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Stormy days for NPR: The network's decision to replace Bob Edwards as "Morning Edition" host has been met with widespread criticism. (Allan M. Jalon and Steve Carney, March 29 2004, LA Times)

The outwardly ordered world of National Public Radio has been upended as station managers, editorial writers and more than 13,000 listeners have reacted with anger and confusion to last week's announcement that the network was removing the highly popular Bob Edwards as host of its flagship show, "Morning Edition," as of April 30.

The widespread criticism included dismay that NPR officials explained the decision in hazy, generalized language that gave those trying to decode it little to hold onto. But new details have emerged that suggest that Edwards' high personal profile and vocal insistence on retaining his position as the program's sole host are partly behind management's conclusion that, in his words, "I'm the past."

Particularly galling to a number of NPR affiliates was that Tuesday's news came just as many of those stations were beginning their spring fundraising drives. The ultimate financial effect on donations is hard to predict, local public radio station managers say, but doubts and even mockery of how NPR managed the announcement echoed last week on websites and in newspapers from Hawaii to Washington, D.C. [...]

With its weekly audience of 13 million, "Morning Edition" trails only conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh for national listeners, and the program was broadly identified with Edwards. Yet even he speculated that NPR officials had started feeling "I was too big for my britches."

Edwards said he wondered whether he hadn't fallen afoul of a cultural distinction between commercial broadcasting, where personalities like Howard Stern rule, and the egalitarian ideal of nonprofit radio. "The way they see it, the brand is NPR news, not me," Edwards said.

However, that sentiment wasn't shared by the many thousands who voiced their disapproval of NPR's move. [...]

As soon as he heard the news Tuesday about Edwards being replaced, 19-year-old Atlantan Edward Chapman created the website www.savebobedwards.com. More than 2,300 people have visited the site, and 630 have signed a petition that he plans to forward to NPR. (A petition at another website collected more than 2,000 signatures.)

"They're basically trying to do a New Coke," Chapman said of NPR's change. "Probably with the same success."