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About BPR News

Five BPR News team members sitting at a table in BPR conference room with window behind them
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BPR News serves Western North Carolina with extensive news coverage, including important news items shared with its sister station, BPR Classic. BPR News programming includes the NPR content you count on, along with the local, national and international news stories that mean the most to you.

How We Work:

BPR's news team members are not transcriptionists. We apply rigorous journalistic practices to our work. Our craft is a particular skillset, honed over time and revised and improved throughout our work. We recognize errors will occur, and we provide transparent corrections whenever necessary.

We do not purport to have the answers. We listen, consistently and carefully, to community members about their wants, needs, and hopes. We do so with keen awareness of and attention to our shared history of systematically ignoring and/or marginalizing individuals, communities and nations of Americans and North Carolinians.

In our publication, BPR follows the standards, practices and protocols of NPR’s Ethics Handbook and augments those guidelines with Laist/KPCC’s Style Guide. We consult other helpful style guides including the Disability Language Style Guide, the Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists Style Guide, and the Native American Journalists Association resources.

BPR News Department Values Statement:


INDEPENDENCE:
We believe in the independence of our news coverage. We maintain a firewall between news coverage decisions and revenue sources. We accept gifts, grants and sponsorships from individuals and organizations for the general support of our activities, but our news judgments are made independently and not on the basis of donor support.

CONTEXT:
It isn’t enough to report that news happened. We strive to tell you why it happened, the factors and issues leading to it happening, and what is next now that it did happen.
 
IMPACT:
As part of the context of any story we report, we will focus on who is impacted – be it a single individual or group or thousands of them. That will bring the connection – emotional and intellectual - to our listeners that we value so highly.
 
CONNECT:
We want to connect our work with our listeners, and we want them to feel connected to it. Showing the context and the impact in every story will build that connection, which puts the public in public radio.
 
ENGAGE: 
We want our work to engage the listener beyond the first interaction. We want our work to spur listeners to become connected and more involved in their community.
 
EDUCATE:
We embrace our role as educators. Each story has something new to tell, or contains something previously unknown to someone. We hope our listeners learn something new with each story we produce, and that it brings them a greater understanding of their community and world.
 
CLARITY:
Our work – which will often feature those in government and law - will be accessible to all. That means delivering it in clear language that can be understood, even if it means explaining words and terms that may not be familiar to some listeners. 
 
RESPECT:
Disagreements are part of the news, and we will report on them. But we will not abide disrespect. Civility is a core principle of public radio. To achieve it we must always offer respect, particularly in areas of disagreement. Those who do not run risk of not having their voices heard with us.