Hans M.

Since NPR is plagued by financial problems and lost its independence by becoming a mouthpiece for the the Whitehouse and has to avoid friction with the abundance of corporations it advertises for, this medium is in a free fall.
This development already started years before the Covid Pandemic. I have been listening to NPR on a daily basis (not anymore for quite some time which I will explain later). First from 2005-2009 to WDET Detroit MI/ Wayne State University. From 2009-2015 to KPBS San Diego CA/ San Diego State University. When I am in New York NY I listen to local NPR station WNYC.
I presented and made radio documentaries myself for Dutch Public Radio 1987-1994. We learned a couple of skills and do's and do-nots that nowadays radio 'journalists' and hosts and reporters never seemed to have brought to their attention. (has there been any training or correction at all?)
I will not elaborate too long, but here are a few skills today's NPR voices are clueless about:
1. When you are on AIR, pre-recorded or live you have to have a clear voice, have a distinct 'dictie' and breathing technique.
2. Speak loud enough for the mike to catch your mumbling.
3. Control the 'sing-song' of the lines you speak. E.G: do not let your voice go down in tone at every line you finish.
4. TAKE YOUR TIME * This has to become a second nature if you think you should be on radio. Listeners will lose you quickly when to speak too fast or breathless or with you mouth half open. (most of the times these days I can't UNDERSTAND (physically) what is being said, so you l,ose me.)
5. I hear this now all the time over the last 5 years. Especially in hourly (really?) News Reals. 90% of the time a sound bite or a quote from someone is utterly unnecessary. It makes a forced non-informative ridiculous impression and adds nothing. To the information the newsreader wants to convey. The editors who edit these quotes should know better and act accordingly.
6. The people who compose the news bulletins at NPR seem, to put it mildly, of a questionable journalistic competence. Plus they coerce the news reader to go through the topics at a constant maximum speed. By the time the stock market is being mentioned, you know the news real is over. (do you have money to invest in stocks and bonds? I think 99% of the NPR audience has not.)
7. The NPR station for San Diego, KPBS, has a habit for as long as I have tuned in to come up with local items about non-issues that are next to impossible to identify with. Besides that the station is packed with endless commercials to an extent you want just one thing and that is switching off your radio.(which by the way is not the case at KCRW from Santa Monica CA. It is way more relaxed to listen to and has 50% less commercials.
All in all my choice for the NPR station with the highest all over news, debates and cultural information is WNYC in New York City.
Nation wide I think NPR is losing their mission statement to inform their listeners adequately and for me it has arrived at an unbearable quality referring to my local station KPBS.