Readers wanted to know why NPR didn't report on the Occupy Wall Street protests. The above screenshot from a Russia Today video reports there was a "mainstream media fail" in reporting on the protests. (Credit: YouTube, Russia Today, screenshot)

Readers questioned why NPR has not devoted air time to recent Occupy Wall Street protests, NPR ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos wrote Sept. 26.  As Time magazine explained, the protests “started as a largely online effort to get people to speak out against financial greed and corruption.”

NPR has published “a stream of Associated Press stories” on the Occupy Wall Street protest online though, according to Schumacher-Matos. In response, NPR’s executive editor for news Dick Meyer explained that NPR isn’t covering the protests because they don’t ” involve large numbers of people, prominent people, a great disruption or an especially clear objective.”

In other words, since it didn’t match the criteria above, then NPR suggested it doesn’t qualify as newsworthy. Hmmmmm.  Either way, NPR changed its position Sept. 27, according to Poynter.  Schumacher-Matos is quoted as explaining the late-in-the-game coverage as because the protests “persisted into this week.”  Poynter noted that “the protests started Sept. 17.