Latest news with #Cavin
Yahoo
15-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
NPR reverses course after advising Ari Shapiro to skip Pride event
National Public Radio mistakenly advised Ari Shapiro, the longtime gay host of All Things Considered, to skip a corporate Pride event, before reversing course, Semafor reports. In an embarrassing lapse, the initial email to Shapiro, was sent to a group email by mistake, notifying most of the NPR editorial staff of its recommendation. Keep up with the latest in + news and politics. 'The guidance in our ethics handbook is to 'avoid appearances at private industry or corporate functions,'' Tony Cavin, NPR's managing editor for standards and practices, wrote on Wednesday in an email to Shapiro and seen by Semafor. 'Because this is a closed corporate event I think it would be best to politely decline,' Cavin recommended. Shapiro immediately questioned the recommendation, noting he had previously spoken at Pride events with the approval of management. He also noted that Cavin had sent the message to an editorial group rather than Shapiro individually, and that the message 'went to pretty much everyone in the newsroom.' Following publication of the story by Semafor, a spokesperson for NPR said Shapiro was free to attend the event without objection from management. 'This decision was made shortly after the original email thread,' NPR said. NPR has been under renewed threats from Republicans to eliminate its funding. Shortly after Trump's inauguration, the Federal Communications Commission announced it was investigating the network for potentially violating its charter by running commercials for sponsors. In February, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced the Defund Government Sponsored Propaganda Act, which, if passed, would end federal taxpayer funding for NPR and the Public Broadcasting System. Shapiro has been with the network since 2001 when he interned for the network's Morning Edition. He later worked as a reporter in Atlanta and Miami and covered the White House. In 2015, he became the co-host of the network's flagship afternoon news program, All Things Considered. He also regularly performs as a guest singer in the band Pink Martini. In 2019 he appeared with Alan Cummings in the cabaret Och & Oy! A Considered Cabaret, which had performances in Fire Island and Provincetown. He's also the host of The Mole on Netflix and the best-selling author of The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a life spent listening. Shapiro married his longtime boyfriend, Michael Gottlieb, in 2004 at the San Francisco City Hall in a ceremony performed by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom. Gottlieb is a lawyer who worked in the White House during the Obama administration.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
NPR urged anchor to avoid upcoming Pride event
National Public Radio dissuaded one of its most visible gay employees from attending a corporate LGBTQ Pride event, as the Trump administration and congressional Republicans put pressure on the public broadcaster. 'The guidance in our ethics handbook is to 'avoid appearances at private industry or corporate functions,'' the organization's managing editor for standards and practices, Tony Cavin, wrote to longtime anchor Ari Shapiro on Wednesday in an email, which was apparently sent by accident to many other NPR journalists. 'Because this is a closed corporate event I think it would be best to politely decline,' Cavin wrote, according to a copy of the email exchange seen by Semafor. The host replied several minutes later asking Cavin why he had previously approved appearances at similar events. 'Every year I've spoken at corporate pride events and you've personally signed off on them. It has never been an issue before,' he said. 'I'm curious what's changed.' (Shapiro also noted that Cavin had 'mistakenly replied to newsdesk and international editors' so the message 'went to pretty much everyone in the newsroom.') Shapiro and NPR did not respond to requests for comment, though Shapiro has navigated how his identity impacts his job at the organization before. The host wrote in 2023 that when then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was briefly issuing same-sex marriage licenses in 2004, he asked his boss whether getting married to his partner would be a violation of NPR's guidelines, which prohibited the organization's journalists from participating in political acts (Shapiro said his boss told him 'of course' he could get married).As Semafor first reported last year, NPR and its member stations have become targets of an increasingly intense Republican funding squeeze, and now find themselves at the center of the new administration's attempts to put federal pressure on media organizations it sees as ideologically opposed to its agenda. The organization has attempted to make moves on the margins to placate the Trump White House and congressional Republicans, who want to strip federal funding from NPR, PBS, and their various member stations. In an interview at Semafor's summit in Washington last month, NPR CEO Katherine Maher acknowledged that the organization would not be hiring anyone to replace its outgoing head of diversity equity and inclusion. The organization has also said that it is cooperating with a recent inquiry from the Federal Communications Commission into whether it and its member stations have violated regulations in its sponsorship practices. But some member stations believe the key to their survival is distancing themselves from NPR's national brand. Last week, leaders of South Carolina Public Radio announced that they want to unwind their membership from NPR and focus resources on locally produced content, rather than paying to air NPR national shows. During her interview with Semafor, Maher noted that NPR's network of local stations offer a broad range of programming and local news, and said she did not mind if NPR member stations did not want to be closely associated with the national brand. 'Many of these stations have their local identities,' Maher said. 'They mean something. Texas Public Radio in San Antonio is always going to be Texas Public Radio, and that is great.'
