Juana Summers is struck by “an incredible sense of responsibility.”

She took over one of the host chairs at “All Things Considered” in June 2022 after many years as a political correspondent for NPR. Now almost a year into her new role, she sees herself as a guide to making the news program — and NPR in general — a place where people can feel represented.

Part of that, Summers believes, starts with the audience knowing her.

“I am never setting at the door that I am a Black woman, I am a stepparent, I am a woman who grew up in the Midwest and lived in a low- and middle-income home growing up, and who went to private religious schools,” said Summers, 34. “All of those dynamics are things that inform how I do my journalism, and the degree in which I lean into any part of that varies from story to story.”

Summers is one of the four women of color — three of them Black — who have taken over hosting duties at flagship NPR programs over the past year. Leila Fadel moved to “Morning Edition” in January 2022, joined just over a year later by veteran NPR host Michel Martin. Ayesha Rascoe became the host of “Weekend Edition Sunday” in March 2022. Their roles extend beyond the voices delivering the headlines. Each are editorial leaders with immense influence over what and who is covered.

“It would seem that after NPR top executives and news managers saw its three most popular women of color hosts departed within the last year, they would have pondered seriously about why these stellar female journalists left, with serious determination to make progressive changes at the public network to recruit and retain women of color hosts,” said Sharon Bramlett-Solomon, an associate professor at Arizona State University and an expert on race and gender in broadcast journalism.

Bramlett-Solomon added that leadership at NPR now faces a unique challenge in showing their commitment “to move forward with dramatic and meaningful transformation in programming inclusion and not simply window dressing on the set.”

Whitney Maddox, who was hired for the newly created diversity, equity and inclusion manager role in January 2021, said that in her role, she has especially focused on women of color at NPR: “What’s happening with them? How are they doing? What do they need?”

She has created a monthly space for women of color at the organization to meet and share about their day-to-day experiences and voice what resources they need. Her work also includes consulting to the flagship programs and checking in on their workplace cultures and how people are supported, including how stories are pitched and edited.

Maddox also started Start Talking About Race, or STAR, which is a twice-monthly event open to everyone in the organization. From these conversations, Maddox said she’s already seen an impact.

“This is moving beyond this space into how people are pitching their stories,” Maddox said. “Editors have come back to me and said, ‘A point that somebody made in STAR — I used that when I brought up a point of how we should think differently about how to source this story.’ There is a process, there is time, there is changing people’s hearts and raising their consciousness to understand why this work is important.”

The leadership of Fadel, Martin, Rascoe, and Summers are key parts in acting on conversations surrounding equity. Their roles in the host chairs are a signal of NPR’s commitment to reflecting their audience, Marrapodi said. “Our job is to be public media for the entire public,” he said. “We’re here for everybody. Our job is to hold a mirror up to society. And this is what society looks like.”

Fadel, 41, is acutely aware that her in the host chair is a representation of what society looks — and sounds — like.

“I just never thought it could happen. Clearly women have held host seats at NPR long before me, and people of color have moved up through the organization, but I just never imagined it,” she said. “How could I have imagined this for myself? There was no one who looked like me, who was an Arab woman, who was Muslim, doing this job.”

“I think about that responsibility and I take it very seriously,” Rascoe said. She said she thinks about her late grandmother, a sharecropper from North Carolina, constantly as she works. “I think about her and I think about my whole family, and I never want to make them not proud of me. I never want them to look at what I’m doing and say, ‘What is she out here doing? How is she representing us? We didn’t raise her that way.’”

Even the sound of her voice has been true to Rascoe’s roots: As her executive producer Sarah Lucy Oliver said, “Ayesha sounds like herself. She says she sounds like a Black woman from Durham, North Carolina.”

Oliver described what she calls “NPR voice” — a low register, stripped of any regional dialects, that registers as white and male — as the prevailing sound of NPR. Rascoe, she said, is a disruption to that.

“For decades, listeners have been accustomed to a particular kind of NPR voice. You can run through the dial and figure out when you’ve landed on an NPR member station,” Oliver said.

Hearing a voice like Rascoe’s “is a definite change in direction, and is exactly the kind of voice NPR wants to bring to the air,” Oliver said. “This is part of the real world. People speak differently. People have different regional accents. People use different kinds of colloquialisms. NPR is trying to sound more like the real world now.”

But Rascoe has had to reckon with the way audiences — used to that staid, white, and masculine NPR voice — perceive her. She has received racist listener feedback: coded messaging urging her to “sound professional,” telling Rascoe about how they don’t like her voice.

Rascoe says this is “all just a way of saying, ‘You are Black, and you are a Black woman from the South, and therefore you are stupid.’” When she first arrived at NPR in 2018 from Reuters, where she was a White House correspondent, it was a shock. “I will not try to pretend that it didn’t hurt and that it wasn’t frustrating,” she said.

Though Rascoe said she has received nothing but support from her colleagues and managers, her experience speaks to the dynamic at play in newsrooms nationwide aspiring to evolve, change and grow in being representative in their journalism.

The work of “disrupting the whiteness that journalists of color so often feel in white newsrooms” is hard and real, Bramlett-Solomon said — but doable, especially when there is real, on-the-ground support from management, with actual dollars behind it to show it.

Rascoe is aware of the fact that by simply being on air in such a high-profile way, she is doing that work of not only changing NPR, but changing American audiences’ expectations more broadly on credibility within the news.

“I have a voice that is not a voice that people necessarily expect — but it’s mine…Hopefully, it helps expand their idea of what authority, what professionalism and what intelligence can sound like,” Rascoe said.

Martin, 63, first joined NPR in 2006 to launch “Tell Me More,” an interview-focused show that aired on NPR member stations nationwide from 2007 to 2014. She then became host of “Weekend All Things Considered,” a position she held until joining “Morning Edition” as one of the hosts in March.

After decades in journalism, and many years at NPR specifically, Martin is deliberate and thoughtful in her imagining of the organization’s future and her role in it. As someone with a long history with the organization — one that includes using her voice to help push NPR forward on how it thinks about and covers race — she brings to her new role the ability to hold the past in the present while continuing to look forward. She said she’s constantly thinking not only about her time at NPR, but the ways journalists of color have worked to serve communities throughout history in how she approaches her role today.

“I just want us to keep getting better,” Martin said. “I want us to keep getting better because if you aren’t, then you are not growing. If you are not growing, then you’re dying.”

Martin steps into leadership at the flagship program at a time when the political climate often makes it tough for journalists to report. Martin says she thinks journalists play an especially important role “to help us understand each other’s experiences.” Without helping audiences dig into the nuances of why people believe what they do — and why the political is so personal for so many — journalists aren’t doing the job they are charged with executing.

“Yes, the words are changing and we’re all having to learn to use different language and to recognize different identities that were perhaps not part of our own experiences before. But that’s life. That’s learning. That’s education. That’s the news,” she said.

Martin said she takes inspiration from the way that Spanish-language and Black newspapers have crafted their coverage strategies.

“The origin of these news outlets was not just to talk about the politics that particularly affected these communities, but also to help people understand how to live in the new world that they were in: telling people things like how to register to vote, how to register your kids for school,” Martin said.

It is exactly this kind of work — often dismissed by editors and audiences alike as “unserious” for being service-oriented or because its target audience is those from historically underrepresented backgrounds — that Martin has always prioritized, and sees as essential now more than ever.

“What I want the most is for us to keep moving forward and not lose sight of our mission, which is to serve the public…I want us to keep doing our jobs because I think the country really needs us,” Martin said. “I want us to get more honest and stronger and more clear in how we serve people by helping them understand the world that does not lead them to carry the baggage of waking up and saying, ‘Whose side am I on today?’ That’s not who we are and I think not being that is so important.”

To think about equitable journalism means to consider the weight and totality of experience that exists behind each voice that feels unheard. That’s something that Martin’s “Morning Edition” co-host Fadel thinks a lot about, too. Fadel said she sees a major part of her job as being someone who can actively make and support a “safe space” for a range of voices, opinions, and perspectives in the editorial process.

Being fully present as herself in the host chair is a critical element of that, Fadel said — while also acknowledging that simply sitting in the seat doesn’t mean her newsroom, or any other, is done with the work of thinking holistically about what representation means in journalism.

“Change doesn’t happen because one person sits in a chair,” Fadel said. “It requires action at every level. This is happening at NPR, but of course there is more work to be done. Diversity isn’t just who is in a newsroom, but whose voices are in a story, and there is still a lot of work to be done there. We have a very diverse newsroom, but we need to always make sure it is more than white men whose voices get to talk about what happened.”

Fadel said she thinks all the time about how her own journalism can help change other people’s — and predominantly white listeners’ — perceptions.

“I didn’t see myself and my family in the stories I saw on the news. My father is from Lebanon and I grew up in Saudi Arabia. Talking about people like my family in the news meant only talking about people who were ensconced in conflict. It was all conflict. But there are real people who exist in these places where there is conflict. And they are nuanced and may all experience pain differently and joy differently and have lives outside of the conflict going on around them.”

Sitting in the host chair at “Morning Edition” is a way that she feels she can change this kind of sentiment across journalism, writ large.

“Representation matters,” she said.

NPR and WUKY, the local station in Lexington, hoped to draw an audience of 200 to the event, but only about 80 people showed up. The reason for the light attendance? That same night, WUKY was also sponsoring a concert in a nearby town, Tom Godell, the station’s general manager told me.

“We had part of our audience at this concert in Richmond, Kentucky, and we had part of our audience in Lexington,” Godell said. “We were trying to promote both of those on the air at the same time.”

NPR launched NPR Presents last spring after piloting some events in late 2013, and while many of the events have been well received, the logistics and planning processes haven’t gone as smoothly, according to people at both NPR and member stations. And as an increasing number of news organizations turn toward live events as potential sources of revenue generation, NPR’s experience underscores the importance of proper behind-the-scenes planning.

“Some of the live events that we’ve done have gone badly,” NPR CEO Jarl Mohn told Current in a February interview. “Because of the criticisms we’ve heard from stations and the results that we saw, we’re reanalyzing our approach. We believe, deeply and strongly, that working with member stations to produce live events is a very important part of our business strategy. We’re going to learn from our mistakes and improve.”

In Lexington, NPR told WUKY a month or so before that it was planning on holding the event there, and by then it had already selected a venue and a date, which it said couldn’t change — creating the conflict. Similarly, in November, NPR partnered with Seattle’s KUOW to produce Water±, a theatrical show directed by Tony Award winner Kenny Leon discussing water usage and conservation. Caryn Mathes, KUOW’s general manager, said editorially the show was a success, as NPR emphasized local Seattle-focused content along with the national show that toured the country. Still, Mathes said that there were logistical difficulties, though NPR was receptive to feedback and solicited constructive criticism in order to improve future events.

“Lead time/planning was poor, as was timely decision-making on everything from contracting the venue to the startup of online ticket sales,” she wrote in an email.

“KUOW’s experience with this pilot run was challenging, but NPR has documented what they learned and there is strong evidence of them ‘hearing’ their station partners. I’m very pleased with that.”

One change NPR has made is committing to a minimum of a 12-week planning process to get the member stations involved earlier to choose dates, venues, and topics that are mutually beneficial to both the network and the stations.

Last month, NPR put on its latest NPR Presents event in Miami. Planning and promotion of that event, a panel discussion on immigration led by Michel Martin, began in December.

“By mid-December, we had guests booked, which meant we were in a perfect position to begin to promote the event and to draw audience to a February 24th experience,” Emma Carrasco, NPR’s chief marketing officer and vice president for audience development, told me. “That is just not something we had been in the position to do when we first launched, but we turned the corner on that front.”

Carrasco took over running NPR Presents in December after the executive overseeing the events program left the network, and she said NPR is looking to expand the number and type of events it produces.

During its first year, NPR produced a number of different types of events, from Water± to discussion-based events led by Martin touching on everything from the concussion crisis in football to diversity on Broadway. The network is now looking at other types of events as well as ways to combine them. For instance, Carrasco suggested that NPR may bring together NPR Presents events with some of its comedy or arts shows, like Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, which frequently tape live in cities around the country.

“[There are] things that are already taking place, and is there a chance to look at scheduling them, as an example, as a way that allows the listener to interact with more than one of their favorite shows over a short period of time, potentially over the weekend?” Carrasco said. “We’re talking about that right now.”

As both the stations and NPR look to diversify their revenue streams, events are seen as an integral part of their future business plans. Many local stations already put on their own events in their markets, but the NPR Presents events are seen as an opportunity to draw in audiences with the the NPR brand and the cachet of the national hosts.

For NPR Presents, NPR and the participating stations split the revenue from the events, but the network works with the stations to provide additional opportunities to interact with members and station donors. NPR’s Water± show debuted in New Orleans last October, and the night before the performance, the station held a dinner for its board members and some donors to meet Michele Norris, who hosted the show, and other NPR and station staff members.

“Michele Norris was wonderful with our folks,” WWNO general manager Paul Maassen said. “When we do an event, we’ll have a public event…and just because of space constraints, we’ll have a dinner or breakfast that will be an invite kind of thing. They augment each other. It’s very nice.”

And despite the challenges of the early shows, member stations say they’re eager to participate again with NPR Presents. Next month, NPR is going back to New Orleans and it’s also planning on stopping in Detroit soon, where it also put on its water show last fall.

Maassen said NPR has been communicative throughout the planning process not only regarding logistical matters, but in terms of the editorial content as well. The event in New Orleans, which will be hosted by Martin, will focus on education in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and NPR wanted to ensure that they include local expertise of New Orleans’ school system while also incorporating a national perspective, Maassen said.

“The concept is pretty neat, taking the power of the national hosts and the content and mixing it with some localism and things that are unique to this area, or wherever it happens to be, to really connect real firmly with the audience,” Maassen said.