Edward Schumacher-Matos is the Ombudsman for NPR, dealing with issues of ethics, fairness and accuracy, media and society, and language. He joins Tom Williams to talk about some of the issues he has addressed recently: the patriotism of NPR and its sponsor Al Jazeera; questions of bias in NPR coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian divide; and whether NPR should use the term “Obamacare.” He will also talk about immigration, the fragmentation of media, the future of newspapers, the goals of NPR News, and relationships between NPR and its member stations.
Schumacher-Matos spent more than three decades as a reporter and editor in the United States and abroad for some of the nation's most prestigious news outlets, and founded his own newspapers. Immediately prior to joining NPR in June 2011, Schumacher-Matos wrote a syndicated weekly column for The Washington Post and was the ombudsman for The Miami Herald. His column can be found on NPR.org here.