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One of the familiar NPR hosts you wake up to on “Morning Edition” is A Martinez, who works out of Culver City, California. Martínez came to NPR four years ago from the world of sports talk radio. He told Nebraska Public Media's “Morning Edition” host Dale Johnson that he has come to appreciate the importance of nationwide public media, especially in rural states like Nebraska.
A Martinez: People in Nebraska might not have the capability to access a lot of places for information, for good, solid, reliable information. So if you're in a rural situation and say, heaven forbid, a natural disaster happened, where do you get information to figure out exactly what to do, where to go, where to find help, where to give help, if you're in a position to give help? Well, it's through public media. It's through public radio stations like Nebraska Public Media. That's a lifeline in situations like that for the people that don't have the access that someone would have in a larger city or a more populated area. So that is vital, not only just to keep things moving along in these areas, but also in some cases, it's life or death.
Dale Johnson: We certainly have heard from listeners reacting to federal funding cuts for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and I'm sure you have heard reaction, too. How do you address those concerns?
Martinez: For me, I just stick to the facts. That's the one thing that we're very well trained to do, is to stand with the facts, not only in our journalism, but also when we're asked questions about that. The Senate voted to end federal funding for public media, and that is where I leave it. From there, we have to move on and continue to do our job as public radio journalists and not lose sight of that mission, not get distracted, upset or emotional about the things that we cannot control. So that's how I handle those kinds of questions. It's very easy to stay sticking to the facts on stuff like that. It's an easy thing to do because we do it for a living.
Johnson: We are public radio journalists, and of course, the truth matters to us. To what extent are we in a time when audiences, though, are distrusting of what they see and hear?
Martinez: Well, that's the challenge of being a journalist today. You know, Pew Research Center just put out the results of a very intensive, very wide-ranging poll that they did. They talked to a lot of people, and one of the things that stuck out to me is that seven out of 10 people view the spread of false information as a major threat right now. Can you imagine, Dale? This wouldn't be something, I would guess, that would be a problem 10-15, years ago, but it is a problem, according to many Americans today. That is where we as public radio journalists need to kind of understand that we offer a resource. We offer a service that is vital, especially in a world where people are having trouble trusting the stuff that they read, the stuff that they see and the stuff that they hear. So that that that is, I think, the biggest challenge for any public radio journalist, to stay the course, to understand what their role is, and what that service means to the people that depend on them.
Johnson: Is it true you never listened to public radio before working at NPR?
Martinez: Once. I was so steeped in sports for really since the time I got out of college in the mid 90s, and I jumped into sports talk radio right away. I really didn't have time to really listen to anything else. I wasn't one of those kids in the backseat of mom and dad's car that was kind of absorbing public radio through the backseat. That was not me. So I knew that NPR existed, but I couldn't tell you, Dale, what the “N,” the “P” and the “R” stood for. That is zero baseline when it came to public radio.
Johnson: And you called that transition an avalanche. How so?
Martinez: An avalanche in that public radio listeners are very, very protective of their space. Looking back, I understood. I was a newcomer. I also was someone that they didn't know and didn't trust. And that is something that I have found to be something that is actually a very, very cherished thing between public radio listeners and the people that they listen to, the people on NPR, the people at Nebraska Public Media and all the other public radio stations across the country is that they build a relationship, maybe even more than any other kind of media-listener relationship. They trust these people to be able to inform them on these stories and to be trustful that these stories are true and factual. So essentially, what these listeners are doing is falling backwards into the arms of the public radio hosts that they listen to, and that takes a lot of trust. And if you feel like you can't trust that person, like they couldn't trust me right away because they didn't know me, it can lead to some to some pretty stressful situations. I had to really, really work hard, Dale, to earn everyone's trust, and hopefully I have a little bit of it.
Johnson: A, Thank you very much. A Martinez joining me for Morning Edition.
Martinez: Thank you, Dale.
Johnson: I'm Dale Johnson, Nebraska Public Media.