NPR Public Editor by Poynter's Kelly McBride

I personally couldn’t wait to hear Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep’s interview with Tucker Carlson. I was eager for Inskeep to hold Carlson accountable for his past journalistic transgressions, including amplifying false information and conspiracies about the 2020 presidential election results.

A lot of people in the public radio audience had the opposite reaction to mine. They believe that NPR’s interview conferred on Carlson a legitimacy he did not deserve.

Commenters questioned NPR’s judgment wherever clips of the interview appeared, including on Instagram and Bluesky. Other journalists and columnists criticized the choice as well. Ana Marie Cox argued on Mediaite that NPR was wasting the audience’s time because anyone who wants to know Carlson’s views can just listen to his podcasts, which come out several times a week.

I’m going to defend the interview. Public radio listeners should know what Carlson is up to. He’s been in President Donald Trump’s inner circle for more than a decade. He’s buddies with Vice President JD Vance. He was on the phone with Trump after an assassination attempt on the president. He’s got insights that nobody else is sharing.

I’d rather listen to Carlson be interviewed by an adept and neutral journalist than listen to his podcast myself. Read on if you want to see a few examples of the outrage from the audience, as well as my full analysis. — Kelly McBride

Illustration by Carlos Carmonamedina

Here are a few quotes from the Public Editor's inbox that resonated with us. Letters are edited for length and clarity. You can share your questions and concerns with us through the NPR Contact page.

What could possibly be newsworthy about an interview with Tucker Carlson?

Evan Klayman wrote on Oct. 1: I have to cancel my NPR membership now. $5/month via WNYC, kiss it goodbye. How dare you give Carlson a voice on NPR. He is not a “newsmaker,” he is a villain. He is a liar and an opportunist. I did not listen to the interview. It makes me nauseous to hear his voice or see his face. If NPR Management thinks it was being fair and balanced to give him air-time then maybe you did deserve to lose Federal funding after all. You lost mine for sure.

Robert Kezelis wrote on Sept. 24: Tucker? TUCKER ? ? ? What on this flat earth possessed you to find one of the most loathsome creatures and clean him up for public display? What is next, an episode of all the good things Trump’s tariffs have done? How nice he was to threaten all our friends? SHAME ON YOU. That is not news, that is unworthy redemption and reentry into polite society. As I said, SHAME!

Peter Jackson wrote on Sept. 23: I was absolutely stunned to hear Steve Inskeep promoting an interview with Tucker Carlson. I understand the logic — for NPR it’s a two-fer: you get someone who will criticize both Trump and Israel. But Tucker Carlson is an outright, unrepentant antisemite. He engages in the darkest conspiracy theories and lies about Jews. He’s been given repeated opportunities to disown these ideas but instead doubles down. How is it possible that NPR is giving him a platform? You would NEVER provide a similar platform for someone who spread similar conspiracy theories and lies about Muslims, African Americans, or any other group.

If you are an enthusiastic news consumer, then you know that Carlson has been around for 30 years, and that he’s a journalism chameleon, moving from CNN to PBS to MSNBC to Fox, becoming more bombastic with each stop. After getting fired from Fox News, he started his own network, distributing podcasts on multiple platforms, including YouTube, where he has 5.77 million subscribers.

But most NPR listeners are not consuming news 24 hours a day. Researchers estimate that roughly 20 to 30% of consumers are hypervigilant, meaning they get information from several sources throughout a day. Most of NPR’s news products (except for the NPR Politics Podcast) are curated for people who are curious but not fanatical about the news.

Carlson has done long-form interviews with The Economist and The New York Times. And yes, anyone who wants to know what Carlson is thinking can go to his channels and hear hours upon hours of his thoughts.

Inskeep’s interview with Carlson is not for those people. It’s for the rest of us, including people who are repulsed by Carlson.

Carlson is a Trump whisperer. At least he was until recently. Carlson was one of the last people to talk to Trump before the U.S. and Israel started bombing Iran. His recounting of his exchange — if it holds up — will go down in history.

In talking about his conversation with Trump, he described a president who didn’t care that his war was doomed, or wrong, or bad for America. “And he looked at me and said, ‘Yes, you’re right,’ Carlson said. ‘But in the end, we all die anyway, so it doesn’t matter.’ That’s exactly what he said. In the end, we all die anyway.”

Why didn’t that particular statement get more attention? Mostly because Carlson makes so many outlandish statements that people from all points on the political spectrum don’t know what’s true.

Joe Santos, a commenter on Inskeep’s Substack page, said it best: “Do you actually believe a word of what Tucker says? Or, to put it differently, do you believe he is sincere? Because as someone who has been aware of Carlson since his ‘Crossfire’ days, I can tell you this: He is a *master* of reinvention. When being a ‘reasonable’ conservative still garnered an audience, that was his pose. When MAGA extremism was cresting, he was right there for it. Now that the wheels are falling off, he’s got his finger to the wind and, sure enough, here comes another reinvention.”

That gets at the biggest shortcoming of Inskeep’s interview: there wasn’t enough context — or setup — for the average NPR audience member who has not kept track of Carlson’s every move.

Here’s Inskeep’s introduction: “Tucker Carlson has commanded an audience for decades as a cable TV pundit, as a Fox News star, and then after his firing, as the head of an independent network frequently broadcasting from this barn in Maine. In 2024, Carlson spoke for President Trump’s election. In 2026, he’s turned against the president over the Iran war and more. And that was the starting point for our discussion.”

Nothing in there to describe the crass opportunist that Carlson has been over his career. Sure, Carlson expresses regrets over his past choices. But there’s no way for the uninitiated to recognize that that just might be part of Carlson’s schtick.

As all newsrooms do these days, the final edit, which ran close to one hour, was sliced and diced for a variety of NPR products, including Morning Edition, Instagram and the Up First newsletter.

Carlson is a tough interview. It’s harder to get straight answers from him than Trump. Inskeep tried to get Carlson to explain his habit of describing loyalty to Israel in coded language, but Carlson artfully dodged him.

Still, Inskeep was sharp when drawing out Carlson’s many insights gleaned from years of hanging out with Trump. Carlson discussed Trump’s faith as he approaches the waning years of life, his insecurity, and his habit of offering up moments of self-awareness as parenthetical asides.

The entire hour of the interview is a valuable listen. And of course, if listening to one of the most influential shape-shifters in American culture and politics defend his latest evolution isn’t your cup of tea, no one is forcing it. The radio edit was seven minutes. If it pops up in your feed or on your NPR app, just skip it.

I’m glad it’s there. And I’m glad it was Inskeep who did the interview. — Kelly McBride

The Office of the Public Editor is a team. Reporters Amaris Castillo and Nicole Slaughter Graham and copy editor Merrill Perlman make this newsletter possible. Illustrations are by Carlos Carmonamedina. We are still reading all of your messages on Facebook, Instagram, Threads and from our inbox. As always, keep them coming.

Kelly McBride
NPR Public Editor
Chair, Craig Newmark Center for Ethics & Leadership at the Poynter Institute

Kelly McBride
Public Editor

Amaris Castillo
Poynter Institute

Nicole Slaughter Graham
Poynter Institute

The Public Editor stands as a source of independent accountability. Created by NPR's board of directors, the Public Editor serves as a bridge between the newsroom and the audience, striving to both listen to the audience's concerns and explain the newsroom's work and ambitions. The office ensures NPR remains steadfast in its mission to present fair, accurate and comprehensive information in service of democracy.

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