| Last week, NPR laid off 84 people and stopped production on four seasonal podcasts, including Invisibilia, Louder Than a Riot and Rough Translation. The company warned in February those cuts would be coming after it projected a $30 million sponsorship shortfall this year. Thirteen roles in the organization's digital team are also planned to be cut, but that group unionized through a separate union for broadcast employees and technicians and haven't yet agreed on a contract with NPR, despite the organization voluntarily recognizing them. This means they cannot be laid off until a contract or separate lay-off agreement is met. While layoffs often mark the abrupt end of an era at an organization, NPR's story has stretched into this week, spilling over into multiple, tense all-hands meetings in which impacted employees grilled executives about their decisions. All laid off employees were given 30 days, or as much time as needed, to remain on staff and transition their work. But impacted staff, while technically still employees, are not allowed to enter the NPR offices. So instead, the company hosted its all-hands meetings over Zoom. During the meetings, some executives called in from home to address the group, often in scripted remarks or in vague terms, according to people who attended. I'm told that earlier all-hands this week addressing the news department and the programming team, which oversees podcasts, yielded few answers. In the news gathering, Edith Chapin, interim senior vice president of that department, emphasized that her role was temporary, which some employees took as an abdication of responsibility. Meanwhile, in the programming meeting, Anya Grundmann, senior vice president for programming and audience development, told staff that she and other executives stopped production on the seasonal podcasts because they weren't generating enough revenue to justify their limited production. People I spoke with noted this feedback had never been shared with the editorial teams prior to that moment. The ongoing back-and-forth culminated in an all-staff gathering yesterday. A group of executives, including president and CEO John Lansing, presented various financial metrics and updates on the diversity levels at the organization following the layoffs. As of March 24th, for example, NPR had booked $28.9 million in sponsorship revenue for the first quarter, compared to $41 million the year prior. The team highlighted that diversity levels remained roughly consistent before and after the cuts, though trans people in the programming department dropped, going from 2.5% of the workforce to 1.2%. "We're here today to take your questions and see if we can move together through this," Lansing said at the onset, according to a recording of the meeting that Bloomberg obtained. He added that if NPR hadn't made the cuts, it would have run out of money in two to three years. Throughout the presentation, employees raised their hands on video or submitted questions through the webinar's Q&A feature. They responded to the answers from executives in real time through the virtual chat, often adding more questions there, too. Among the requests: employees wanted to see more specific breakdowns around the number or percentage of employees of different races and identities who were laid off, rather than those of the remaining employees. They also wanted to know more information about their audiences, what the plans would be for hiring a chief content officer and more clarity about how the layoffs were carried out. But the already tense environment boiled over during an exchange between CEO Lansing and a laid-off Black employee. That employee voiced concern that some podcasts hadn't received marketing support and wondered how a show could gain audience without it. This person also listed executives' names and repeated statements they had made in the past, asking for more accountability. The individual then asked how NPR would make diversity work essential. Lansing replied that all the organization's programming should be relevant to all of America — a stated mission for NPR After replying, he then added that the group needed to "turn down the rhetoric" and not call executives out by name in an all-hands with hundreds of attendees. "I would never, ever, on your worst day, call you out by name in a meeting with 827 people," he said. "Let's please keep in mind nobody is happy about this. Nobody is more unhappy about it than those affected, but certainly everybody in the company, beginning with me, this is the last thing we wanted to do." Some employees interpreted this as tone-policing and felt uncomfortable. A few questions later someone referenced the earlier exchange and asked how attendees could be as specific as possible without using people's names. Lansing re-committed to his answer and said that the conversation should have been more civil, which some employees interpreted as a direct attack on the earlier employee. They immediately took to Zoom and called Lansing's response "racist" and out-of-line. Another staff member dropped a link to a segment from NPR's Code Switch titled, "When Civility Is Used As A Cudgel Against People Of Color." "Civility is a weapon wielded by the powerful," one person wrote, according to screenshots of the chat viewed by Bloomberg. "This meeting has made me more afraid for the future of public media than any conversation I have had in a very long time," wrote another. Staff demanded more answers, more clarity and more accountability, but the meeting ended around 10 minutes later. In an emailed comment to Bloomberg, NPR Chief Communications Officer Isabel Lara said the organization creates "forums for internal staff conversations and respects the hard questions that come from our staff. We value the feedback we receive and acknowledge that this is an incredibly difficult time for everyone in our organization. Our staff has the right and duty to hold NPR leadership accountable." NPR, she added, is committed to creating and maintaining an environment where "we treat our colleagues with the utmost compassion, respect and dignity, and we will continue to provide opportunities for everyone in the organization to provide feedback on this process and support continuing dialogue." | 
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