Mark Memmott
Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.
As the NPR Ethics Handbook states, the Standards & Practices editor is "charged with cultivating an ethical culture throughout our news operation." This means he or she coordinates discussion on how we apply our principles and monitors our decision-making practices to ensure we're living up to our standards."
Before becoming Standards & Practices editor, Memmott was one of the hosts of NPR's "The Two-Way" news blog, which he helped to launch when he came to NPR in 2009. It focused on breaking news, analysis, and the most compelling stories being reported by NPR News and other news media.
Prior to joining NPR, Memmott worked for nearly 25 years as a reporter and editor at USA Today. He focused on a range of coverage from politics, foreign affairs, economics, and the media. He reported from places across the United States and the world, including half a dozen trips to Afghanistan in 2002-2003.
During his time at USA Today, Memmott, helped launch and lead three USAToday.com news blogs: "On Deadline," "The Oval" and "On Politics," the site's 2008 presidential campaign blog.
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Remember: "Show, don't tell" is always good advice. Describe what people are doing and report what they're saying. After you've established those facts, carefully considered labels may fit.
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For years, it's been NPR's style to say that Myanmar is "also known as Burma" at the start of reports about that nation. We don't think that's necessary anymore. -
Does it grate on your ears if you're offered a "free gift?" Would you have a "sudden impulse" to correct that grammar? Pleonasms have unnecessary, superfluous words. Tell us about the ones you hear. -
Here's how NPR thought through whether the gunshots that killed two TV journalists should be replayed on the radio and online.
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There are times when obscene words are heard, but they are rare. Editors balance respect for listeners against the news value of the language.
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Along with the words and phrases that still ring out 239 years later are less noticed turns of phrase. They say a lot about the messages Thomas Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers wanted to send. -
Several thousand people sent NPR examples of their favorite eggcorns — words or phrases that are mistakenly used but still make some sense. We read them all and picked some of the best. -
An eggcorn is a word or phrase that isn't right, but makes some sense. It's among more than 1,700 words Merriam-Webster just added to its dictionary. What are your favorite eggcorns?
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Though investigators say it looks like the co-pilot deliberately brought down the jet, killing himself and 149 others, there are reasons not to use that word. -
When NPR correspondents report about that group, they try to make it clear that it is not a "state" in the standard sense of that word. This month's "Word Matters" conversation explains why.
