CPB Board selects new leadership, NPR’s Brand lands in London, and other comings and goings in public media

The CPB Board of Directors has unanimously elected broadcaster Lori Gilbert as chair and attorney Bruce Ramer as vice chair.

Gilbert was appointed to the board in 2013 and was vice chair for the past year. She is news director and host of a daily local news show for Elko Broadcasting Co.’s KELK-AM and KLKO-FM.

Ramer, a Los Angeles-based entertainment attorney, served as chair from 2010–12. He was first appointed to the board in 2008.

Each will serve a one-year term.

Zach Brand, former v.p., digital media and services at NPR, has joined Guardian News & Media in London as chief digital officer.

Brand will be responsible for digital products and strategy including theguardian.com, apps and content management systems.

Brand succeeds Aron Pilhofer, who is joining the faculty of Temple University’s school of media and communication.

Content

NPR has announced three new international correspondent assignments. Eyder Peralta is reporting from Nairobi. He joined NPR in 2008. Moscow correspondent is Lucian Kim, a nine-year veteran of the Russian capital’s foreign press corps working for outlets including Bloomberg and the Moscow Times. Kim was one of the only international correspondents in Crimea when Russia invaded. And Philip Reeves moves from Islamabad to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, into the spot vacated when South America Correspondent Lulu Garcia-Navarro moved stateside to host Weekend Edition Sunday.

In other NPR news, after nearly 20 years Tracy Wahl is “leaving for new adventures,” as she told colleagues in an email. Wahl, executive producer for editorial franchises, first started work at the public broadcaster as a production assistant in 1997 and served in several senior production roles at Morning Edition and Weekend All Things Considered. Her last day will be Nov. 11.

Maryland Public Television has unveiled two new stars on its Walk of Fame. Reporter Charles Robinson III was recognized for his work since 2001 as a political reporter for State Circle and correspondent for the weekly program Your Money & Business. And Robert W. Heck was honored for his on-air role and public appearances as Bob the Vid Tech for 18 years. Both were celebrated earlier this month for their contributions to the Owings Mills station. MPT established its Walk of Fame in 2010 to honor distinguished employees.

Cheryl Dring has joined WOSU Public Media in Columbus, Ohio, as program director for Classical 101, its 24-hour classical music service. Dring previously worked in classical radio in Dayton, Austin, Sacramento and New Orleans, and with Wisconsin Public Radio.

Delores Edwards is the new series producer for Basic Black and Open Studio, two weekly television programs from WGBH News in Boston. For the past nine years Edwards has worked as a producer in New York City on several news programs including CBS This Morning. She also spent 10 years as a freelance field producer for The Oprah Winfrey Show.

American Experience has named Gene Tempest as its first historian in residence. Senior Producer Susan Bellows said in an announcement Tuesday that Tempest will serve as “a public face for history” and the icon series. Tempest was associate producer and chief historian on Insignia Films’ The Great War, which will run as a six-hour miniseries on American Experience. Tempest also taught history at Yale University. Her latest book, The Last Charge: A History of the Cavalry in the Modern Age, is set for release in 2018.

Ed Joyce, anchor and reporter at Capital Public Radio who departed in August, has joined KNX 1070 Newsradio in Los Angeles as a news writer/editor/producer. Joyce also reported at KPCC in Pasadena and KPBS in San Diego. Earlier in his career he spent five years in various on-air positions at Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Management

Dean Orton, former chief operating officer at Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network, has joined Twin Cities PBS in St. Paul, Minn., in the same role. Orton will oversee the station’s content, marketing, events, corporate and foundation fundraising departments. Earlier in his career Orton worked as vice president of development and community partnerships at KETC in St. Louis.

Sean O’Mealy has resigned as g.m. of WNKU-FM in Highland Heights, Ky., after 19 months. An official at licensee Northern Kentucky University said O’Mealy joined the executive management team at Seven Mountains Media, which operates 11 radio stations in O’Mealy’s home state of Pennsylvania. Licensee Northern Kentucky University announced this spring that it’s considering selling the station. “With the future of WNKU up in the air, I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to join a stable and growing media company back home,” O’Mealy told WVXU.

Scott Cameron is the new executive editor of Illinois Newsroom, the seven-station regional news collaborative led by Illinois Public Media in Urbana and funded by CPB. Cameron, director of news and public affairs at IPM, previously worked as senior editor of NPR’s Talk of the Nation.

Houston Public Media has promoted Dave Fehling to director of news and public affairs. Previously Fehling reported on energy and the environment for the organization’s public radio station and was the Houston-based reporter for StateImpact Texas, a reporting project of NPR stations. Prior to joining Houston Public Media in 2011, Fehling spent nearly two decades reporting at local CBS affiliate KHOU-TV.

Joel and Laurie Kramer, who founded the nonprofit MinnPost nine years ago, have turned over leadership to Andrew Wallmeyer, new c.e.o., and Andrew Putz, incoming editor. Wallmeyer joined the newsroom in 2014 as publisher, and Putz came on that same year as executive editor.

Fellowships

The GroundTruth Project, a Boston-based nonprofit mentoring young international correspondents and documentary filmmakers, has launched a one-month “Women in Tech” fellowship in partnership with WGBH, Public Radio International’s Innovation Hub and SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE tech interview show. The first three fellows were Victoria Bedford, associate producer for Boston Public Radio and a reporter for WGBH News; Pooja Sivaraman, writer for the Open Society Foundation and a recent graduate of Tufts University; and Karis Hustad, a reporter for Chicago Inno, a technology news outlet. Each trained and reported in Boston before attending the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference in Houston this week, the world’s largest gathering of female technologists.

Wyoming Public Radio reporter Stephanie Joyce is the latest recipient of the Above the Fray Fellowship, a joint international reporting program of NPR and the John Alexander Project. Joyce will spend three months reporting from Georgia to tell the stories of generations of people who remain refugees within their own country, while their native regions remain occupied by Russian-backed separatists. She will file reports on-air and online for NPR. The fellowship is named for a young journalist who once worked for NPR and died of sudden heart failure while on assignment in China.

Governance

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has appointed Michael Walenta, g.m. at WGVU Public Media in Grand Rapids, to the Governor’s Council on Genocide and Holocaust Education. WGVU produced two Holocaust documentaries in 2010, Surviving Auschwitz: Children of the Shoah and Defying Hitler, both distributed nationally by PBS. Walenta will serve a two-year term on the council, which supports education about genocide for students and teachers.

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