Vice President for News Programming for NPR Eric Marrapodi spoke at Quinnipiac University’s Critical Conversations event Friday, Oct. 18.

Marrapodi, ‘03 spoke to an audience of students and faculty in a fireside chat fashion about the importance of media during this upcoming presidential election and the struggles of navigating the high-tense environment.

Mary Snow, the assistant director of the Quinnipiac Poll, moderated the event. Snow, a former CNN correspondent and Marrapodi, a former CNN senior producer, worked together during their time at the station.

“This is going to be a really close election,” Marrapodi said in an interview with The Chronicle. “There are really high stakes, especially for the media, and as things are in a challenging environment to do our job as journalists, especially in a world of misinformation and disinformation. It’s just important to come back and talk to students, talk to faculty and let them hear what we’re doing.”

Marrapodi has made some changes in the procedures to help situations where safety could be compromised. His leadership team decided to implement hostile environment training for those who are covering the election. This training is typically reserved for war correspondents.

“One of our reporters was in Butler, Pennsylvania when shots were fired and struck for President (Donald) Trump and killed people at the riot,” Marrapodi said. “That was a very tense moment in our newsroom, because we couldn’t get ahold of our reporter, we couldn’t get through to her on her cell phone. And so there were moments where we were wondering, did our correspondent get shot?”

Media Bias Fact Check, a website that examines various media outlets for bias and factual reporting, states that NPR has a left-center bias and highly accurate reporting.

“There are a lot of people on the left who would like us to be more alarmist,” Marrapodi said. “And there are people on the right who are saying, ‘You’re being too alarmist and saying too much.’ So when I’m getting criticized by both parties, by both sides of the aisle, I feel like we’re in a pretty good place with our coverage.”

Consumers of news have been feeling a significant amount of distrust in the media in recent years. In a recent Gallup News article, 31% of people who were polled said that they have a “fair deal” or “great deal” of trust in the media.

Marrapodi emphasized that having “receipts” and hands-on journalists helps increase the credibility of NPR.

“When you’re a journalist and you’re turning the story (into) us, and receipts matter,” Maripodi said. “It’s something that’s really important, that we don’t take things for granted, and you’ve got to verify the hell out of it with what anybody says. NPR has a distinct advantage that we have boots-on-the-ground in a lot of places.”

Quinnipiac administrsation came to the event, including President Judy Olian, following her accident earlier this month. Many students in the School of Communications also listened in on the event.

“I’m here just to get more information. I’m always learning and seeing what I could apply to my specific fields of interest,” said Harry Rosenay, a film, television and media arts and psychology double major. “I think (I want) an increased knowledge on the communications field in general.”

Before joining the Quinnipiac community, Marrapodi wanted to pursue sports journalism. But after touring the ESPN studio, he realized that he was more interested in hard news.

“I think one of the best things about Quinnipiac was it really pushed me as a student and as somebody who was studying journalism, and it opened a lot of doors for me in ways that I couldn’t have known were even available,” Marrapodi said.

The last time Marrapodi came to campus was five years ago, soon before the pandemic. There have been several changes to campus since then, such as the South Quad construction and renovations made to the Recreation and Wellness Center.

“When I was here, there were only a handful of residence halls, a handful of classroom buildings. And it’s just grown so much, and it kind of just blows (my) mind,” Marrapodi said.

During his time at Quinnipiac, Marrapodi created a music show called “Q Unplugged,” based on the popular show “MTV Unplugged.” He also worked at AM 1220 WQN News, a CBS radio affiliate in New Haven that Quinnipiac previously owned.

His hands-on experience in his field and his journalism classes weren’t the only integral part of his time at Quinnipiac. Marrapodi also wished he would have taken more classes outside of his major.

“Some of the most valuable classes for me were things like U.S. history, (my) political science, minor. I still find myself coming back to that stuff, as well as science classes or even language classes,” Marrapodi said.

One of the most important aspects of his Quinnipiac experience was making connections and meeting people, including his wife, Dawn, who was a physical therapy major.

“I met my wife (at Quinnipiac), which was a big thing, right? My wife and I met when we were freshmen, and (we’ve been) married for 20 years now, which is pretty exciting,” Marrapodi said.

Marrapodi toured campus before the event on Friday, reminiscing on his time in Hamden.

“There’s a place in the student center where my wife and I first met, and I can still go there and remember that moment. And now there’s a door there where we met, and so I took a picture in front of the door today to send her,” Marrapodi said.