The organization's flagship shows are two drive-time news broadcasts: Morning Edition and the afternoon All Things Considered, both carried by most NPR member stations, and among the most popular radio programs in the country.

[10] NPR replaced the National Educational Radio Network on February 26, 1970, following Congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.

After a Congressional investigation and the resignation of NPR's then-president Frank Mankiewicz, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting agreed to lend the network money in order to stave off bankruptcy.

With room for up to 90 employees, it was established to expand its production capabilities, improve its coverage of the western United States, and create a backup production facility capable of keeping NPR on the air in the event of a catastrophe in Washington, D.C.[17] In November 2003, NPR received $235 million from the estate of the late Joan B. Kroc, the widow of Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald's Corporation.

The grant is meant to begin a project called Impact of Government that was intended to add at least 100 journalists at NPR member radio stations in all 50 states by 2013.

"[36] In late November 2022, CEO John Lansing told staffers in a memo that NPR needed to reduce spending by $10 million during the current fiscal year due to a drop in revenue from sponsors.

[37] In February 2023, Lansing announced in a memo that the network would be laying off approximately 10 percent of the workforce due to reduced advertising revenue.

In 2020, NPR released a budget for FY21 anticipating revenue of $250 million, a slight decrease from the prior year due to impacts of COVID-19.

Steps were taken during the Reagan administration in the 1980s to completely wean NPR from government support, but the 1983 funding crisis forced the network to make immediate changes.

[50] Center Stage, a mix of native advertising and banner ad featured prominently on the NPR homepage, above-the-fold, was launched in 2013.

[55] These statements are called underwriting spots and, unlike commercials, are governed by specific FCC restrictions in addition to truth in advertising laws; they cannot advocate a product or "promote the goods and services" of for-profit entities.

NPR stations are frequently not included in "summary level" diary data used by most advertising agencies for media planning.

[72] NPR has been dubbed as "leveraging the Twitter generation"[73] because of its adaptation of the popular microblogging service as one of its primary vehicles of information.

In a survey of more than 10,000 respondents, NPR found that its Twitter followers are younger, more connected to the social web, and more likely to access content through digital platforms such as its Peabody Award-winning website npr.org, as well as podcasts, mobile apps and more.

[91] University of Texas journalism professor and author Robert Jensen has criticized NPR as taking a pro-war stance during coverage of Iraq war protests.

[100][101] In 1994, NPR arranged to air, on All Things Considered, a series of three-minute commentaries by Mumia Abu-Jamal, a journalist convicted of murdering Philadelphia Police officer Daniel Faulkner.

[103] NPR's Ombudswoman Alicia Shepard's defense of the policy was that "calling waterboarding torture is tantamount to taking sides.

The steadfast, ongoing refusal of our leading media institutions to refer to what the Bush administration did as "torture" – even in the face of more than 100 detainee deaths; the use of that term by a leading Bush official to describe what was done at Guantanamo; and the fact that media outlets frequently use the word "torture" to describe exactly the same methods when used by other countries – reveals much about how the modern journalist thinks.On October 20, 2010, NPR terminated Senior News Analyst Juan Williams's independent contract[108] over a series of incidents culminating in remarks he made on the Fox News Channel regarding Muslim head coverings and not feeling comfortable around women wearing them.

[109] In March 2011, conservative political activist and provocateur James O'Keefe sent partners Simon Templar (a pen name) and Shaughn Adeleye[110] to secretly record their discussion with Ronald Schiller, NPR's outgoing senior vice president for fundraising, and an associate, in which Schiller made remarks viewed as disparaging of "the current Republican party, especially the Tea Party", and controversial comments regarding Palestine and funding for NPR.

CEO Vivian Schiller, who is not related to Ronald, later resigned over the fallout from the comments and the previous firing of Juan Williams.

On July 4, 2017, the 100+ tweets were met with considerable opposition, some online supporters of Donald Trump mistakenly believing the words of the Declaration referring to George III of the United Kingdom to be directed towards the president.

[112][113] In October 2017, sexual harassment charges were leveled against Michael Oreskes, senior vice president of news and editorial director since 2015.

Some of the accusations dated back to when he was Washington, D.C. bureau chief for The New York Times during the 1990s, while others involved his conduct at NPR,[119] where eight women filed sexual harassment complaints against Oreskes.

[120] After a report on the Times accusations was published in The Washington Post, NPR put Oreskes on administrative leave, and the following day his resignation was requested.

[124] Oreskes resigned at the request of CEO Jarl Mohn, was denied severance and separation benefits, and reimbursed NPR $1,800 in expense account charges related to his meetings with women.

[127][128][129] Twitter's designation was widely considered controversial as NPR is an independent news organization that receives a small minority of its funding through government programs.

Twitter's previous policy had explicitly mentioned NPR, as well as the United Kingdom's BBC, as examples of networks that were not considered as state-affiliated due to their editorial independence.

[131] On April 10, after managing to get in contact with Musk himself, NPR reporter Bobby Allyn wrote in a tweet that the platform's owner told him he was relying on a list accessible through a Wikipedia category page, named "Category:Publicly funded broadcasters", in order to determine which news organizations' accounts should be deemed as "government-funded media".

[132][134][136] As their last post on the platform, the network shared links to their alternative newsletters, websites and social media profiles in a thread.

[134][137] In an email to the staff explaining the decision, CEO John Lansing allowed individual NPR journalists and staffers to choose for themselves whether to keep using Twitter, while noting that "it would be a disservice to the serious work you all do here to continue to share it on a platform that is associating the federal charter for public media with an abandoning of editorial independence or standards.