‘Morning Edition’ Goes Outside the Beltway

Broadcasting from outside National Public Radio’s Washington offices for the first time in its 23-year history, “Morning Edition” will originate from Santa Monica next week. The temporary relocation is a “test drive” as the network moves to expand its presence beyond the Beltway with a forthcoming production facility for the West Coast.

Although NPR has added bureaus and increased its crop of foreign correspondents in the past decade, the organization remains a D.C.-dominated network. Ellen McDonnell, the executive producer of “Morning Edition,” said that adding full-fledged production facilities will help NPR better reflect “the changing flavor of the country.” She estimates that a new hub will be built within a year.

“What I am doing with ‘Morning Edition’ next week is a precursor of what will be coming, not just of ‘Morning Edition,’ but on National Public Radio,” she said. “Because of the technology--because of the portability of the digital editing and cell phones--we don’t have to be tied to our studios here in Washington. And that is pretty exciting.”

NPR’s two-hour morning news show, “Morning Edition” reaches 10.7 million listeners a week and is carried by 543 public radio stations nationally, including KPCC-FM (89.3) and KCRW-FM (89.9) here.

In the last year, “Morning Edition” has added 50 commentators to its roster in an effort to diversify the program ethnically and politically. The shift in locale could similarly affect the way stories are reported and what the program’s priorities are, said Renee Montagne, the “Morning Edition” Los Angeles correspondent who will host the show from the NPR bureau in Santa Monica while the regular host, Bob Edwards, is on vacation.

“There’s a feeling here in the West that is different. It’s pretty significant and I think it’s lost in the East Coast,” she said. “You see it when you look at issues and how they are covered. You see the same issue reported differently by region, just like different ethnic groups view the same issues differently.”

The program’s content will not diverge significantly from its usual mixture of breaking news and features, McDonnell said, but it will include several segments focusing on the West Coast and L.A. culture by Montagne and commentator John Ridley, a screenwriter and novelist.

Interviewing and shadowing various young writers, Ridley will give an “insider’s” view of Hollywood as an inspiration to writers, according to McDonnell. In another segment, Ridley will interview tourists and bystanders at the Hollywood Park Casino and then write a three-minute piece of fiction based on his observations to give listeners a glimpse of how the process unfolds.

In her usual role as Southland correspondent for the show,Montagne will offer a profile of Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn based on a day she spent with him visiting the home in which where he grew up in South-Central Los Angeles.

“This is not going to be a two-hour show about Los Angeles,” McDonnell said. “This show, I am hoping, is going to sound like everybody woke up in Los Angeles and it’s going to be looking at it from a different perspective.

“When we are hosting in Washington, we are reading East Coast papers, we are on an East Coast time zone. Well, I just thought, ‘What happens when you turn that upside down?”’

To reach East Coast listeners at the show’s usual 5 a.m. start time, Montagne and the producers will begin preparing each program around 10 the night before, conducting interviews and combing the wires through the night until going on the air live at 2 a.m. in Santa Monica.

“Usually, Bob has the bragging rights for getting up at 2 a.m., but this show starts at 2,” Montagne noted. “So I think I may have one up on him this time.”