NPR tapped CNN veteran Edith Chapin to run its foreign desk
News chief Margaret Low Smith announced Chapin’s appointment last week along with another change on its foreign desk: Didi Schanche, a former Associated Press correspondent and editor who joined NPR in 2001, is to become deputy senior foreign editor.
When Chapin officially signs on May 14, she will oversee NPR foreign correspondents based in 17 bureaus worldwide as well as a team of editors and reporters in Washington, D.C. She succeeds longtime foreign desk editor Loren Jenkins, who departed last November.
Chapin has spent her entire career at CNN, beginning in 1987. Based in London in the early 1990s, she covered events in Bosnia, Rwanda, Zaire and Ireland. For seven years she directed editorial coverage from CNN’s New York bureau, including its reporting on 9/11 and its aftermath. Since 2007, she’s been v.p. and deputy chief of CNN’s Washington, D.C., bureau. The daughter of a Foreign Service officer, Chapin grew up in Brazil, Ethiopia and Guatemala and speaks fluent Spanish, French and Portuguese.
As NPR foreign desk editor, Schanche has coordinated coverage of national security, Africa and Latin America, and she led NPR’s coverage of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. For AP, she reported from East Africa and was Middle East editor.
Becky Chinn, senior director at Oregon Public Broadcasting, will join Lewis Kennedy Associates as a partner May 1.
Chinn has worked in fundraising, marketing and communications for more than 20 years, 17 of those at OPB.
With her exit, OPB’s Paul Loofburrow was promoted to direct marketing for the statewide pubcasting network.
In an email to staff, OPB development chief Dan Metziga announced Chinn’s departure “with great sadness,” adding that she had “excelled” in the various jobs she had taken on during her long tenure at the network. As marketing director, Chinn “always exceeded her fundraising goals.”
Chinn also took on many leadership roles for public TV development at large. She served on the PBS Development Advisory Committee, the PBS Funding the Vision Station Advisory Council and the Contributor Development Partnership Advisory Council. She was an original member of the PBS Leadership Development Program and a master teacher for PBS Membership and Pledge Academies.
LKA, a Portland-based development consultancy, was cofounded by former OPB fundraisers Helen Kennedy and Jim Lewis. LKA partner Nova Hamar also is a former OPB development pro.
C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb is stepping down as chief exec.
Lamb, who has run the cable-funded nonprofit public-affairs network as c.e.o. since its founding in 1978, will be replaced by Rob Kennedy and Susan Swain, his co-chief execs.
Lamb will continue to host his weekly interview program Q and A and remain involved in “overall direction-setting for C-SPAN,” the network said in a statement. He’ll retain a leadership role as executive chairman of C-SPAN’s Board but relinquishes his position as board chair.
Swain, who joined the network in 1982, oversees programming and operations for C-SPAN’s three TV networks, radio station and websites, as well as its marketing and education outreach. Kennedy, a 25-year veteran of the company, focuses on finance, engineering and technology, and affiliate relations. He also oversees management of C-SPAN’s Peabody Award-winning online video library.
He and Swain were named co-presidents of C-SPAN in 2006.
Arizona Public Media has hired Jacqueline Kain into the new position of chief content officer.
Kain spent 19 years at KCET in Los Angeles as director of broadcasting and later senior v.p. for new media. She also worked at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles and Channel Four Television in London.
In her new position, she will lead the effort to develop AZPM’s activities for TV, radio and online. “My first goal will be to review and refresh our existing productions and online resources,” Kain said.
Programming
Craig Cohen, local Morning Edition host at WILL-AM in Champaign-Urbana, Ill., from 1995 to 2002, has rejoined the station as director of news and public affairs. He most recently directed programming and worked as a producer/host for WITF in Harrisburg, Pa. His pubcasting experience also includes a stint at KBIA-FM in Columbia, Mo.
Local Morning Edition host and reporter Scott Graf is leaving WFAE-FM in Charlotte, N.C., after eight years, bound for Boise State Public Radio. There he’ll join former WFAE-FM program director Paul Stribling, who moved to the Idaho station last June. At WFAE, Marshall Terry, local Morning Edition producer, will temporarily take over hosting duties.
Nova scienceNow has a new host, David Pogue, technology columnist for the New York Times, tech correspondent for CBS News Sunday Morning and a monthly columnist for Scientific American. Pogue begins his duties when Season 6 premieres in October, taking over from Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, who hosted Seasons 2 through 5. Pogue also hosted Nova’s four-part 2011 series, Making Stuff.