'Public radio should sound like America'

NPR's Isabel Lara on diverse voices and effectively sharing our stories

In today's rapid media space, having an exceptional team of devoted journalists, creators and staffers is important for any organization that aspires to serve communities. However, it is equally crucial to communicate to donors, audiences and stakeholders the stories of talented employees, bold programming, and interesting initiatives within the organization. 🔭

Being able to weave these narratives into compelling presentations helps in showcasing an organization's strengths. 🏋🏽 Organizations that fail to do so may find it difficult to distinguish themselves — ultimately leading to lost opportunities for growth and success.

This is why Isabel Lara is such an important voice in public media.

In her role at NPR, Lara helps the organization elevate its brand, foster stronger relationships and bolster the public media giant’s competitiveness in the constantly evolving media market. She’s gotten a range of stories on public media diversity into major media outlets. 📣 The result is beneficial to all of us.

The impact on talking about your work to your local community, board and potential partners cannot be overstated. Well-articulated stories help build trust while also enhancing an organization. 📰 In addition, taking the time to present your work can serve as a powerful tool for attracting new talent and audiences while establishing credibility with existing ones.

How does Isabel Lara do it? We talk about it this OIGO. 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

And, in the event you don’t know, Isabel Lara is NPR's Chief Communications Officer. The CCO is a senior executive role that elevates and focuses strategic oversight of NPR's communications with all audiences, ensuring a unified and consistent voice and a strong representation of the NPR brand across channels. Lara oversees the combined team that leads NPR's press outreach, crisis communications, audience relations, talent relations, corporate messaging and stakeholder communications. Lara has led NPR's media relations team and acted as the organization's spokesperson since 2014.

Lara is a veteran communications expert, with over 20 years of experience in the field. During her tenure at NPR, she has demonstrated communications excellence in designing and implementing proactive press strategies around key news, programming, and organizational developments that have built visibility, awareness, and audience for NPR and member stations. She has also led NPR's public messaging for a range of corporate issues and developments, including reputation management and strategy.

Before coming to NPR, Lara worked at the National Education Association, the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum and the Smithsonian Latino Center, as well as Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation in New York and El Universal in Caracas. She graduated cum laude with a degree in Literature from Universidad Católica Andres Bello in Caracas and has a Master's in Media Studies from the New School in New York.

When was your first connection to NPR, beyond working there?

When I was with the Air and Space Museum, I would love whenever NPR reporters came and covered exhibits. I met Russell Lewis, who has done a lot of space stuff for NPR, and he would come and interview the Apollo and the Gemini astronauts. It was funny because I never heard the interviews on the air and I was like, ‘what's going on,’ and then I realized that he was saving those for obits, so I wouldn't actually hear them until that astronaut died. I also remember when Nell Greenfieldboyce came and did interviews with our space curators and she wanted to do them on the museum floor because she wanted the noise of the museum around.

This was one of the fun things about working at the Air and Space Museum -- it is the most visited museum in the world, or it was when I was there, and you could get a reporter from any part of the world and they would find a person from that country visiting that day. It was just amazing and very fun doing that work.

What inspired you to want to work for NPR?

I love journalism, and my very first job in in PR was working for a newspaper. I was very young and I understood quickly that there was this tension between the newsroom and the corporate side of the house and that I needed to earn the newsroom's trust In order to promote the work that they did. This was more than 20 years ago, and it was a very old-school newspaper in Venezuela that had the printing press underneath the paper. If I worked late enough, you know, the whole building would start shaking because the press was working. If I stayed really late, I could get the next day's newspaper and take it home. That was just the coolest thing, having tomorrow's newspaper in your hand. So, I really love working with journalists.

With NPR, I saw the job opening on Twitter. I applied online and I met the woman who hired me, Emma Carasco, who was my first boss at NPR. She and I had this incredible connection from the very first interview. And because this is public media, I think I met with 19 different people before I was hired. Some were group interviews, but I don't think I've ever interviewed that many times! Anyway, it was just wonderful and Emma had like the most diverse team in the whole building. She was really building a fantastic group in the communications office. Many of us are still around.

Emma helped me get to know the Latinos who worked in many different departments at NPR because she would do these monthly happy hours. And then she started doing monthly lunches where all the Latinos from all the departments would meet up. We would get together and just have lunch. It was so wonderful to me. Now we have a Slack group called Mi Gente, where we talk about what we do, support each other and hear each other out. It’s been helpful to have that sense of community.

What have been the biggest challenges in welcoming more Latinos?

I think the challenge is that not all Latinos have heard about us, because we were not backseat babies. Some of us did not grow up in this country or our families did not listen to NPR. Whenever I have a job opening and I read the cover letters, so many people say ‘I was backseat baby,’ and most Latinos were not. Some Latinos that I have hired started listening to NPR in college because that's a very popular entry for younger and diverse listeners. Their professors may tell them to listen to NPR, or they work at the NPR station in their college. I think that some Latinos don't apply because they're not aware.

I will add that it’s so inspiring to see this younger generation of Latinos coming in and doing fantastic work and innovating like the way that Anamaria Sayre has. They are bringing so much energy and they're owning the space in a way that is exciting. We have some talented Latina producers like Lily Quiroz in Morning Edition, Alejandra Marquez Janse in All Things Considered and Isabella Gomez Sarmiento in the Culture Desk. They’re absolutely brilliant. I'm just so impressed.

Then of course we have, you know, Erika Aguilar, who's a powerhouse. She is somebody who is talented and has that energy that attracts more people to her. Seeing her lead that very special State of the Union bilingual version that we did this year was amazing. The people that she brought over to work with her on that project – it was beautiful. People just wanted to do it. I've never seen so much like energy and pride and excitement over something that came together very quickly.

Tell me a little bit about that night.

It was incredible. The English language broadcast was happening from studio 31 where Morning Edition and All Things Considered are broadcast. We were in another studio 32 that is just as big, but it's on the other side of the newsroom. It was packed! I think every Latino who works at NPR found an excuse to be there that day and it was just so much fun. Everyone following Erika’s lead. I posted a picture of her standing beside three young women, all Latinas, typing in their computers and consulting each other. It was amazing to see how each decision that was made was so carefully thought out, when to speak Spanish or English, what words to use in Spanish, whether to address the audience as tu or usted. I was impressed with the talent and the energy that night.

In these events, we sort of know what the president is going talk about, but the Spanish version of the broadcast had a different feel. We had Eyder Peralta who was in Mexico and member station reporter Sergio Martínez-Beltrán in Texas. Eyder was asking questions about International issues and we had a different focus than the English commentary. It was less domestic policy and it was just very exciting. We have A switching from English to Spanish so seamlessly, we have a White House correspondent, Franco Ordoñez, who speaks Spanish, and a Congressional correspondent, Claudia Grisales, who speaks Spanish, so they were just doing their jobs. We did not have to find a random person and ask them to step in, or go outside of NPR to find somebody who speaks Spanish and covers that beat. No, we have our own people, and it was just lovely seeing them speaking Spanish and English. We wanted it to sound like people talk amongst themselves, naturally and authentically. We weren't trying to compete with Spanish-language media. We were doing something that was unique because it's the way that Latinos who have lived in the U.S. for a long time or who were born here speak to each other and to their families. It felt very special, and it goes back to the mission of public radio. To build on what Bill Siemering said to Susan Stamberg about talking to people as if she were talking to her neighbor.

When Vicente Fernandez died, we had this amazing coverage. Adrian Florido was hosting weekend All Things Considered that day. He’s a huge fan and his father is a huge fan. So, he did this incredible story that evening and then he was on Up First and it was one of those things where many mainstream media were criticized for the coverage because it wasn't culturally sensitive and our coverage was so on point and very culturally relevant. I started digging into it and I realized that, at every point of the story, there had been a Latino that had touched it, because the overnight editor had been Luis Clemens and Felix Contreras consulted, among others, and Natalie Escobar worked on the digital.  I love that because, maybe there's not many of us, but we are spread out and touch many parts of the organization.

One of the best developments that has happened since I've been an NPR is that diversity has become a part of the Big Shows. So, on the mainstream shows, it's not like we're targeting this group or like we're creating a special program just for this group. It's a part of everything we're doing. We want Latinos in all the programming and all over. We want Latinos to be interested in everything we do. Once people start hearing themselves, they hear these voices in the air as just part of a regular show, we won't have a problem recruiting Latinos.

I have no influence over the content, but I am very proud of what we're doing and I'm proud of spreading the word about what we're doing.

I tell people that chances are if there is a story about NPR with Latino creators or programming or initiatives, 9.9 times out of 10, you're behind it. I'm curious what the secret is. You've gotten mainstream outlets, industry outlets and others interested. You've managed to pitch these stories in a way that is compelling to journalists. I expect member stations may ask, ‘how can I do that locally?’

Thank you so much for saying that. I have a great team of people -- super smart, very driven publicists in my team and also internal communications people that keep me abreast of everything is going on inside. I know some stations are short-staffed and I am always available to consult and as a resource to them, they can shoot me an email anytime.

I think it's about telling stories, and the story is that public radio should sound like America. That's what public radio was created for. The sound of America has changed and evolved. So, when we have new hosts, when we have a leader like Erika, I always ask them, ‘Where do you want to be featured? What do your friends read?’ Each host I've worked with had something different.

I pitch very persistently. If somebody says no, I'll go to the next. I love that we got this extended series in Hispanic Executive featuring so many Latinos that are at NPR. That sort of started when I was announced, and I was like, ‘this is kind of embarrassing, but I just got promoted and it's kind of embarrassing to pitch myself,’ but you know, I am a Hispanic executive. They thought that was really funny that it was an email by myself about myself.

And we had just hired Erika, they were like, ‘if there are any others, let me know.’ We said, ‘well, we have a White House correspondent, a Congressional correspondent, a large group.’ It ended up being a four-part series.

What are your hopes or expectations for NPR especially in regard to some of this work?

We have a lofty mission and it’s a work in progress. Sounding like America and telling the untold stories and making sure that it is about the audience, that the audience sees and hears themselves in the stories we’re telling. I hope that we are evolving the way that the country is evolving. It's so important to do that, and it's never going to be perfect, but I think that we're getting closer.

I'm very proud of how diverse the voices are on the radio. You don't have to say ‘the first Black host’ or ‘the first Latino host’ because there's a bunch of hosts from many backgrounds. And it's become the sound of NPR. People still refer to the SNL skit, but if you listen to the radio these days, it doesn't sound that way anymore. It really doesn't. People are talking like themselves and sounding authentic, even speaking Spanish every now and then like A Martinez does. We have Incorporated people from everywhere and with all kinds of accents and backgrounds and backstories.

How do you feel like the organization will have to think about that given the financial uncertainty in public media?

It's so hard. We had to make really tough decisions and sacrifice some great programs recently. Good award-winning work. But I do think that the goal remains to reach diverse audiences with all our programming. And some of our shows that have the highest index of diverse listeners are shows like Up first or Planet Money, because people of color are interested in all the news. We want to know about books. We want to know about the economy. Making sure that we have diverse voices and diverse journalists and diverse producers in all the types of work that we do, even if we have to limit our resources, is a goal. Let's make sure that the big projects and the programs that have the widest reach also have diverse voices and diverse producers and diverse sources.

There's this old quote that goes something like, ‘people don't want people want an invitation to the party—'

And sometimes you want both things. I remember when I worked at the Latino Center at the Smithsonian, the question always was, ‘do you want to a Latino museum or do you want Latino art at the National Gallery and at the American History Museum,’ and it's like we want both. We want to be celebrated in our own museum, but we also want excellent Latino art at the Modern Art Museum. And there's enough art and history for both things to happen in both places. 🟢

Cafecito: stories to discuss ☕

• Members of New England Public Media’s Community Advisory Board resigned this month, following layoffs at the organization. 😧 The CAB members formerly were on a Latino advisory committee, and cited a need for greater service to the region’s Latines.

• Current recently covered the history of KDNA, one of the first Spanish-language noncommercial stations in the United States. 📻

• WHYY offered a look at Latino community stigma around mental health issues. ⚕️ “That cultural stigma is made worse in southern Delaware, where there’s a large Latino population but fewer mental health care providers and other resources in Kent and Sussex counties.”

• Pew Research offered new data on teens and social media, with interesting insights into how Hispanic youth use platforms. 📊

• The story about the declining numbers Hispanics who say they’re Catholic made the rounds in many outlets already. And the Catholic Review points out how U.S-born Latinos are twice as likely to be religiously unaffiliated as those not born in America. 🤨 This seems like a good opportunity to ask why this division is so pronounced.

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El radar: try this 📡

• Picture how Hispanics fare under a new leader’s ascent. WTTW’s angle on a local election is one you might consider trying: what does Latino leadership look like under a particular candidate’s administration? ❓ This is fertile ground, as you might talk with nonprofits, current and former staff, and many others.

• Inquire about Latinx senior services. New Hampshire Public Radio highlighted challenges Hispanics in the state face in trying to ensure elderly parents receive needed services. 👵 Outreach in Spanish was cited as a big issue by many residents who were interviewed.

• Explore the subject of Latino men in early childhood education. The Michigan Advance covered a Detroit panel on the subject, and I suspect it’s not isolated to this state. 🍎 Public media could likely bring a thoughtful perspective — one that acknowledges single parenthood, but dodges the tropes.

• Zero in on Latinx gaming. An annual career summit for Latinos in the gaming industry happens next month, and there may be pegs your station could take around this topic locally. 🕹️

• Delve into Latine exurban life. WFAE notes Hispanic home ownership is going up in Charlotte, but the growth is happening outside the city proper. 🏘️ It’s a report your station might want to hunt up data for and talk with new Latinx buyers in your county.

The next OIGO is in your inbox May 12. This one will the last biweekly as we dive together into monthly summer newsletters. 🥤 You can buy me a coffee if you’d like to support the newsletter.