Edward Schumacher-Matos
Edward Schumacher-Matos is the ombudsman for NPR. His column can be found on NPR.org here.
Having spent more than three decades as a reporter and editor in the United States and abroad for some of the nation's most prestigious news outlets, and having founded his own newspapers, Schumacher-Matos has a deep understanding of the essential role that journalists play in upholding a vital democracy. He also intimately understands the demands that reporters and editors face every day.
Immediately prior to joining NPR in June 2011, Schumacher-Matos wrote a syndicated weekly column for The Washington Post and was the ombudsman for The Miami Herald. Earlier, he foundedfour Spanish-language daily newspapers in Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and the Rio Grande Valley; served as the founding editor and associate publisher of the Wall Street Journal's Spanish and Portuguese insert editions in Latin America, Spain, and Portugal; and reported for The New York Times as Madrid Bureau Chief, Buenos Aires Bureau Chief, and the paper's NYC economic development reporter.
At The Philadelphia Inquirer, Schumacher-Matos was part of the team that won a 1980 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident. He began his varied career covering small towns for the Quincy Patriot Ledger south of Boston, and as a "super stringer' for The Washington Post, in Japan, South Korea, and New England.
For nearly the last four years, while writing his Post and Herald columns, Schumacher-Matos was also at Harvard University. He was the Robert F. Kennedy Visiting Professor in Latin American Studies at the Kennedy School of Government; a Shorenstein Fellow on the Press, Politics and Public Policy; and director of the Migration and Integration Studies Program. He is a member of the International Advisory Board of IE University Graduate School of Business in Madrid and the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at the University of Southern California. He also is active in the Council on Foreign Relations, the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, and the Inter American Press Association.
Schumacher-Matos received his Master of Arts degree in International Politics and Economics from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts, and his Bachelor of Arts degree in Politics and Literature from Vanderbilt University. He was a Fulbright Fellow in Japan.
Growing up in a military family, he volunteered to join the Army during the Vietnam War. His service in Vietnam earned him the Bronze Star. He was born in Colombia and came to the United States as an immigrant child.
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Listeners debate the extent to which NPR should be in the live news business, but what really stood out all week in the Sandy Hook coverage is the remarkable accuracy and ethical restraint. The lessons of the Gabrielle Giffords debacle nearly two years ago have been well absorbed. Internal staff memos during the first day and a half of Sandy Hook are an example of how to do it right. -
A look at the proportion of Republicans and Democrats speaking on air in relation to the "fiscal cliff" offers an insight into political bias by NPR. The finding? A pretty even balance, despite a slight Republican tilt in the numbers. But further dissection welcomed. -
NPR is constantly hammered for allegedly being liberal, but last week I met with Ralph Nader to hear his complaints. He thinks NPR is not just too conservative, but that what liberals it does have on the air are too middle-of-the road. How can I measure this?
