The organization dedicated to supporting local public media newsrooms has hired its first full-time executive director.
The board of Public Radio News Directors Inc. named PRNDI President Terry Gildea executive director. Gildea will leave his position as program director at KLCC in Eugene, Ore., to take on the new role.
The board also promoted Christine Diers to PRNDI’s full-time business manager. She has held the role on a part-time basis for more than 20 years.
The two new full-time hires will “work to build the financial resources and national profile of PRNDI,” according to the announcement.
PRNDI’s board is also finalizing the formation of a nonprofit, the Public Media Journalists Foundation. The foundation will “cultivate and sustain news leaders and elevate quality journalism in local and regional public media” and help grow the organization through grants and sponsorships, the announcement said.
George Bodarky, a PRNDI board member and a former president of the organization, said in the announcement that the board “recognized we had reached our capacity on what could be accomplished without full-time staff in place.”
“While this organization has a history of advocating for news directors, we are now attracting a larger audience: reporters, producers and editors, in the audio and digital realm,” Gildea said. “I want PRNDI to become an organization that serves all journalists in public media.”
The organization holds its annual conference June 20–23 in Philadelphia.