you can’t eat in the cafeteria… which is for staff only.

You’d have gotten 5 stars if we could eat at soundbites.
Visiting a radio station is sort of like visiting the senate. You get to see where people work, you sit where they sit, but you don’t get to meet the faces. This was the npr tour. A guide showed us around the building, we got to sit in a studio where they do interviews, we walked through the newsroom– all cool. However, we didnt get to meet any personalities. Well, theyre working so that might be too much to ask.
They also didnt let us eat in the employee cafeteria. Maybe thats because we’d all turn into fans and hit up personalities for autographs even though we dont know what any of them look like.
But it would have been cool.

My friend and I had a great tour of the NPR headquarters last week. They offer tours M-​F at 11am – advance sign up required.
The tour is more comprehensive than we imagined it would be – we were permitted to walk around the news floor and see some of our favorite NPR personalities! It took about an hour, and we learned a lot about the organization. Our guide was a recently-​hiredintern (not the woman who typically gives the tours), so she wasn’t able to answer all of the group’s questions, but she was very friendly. Their building is quite modern and beautiful as well. Afterwards, we walked over to Union Market for a great lunch!
NPR Tour + Union Market makes for a great afternoon. Go for it!

I took a tour of the new NPR headquarters, located in the Noma neighborhood, back in October, as part of an organization I am a part of. It was a very fun tour and we were able to see quite a bit of the studio, including the multi-​storied main room, the rooftop, and even a studio where the shows are produced and aired. The building is very interesting, as it is state of the art, but still incorporates a lot of the elements from its original state from back in the 60’s and 70’s. In all, it seems like an efficient, modern building and I was very fortunate to have gotten a tour of it recently.
The gift shop was unfortunately not open on the day I visited, but I’m looking forward to visiting again in the future and hopefully being able to visit the shop as well.

Very disappointing, and I say that as a big fan and supporter of NPR. In general, I think the kind of people who would show up for this are passionate fans, so I felt like it was a real wasted opportunity to further engage and excite us (and inspire donations). The tour started late and went well over an hour (contrary to what it says on the info we got). It basically consisted of slowly walking around the headquarters and stopping to look at five not-​very-​engaging views – the green rooftop (a very nice feature but not warranting a 10-​minute stop and pretty unrelated to NPR’s mission and what brought us there), the newsroom (basically looking at people working quietly in their cubes), an empty production/​control room, the half empty server room (literally just shelves and wiring), and a fifth stop we missed. We were about an hour and 20 minutes in at this point and really bored so we just left, saying we had a flight to catch. And we weren’t the first to bail – we ran into two others from our group who’d already left in the gift shop. The gift shop was by far the high point, although everything is probably available online.
A thriving media operation has so many opportunities to make a tour entertaining, and this just did not deliver. How about showing us how a story or program is put together or edited? How a producer and reporter work together? How a live program handles breaking news on the fly? Even just a video of the ATC or Morning Edition anchors helming a broadcast would have been interesting.
I guess I’d say the major failure was that the tour didn’t tell a story at all. I’m sure the tour leader is good at his actual job, but he wasn’t a good tour guide. He was totally unscripted, and not in a good way – just sharing incoherent tidbits as they came to him. Well, I did learn that Neal Conan and Lianne Hanson are now divorced – I guess that’s something.
If asked, I’d advise fellow news junkies and media mavens to skip NPR and head to the Newseum., which has something for everyone, including several interactive exhibits. It’s $ 20 but really worth it (and I think the ticket is good for two days). We spent more than 3 hours there, didn’t even see everything, and left very satisfied. We even learned some things.

From 2013, NPR has moved to a new building, so any reviews prior to that date reference the old location, so you know.
Tours are now offered daily at 11. We went last week, and enjoyed a nice hour-​long tour led by an engineer. You get to see the grassy roof (they will be growing their own vegetables soon!), an impressive overlook onto the cubicles where all the team is working, a tour of the studio (or a backup) for Morning Edition/​All Things Considered, and stops in their area for recording orchestras (no echo when you talk, kinda freaky), the server room, and the engineering area, and at last a gift shop!
The guide was lively and authoritative and answered lots of questions. And he pointed out that it was Supreme Court correspondent/​NPR superstar Nina Totenberg who shared an elevator ride with our group! Which sealed the deal for me purchasing the Nina Totin’ Bag as a memento of my stay.
It’s free, it’s informative, it’s one of the good things about America, and it’s almost a secret. Go!

I love NPR. However, I have not had a chance to take a tour of headquarters yet, but I did go to their Merchandise Sale this past weekend. There was a line to get in when we got there and David Green came outside to apologize for the wait since they were not expecting there to be a line. Unfortunately, I did not get to actually meet him (which I had been looking forward to). Once we got inside, it was really hard to see the merchandise since the room was full of people listening to the speakers at one end of the room. I have no idea who was speaking since I could not see them and missed the introductions.
I am satisfied with my purchases, the prices were not bad and it was nice to have access to the items they sell in their online shop so that you could see and touch everything (provided the crowd would move to allow you access). It’s too bad the room was so small and they do not have a gift shop, the set up could have been a little more accommodating that way. I would go again if they do it next year, even if it’s just to get a chance to meet some of the on-​air voices I’ve grown to enjoy listening to everyday.

New coverage is disappointing every day. Here’s why:
1) You do not give enough info to make it relevant to me.
Example: Chestnut Tree story — you did not say: how I can help Chestnuts in the US.
2) The way things are said is important.
Example: in the NY Planners story of 12÷13÷12, they say, «ice sheets will melt…» instead of the truth that ice sheet ARE melting.
3) The words chosen come across as negative. They imply ‘things are bad’ and ‘things will never change’.
Example: in the story on the oldest Senators leaving speeches, the Senators say some wise and heartening things, then the reporter wraps up the story with: «still, the departure of the moderates may not bode well…»
Basically, your coverage is: not useful to me and a bummer to listen to. I really expect better from such a powerful progressive institution.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This being a time-​driven business, tours run on schedule or early. Be sure to arrive EARLY for your 11:00 tour. We (husband, self, two daughters, ages 11 and 13) arrived on time (11:00 exactly by their wall clock), and the tour had already left at 10:55! We missed the beginning of it and the introductions, and I felt a little at sea for the rest of the tour.
That said, we loved our tour of NPR headquarters! It was amazing! Studios, offices, NPR music, tech repair, the library, tape cold storage… Very in-​depth and with an extremely knowledgable employee who’s been there over 25 years. Even my children enjoyed it; they hear NPR at home all the time.
If you tend to get a little star-​struck and wobbly, think ahead of what questions you might want to ask in various departments. I adore NPR and was so happy to be walking around seeing everything that I did not think of questions until after the tour was over.
We even saw Guy Raz doing an interview with author N. D. Wilson. His publicist gave my daughters boxing monkey patches from the new book, and afterward the author talked with them for a long time in front of the building.
They are building a new headquarters, and I hope there will be a gift shop. I had planned to buy a hat, a t-​shirt, car window decal and a license plate frame at the gift shop, but none were available for purchase there (no shipping fee!).
Also, I’d like more art work (photos of NPR enployees in action/​historic NPR moments?) on the walls (like the West Wing of the White House has). For an organization that I perceive as being extremely friendly to the arts, I was very surprised by all the blank walls.

Tours are only on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11:00am. They are free, surprisingly in depth, and our host was very informative and somewhat hilarious.
On the tour, we got to see NPR Music, several production studios, and the offices for both All things Considered, and Morning Edition.
Really great tour, and depending on how many pretentious question-​askers there are in your group, tours can last anywhere between 45 and 75 minutes.
Sadly, no gift shop. They’d rather you get your gifts via drive time and your local station. :(:(:(