NPR today is making available to the public an API that allows anyone to “mash-up, re-use, and otherwise build upon” content created by the national radio network. The idea for the wide release of the API is to increase the spread of its digital material, and thus its legitimacy. So far, the public has only seen such material, be it text or audio or images, made available through its website and those of affiliate stations.
As NPR explains in its overview for the new release:
“...you can access the API by constructing a URL with parameters indicating what stories you want the API to return. The default format of the results is NPRML, a custom XML structure specifically designed to represent all of NPR's digital content comprehensively. The API can also return results in RSS, MediaRSS, JSON, Atom and through HTML and JavaScript widgets (other formats are pending).”
Now, as many residing within the American landscape do recognize, NPR is an American standard and brand that appears to be fighting two major battles today. One concerns the label given by critics of its left-wing liberal slant, a description which, objectively speaking, is both rightly and wrongly exercised. The other is legitimacy. Mark Hopkins earlier this week waxed rhapsodic about the imminent demise of terrestrial radio, a market NPR has catered to fastidiously for several decades.
And while I imagine NPR is likely to linger for a while longer as an over-the-air source for news and entertainment, it’s clear that its existence on the Web does not carry with it the financial gravitas, as it were, to wholly replace what happens over the AM/FM dial in the U.S. It’s logical to assume the heads at NPR know this, and are proceeding with efforts to close the gap best they can, and sooner rather than later. The API seems to be one more experimentalist step in that direction.
