Jeffrey left Monday to direct the Committee of Concerned Journalists, and I grabbed him as he walked out the door. Hey, Jeffrey, welcome back to On the Media.

JEFFREY DVORKIN: Thanks for having me.

MIKE PESCA: Want to talk about a few stories that you weighed in on over the years, and you know how this goes. [LAUGHS] I'm not bringing these up to pat you on the back, saying [LAUGHS], huzzah, sir! So one is a report on the so-called BTK killer, Dennis Rader, who was sentenced as a serial killer in Wichita, Kansas.

The NPR reporter aired segments of Dennis Rader, not the entire statement, but segments of Dennis Rader making his statement in court. And some of these segments were kind of graphic. Listeners wrote to you and they complained that this [CHUCKLES] was a bit too graphic and not what they expect on NPR, and you agreed.

So my question is, even though the crimes that he committed and the way he described it might be very discomfiting, isn't it news? And why shy away from that?

JEFFREY DVORKIN: Well, because I think that crime reporting is only necessary when it says something about our society. So I think we need to take a step back on this.

The other thing is, is that crime has declined in the United States by something like five percent over the last 35, 36 years. Crime reporting in American media has gone up something like 1,000 percent. It may sell more newspapers, but I don't think it's valuable journalism for public radio.

MIKE PESCA: In your column, you said that our reporting on the BTK killer was necessary. It was one of the biggest, if not the biggest national story at the time. Your objection was to his actual statements in court.

JEFFREY DVORKIN: Right. I think it was a story worth reporting, but I don't think the audio was worth broadcasting.

MIKE PESCA: I know that there is a lurid and — the word you used was "prurient" — aspect to that. But the words of the killer aren't an important if deeply disturbing part of the story?

JEFFREY DVORKIN: Right.

MIKE PESCA: Okay. [LAUGHS] That's called straightforward. Another interview that you talked about was Scott Simon's interview with John Waters, the filmmaker who basically is a connoisseur of trash and bad taste. And in his interview he didn't say any of the seven dirty words, but he did use "turd" and referred to a dog humping.

And you said that you agree with the listeners' complaints that John Waters may be droll for a lot of people, but by using naughty words for their shock value, this is not always a good reason to put him on the radio, at least on NPR. Could it be that you just don't get [LAUGHS] John Waters?

JEFFREY DVORKIN: It certainly sounds like I'm a bit of a prude on these things, but I also think that the audience has a different value to what they hear on NPR at different times of the day. There are more children around the radio in the morning than there are in the afternoon, and so Weekend Edition Saturday should have said, you know what? Weekend, All Things Considered - you should have this.

MIKE PESCA: In your defense, as far as the issue of if you're a bit of a prude, I do want to point out that you did weigh in at one point about the word "fart" being used in an interview [LAUGHS] with a children's author, and you said that you thought the listeners of NPR could handle the word "fart."

JEFFREY DVORKIN: There are people who are sensitive to particular issues. I think NPR has to do a better job in anticipating how certain things will be heard. This week on Morning Edition, there was someone who commented on the fact that there is no tooth fairy and there is no Easter bunny.

And I got a call from a lady in upstate New York who said that her children, who were four and five, were listening to Morning Edition, and they heard this and they burst into tears. You know, I felt terrible.
[LAUGHTER]
I mean, and I felt that, you know, maybe NPR should have been more aware that there are consequences to what they are doing and when they are putting it on the radio, and they need to be more aware of that.

MIKE PESCA: There's no Easter bunny. [LAUGHS] Maybe we should have attributed it to a source close to the Easter Bunny.
[LAUGHTER]
And then we take that step away.

JEFFREY DVORKIN: Exactly.

MIKE PESCA: The biggest story that you ever weighed in on in terms of getting [LAUGHS] your name bandied about there must have been when Terry Gross, host of Fresh Air, interviewed Bill O'Riley, and Bill O'Riley was so offended he got up and left.

JEFFREY DVORKIN: I got 4,000 e-mails on that. I think she is fantastic, and I think the problem with the interview that she did with Bill O'Riley — and I heard from a lot of public radio listeners on this as opposed to O'Riley-niks on this - was that she seemed to be going after him in a way that was unfair.

The biggest problem I had with it was that when O'Riley walked out of the studio in New York, and Terry was in Philadelphia, and she said, Bill O'Riley, are you still there? — and he was gone — then she continued to attack him by reading a criticism from People magazine, of all places. And that's called the "empty chair interview," and it is unethical and unfair.

MIKE PESCA: I listened to that interview, and my takeaway from that was right before Bill O'Riley walked out, Terry was attempting to read a quote from People magazine. Bill said, don't read that. Terry wanted to read that. Then Bill walked or perhaps staged his walkout.

At that point, if I were doing the interview, I'd have read it, because I'd have said to myself, well, he doesn't get the right to censor me or say what I could say on my show. And I as a listener very much wanted to hear [LAUGHING] what that quote was from People magazine, because that was the entire thing that preceded the walkout. So that was my takeaway on that.

JEFFREY DVORKIN: Well, as they say, you have the right to your opinion.

MIKE PESCA: So, Jeffrey, you're moving on to become the executive director of the Committee of Concerned Journalists. But I want to ask you about your replacement. Is there something that the next NPR ombudsman could bring to the job that you didn't or couldn't, for whatever reason?

JEFFREY DVORKIN: I could always have been more patient. I think that when people call up with steam coming out of their ears, the best way to approach them is to listen to what they have to say. So I think that if I were to do this job again, I would work on trying to be more of an advocate for their concerns, even if they are fairly insulting.

MIKE PESCA: The longest conversation I've had with you is this today, but you don't seem like a particularly hot-headed guy. Heck, you're Canadian!

JEFFREY DVORKIN: [LAUGHS] Not any more. I'm a U.S. citizen now, so I can be just as hot-headed as you, Mike.

MIKE PESCA: [LAUGHS] Jeffrey Dvorkin, outgoing ombudsman — in more ways than one -

JEFFREY DVORKIN: [LAUGHS]

MIKE PESCA: - for National Public Radio. Thanks very much for talking with me today.

JEFFREY DVORKIN: My pleasure.