I don't think NPR is doing "news" so much as ... "message"
On NANOG someone commented that NPR is reporting that cell and date are down in Iran. I don't know, at 6:15am EDT I got a note from someone in Tehran, so my guess is that someone told NPR to run a story no one (except a couple of hundred thousand people with frequent contact to people in Iran) would check. You'd think that MENOG would have a thread, if it were real, but it doesn't, so ...
Like Suzie says in Nice Polite Republicans, if you’re as sick of the pro-corporatist slant on NPR as I am, donate to a blogger - any blogger - instead.