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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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. -
Hundreds of people died this month when an overloaded ship sank in the Mediterranean Sea. They were on the move, but never reached their destinations. -
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. -
Although the captain and some of the officers have been called cowards or worse, passengers say other crew members acted heroically. At least seven crew members died or are missing. -
President Park Geun-hye says the captain did little to help the hundreds on board escape. More than 60 bodies have been recovered. More than 230 people, most of them high school students, are missing. -
Lee Jun-Seok was taken into custody on Saturday and charged with negligence of duty and violation of maritime law. Nearly 270 of those who were aboard are still missing. -
Divers are having difficulty getting into the capsized ship. It was sailing to a resort island Wednesday when it capsized. Most of the passengers were high school students on a school trip. -
The search continues a day after a ship began sinking off of South Korea's southern coast. Most of the passengers, according to news reports, were high school students and teachers on a school trip.
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There are 25 fatalities, officials report, though they say that number is likely to rise. Meanwhile, a list of about 176 missing has been narrowed down to 90, authorities said Wednesday night.
