What's Up With NPR's "All Things Considered" Michele Norris' Leave Announcement?

Earlier this week, NPR's highly visible Sunday morning TV face, Michele Norris. announced she was taking a leave from her position as a host for the network's "All Things Considered" program. Norris felt she had to step back from "All Things Considered" as her husband, Broderick Johnson, will join the Obama re-election campaign as a senior advisor. Norris will manage to keep herself busy during her "leave" with creating segments and features for National Public Radio.

If it were up to Norris, the story would end there. Most major media outlets tried it best to report the announcement in vanilla terms, as if this were just a detour along a golden career path. After all, doesn't this happen to other District power couples? (The Washington Post stories on Norris' announcement are characteristic of this perspective.)

In particular, Johnson's background was spun as the tale of the occupational hazards of a high-level Democratic Party operative's occupational hazards. However, the LA Times and TheHill.com bothered to report how Johnson's been making a living in recent years. Until this spring, he worked as a lobbyist, notably for TransCanada, the firm behind the environmentally controversial (make that highly controversial) Keystone XL oil pipeline. (The attempted denials of Johnson's lobbying role, quoted in the Times and TheHill.com's stories, are priceless.)

Among Johnson's other clients were Microsoft and (drumroll please) Comcast.

Do you think Johnson's lobbying efforts would merit a segment on "All Things Considered"? Somehow, I don't imagine that question came up during Michele Norris' editorial meetings.