Rick Karr
Rick Karr contributes reports on the arts to NPR News. He is a correspondent for the weekly PBS public affairs show Bill Moyers Journal and teaches radio journalism at Columbia University.
From 1999 to 2004, he was NPR's lead arts correspondent in New York, focussing on technology's impact on culture. Prior to that, he hosted the NPR weekend music and culture magazine show Anthem, and even earlier in his career, worked as a general assignment reporter and engineer at NPR's Chicago bureau.
Rick was nominated for an Emmy award for his 2006 PBS documentary Net @ Risk, which made the case that the U.S. is falling far behind other nations with regard to the speed and power of its internet infrastructure. He's also reported for the PBS shows NOW and Journal Editorial Report.
Rick is a member of the songwriters' collective Box Set Authentic. He lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, with his wife, artist Birgit Rathsmann.
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The technologies that record companies blame for a downturn in retail sales -- computers, CD burners and the Internet -- are also allowing musicians to do more of the things that record labels used to do. In a three-part series, NPR's Rick Karr profiles artists and Internet sites embracing emerging business models. -
An innovative program in New York will have diverse artists contribute samples of their work to a trust. Over time, some of the works should increase in value. The money raised will allow the trust to pay out pensions when the artists retire. NPR's Rick Karr reports.
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Search engines may soon use personal information to return better search results. Google's plan to offer an e-mail service that delivers ads based on e-mail keywords has privacy watchdogs nervous. NPR's Rick Karr reports.
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A $1 billion-a-year industry has sprung up offering advertisers and other businesses advice on how to get the most consumer traffic out of their Web pages. Most are ethical, but some specialize in building pages that trick search engines into thinking they're more important than they are. In response, engines continually tweak programs to prevent misleading returns. NPR's Rick Karr reports.
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If Web users don't pay to search, how do search engines make money? In the third report in a five-part series about Internet search engines, NPR's Rick Karr traces the ways companies such as Google and Yahoo earn cash.
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In the 1990s, Stanford students Sergey Brin and Larry Page figured out how to use the structure of the Internet — the way pages link to one another — to put the most relevant items at the top of a search list. Their discovery transformed their garage startup, Google, into the Internet's top search engine, a household name and even a verb. NPR's Rick Karr reports.
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Thousands of musicians, music industry insiders and fans descend on Austin, Texas, this week for the 18th annual South by Southwest festival. At a time when employee layoffs and declining sales plague the music industry, the festival continues to grow. NPR's Rick Karr reports.
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People over the age of 35 tell market researchers they'd buy more music if they didn't have to wade through racks of CD geared for 18-year-olds, read magazines tailored to 15-year-olds, or listen to radio aimed at 12-year-olds. NPR's Rick Karr talks with a former corporate turnaround specialist who sees the music industry in need of an intervention, and a publisher and editor who think a new magazine for older listeners is the key.
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Over the past five years, Indonesia has weathered terrorism, political upheaval and economic crisis. At the same time, the world’s largest Muslim nation has gone through a kind of artistic Renaissance. NPR's Rick Karr reports on the dynamic art scene in the island nation. View a photo gallery of Indonesian art.
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On Tuesday, online activist group the Electronic Frontier Foundation will file suit in a California federal court, seeking to enjoin Diebold from claiming copyright infringement over the release of company emails and memos. Activists have been trying to drum up opposition to electronic voting systems, which they say are insecure and plagued with technical problems. NPR's Rick Karr reports.
