NPR President Klose Lectures in Dewberry Hall

By Broadside Correspondent Sonya Hudson

Kevin Klose, president of NPR since December of 1998, spoke on a lecture titled, “The Simple Declarative Sentence in a New Media World.”

Klose has a resumé with experience that is not limited to radio. Before he was president of NPR, Klose was president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty from 1994 to 1997, which broadcasts to Central Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Prior to his career in radio, Klose was a reporter and an editor at The Washington Post for 25 years.

At The Washington Post, Klose had various positions including city editor, Moscow bureau chief, Midwest correspondent and deputy national editor. Klose is also the author of the book Russia and the Russians: Inside the Closed Society.

As a published author, with a career in both print and radio journalism, Klose can be considered an expert on the simple declarative sentence.

Klose focused on the importance of the declarative sentence in all aspects of communication, including that of journalism and everyday conversations.

“No matter what you do in your career or major,” Klose said, “the simple declarative sentence ties together realities of how an individual filters out what is most important to them.”

Klose explained that the declarative sentence is the heart of a story.

Declarative sentences help maintain a focus in the story to keep the attention of readers, listeners or viewers.
Simple declarative sentences help communicate clearly what happened and what was witnessed.

To learn how to write simple declarative sentences, Klose suggests referring to Ernest Hemingway, who is an author who makes good use of the simple declarative sentence.

Though the lecture focused on the simple declarative sentence, Klose promoted NPR sighting different strategies used by reporters.

“Show, don’t tell” is a commonly used slogan to promote descriptive stories in a narrative form, which NPR used. Because radio is heard, NPR cannot physically show through visuals, aspects of stories, but have found other strategies that accomplish this “show, don’t tell” policy.

Klose also relayed a story that contained an example of this policy as it relates to radio.

In an interview with a woman who survived the 1975 genocide in Cambodia, a reporter asked what happened to her father.
When asked this, the survivor could not bring herself to answer the question. Instead she remained silent for almost 20 seconds before she answered, which Klose described as showing the pain of the event holding her back.

This interview was aired with the 20 second period of silence without any editing. This was a case in which silence spoke louder than words.

This silence was an important aspect of the narrative. This form of narrative not only relates the emotions of the interviewee, but also maintains the listener’s attention and interest.

Experienced journalists, especially those on the radio whose interviews are aired, understand that simple and clear questions can lead to the declarative sentence.

This helps people relay what they witnessed to others.

Klose advises young, aspiring journalists to use declarative sentences to represent the truth through accurate information and try to answer the question, “How does it have credibility in our lives?” in their stories.

Klose explained that the world is not simply black and white.

Stories can be difficult to find, especially when searching for the truth or accurate information.

The search for the truth is a common goal among journalists, who try to provide accurate stories to the public.

Thomas Jefferson once stated, “People cannot be both ignorant and free.”

Klose determined that this proposition is what all journalists strive to address.

In today’s technologically advanced world, people are empowered by readily available access to information through the Internet.

The Internet has changed the rules of journalism, allowing it to become much more transparent and open to the public.

Klose noted that the ability to record, preserve and communicate stories is now granted to the masses.

“The ability to communicate to a global village makes this generation infinitely powerful,” Klose said.

Now that almost everyone has constant access to information and the ability to post and show what they have witnessed, it is imperative that they also understand the importance of the simple declarative sentence.

In doing so, the sentence focuses on complex issues so that more people can be free rather than ignorant.