John McChesney, a former reporter and editor for NPR, died Tuesday. He was 78 and had suffered from leukemia, according to NPR.
McChesney’s work included a major investigative story on the death of Manadel al-Jamadi, an Iraqi prisoner held in captivity by the CIA in the Abu Ghraib Prison.
McChesney joined NPR in 1979 to establish its national desk and went on to become one of the network’s first foreign desk editors. He served as NPR’s first digital technology reporter in the 1990s.
Following his time at NPR, McChesney was director of the Rural West Initiative at The Bill Lane Center for the American West, where he produced reports and documentaries about Western communities from 2010–12. In 2016, he co-founded the Sonoma Speakers Series, which brought prominent guests to speak in Sonoma, Calif.
He is survived by his wife, Wendy von Wiederhold, and a daughter, Amy Wallace, according to the Bill Lane Center.