NPR announces a new web[space]site

Call me sentimental (et l'on m'appelle l'oriental...), but I just get weepy-eyed with nostalgia and giddiness when I get an announcement like this.

The last time it happened was on 27 May, when NPR rocked my proverbial world with this announcement:

Download Your Favorite NPR Stories

Today we added a new feature to npr.org that has been at the top of the request list for many of you -- the ability to download audio for individual stories right from the story page.

If you only knew how much that changed for me — or would have, if I had still been producing transcripts for them, as I did until March.

As anyone who may have worked with me on Project NPR (first at IDT Global, then at Azpiko, Ltd., both in Jerusalem) knows well, recording their broadcast streams live were the backbone of our operation. Obtaining mp3 files of their news segments, as a backup, was often a time-consuming and labour-intensive project. This would happen whenever something went wrong with the live audio.

But personally, even after the project was over, I would use the same equipment to record programs from the NPR media player, just for pleasure listening later on. The mp3 download feature saves me potentially hours of re-recording.

NPR and I have had a long and rocky relationship. I learned everything I knew about classical music and radio professionalism by listening to NPR member stations from my mid teens. In my earliest web page, circa 1996, I linked to their site, for some reason (take a tour here, although I remember it being earlier than the first date listed, and in a retina-burning red or orange background — anyone know what I'm talking about?).

Today, this is what they announced:

NEW!
The New NPR.org
A new NPR.org is coming on July 27th. The new site will be brighter, lighter, faster, easier to use, easier to search and more fun to surf. Our editors promise!

Please join Scott Simon for a brief tour of the new site. And when the new NPR.org is up and running we'll be sure to let you know.
Video Tour »

Scott Simon and an unidentified staffer narrates this tour of the new website (that's "web site" according to the AP style guide, which is de rigueur in transcripts, as is "email" without a hyphen). One detail that caught my attention: many transcripts will be available for free.

As of now, all transcripts about news in the Middle East are free, as well as the on-air stories that reporters have written up as print articles (not exactly transcripts, but from the source nonetheless).

NPR believes in the same principles of generosity and idealism that I detailed in this article, on my other blog. If you are producing content of some sort that can be reproduced digitally, and if you care enough about that you want the world to know about it, you should give it away for free. I no longer have the privilege of working with them, but my heart is still with them, and I salute them for that policy.