Schardt leaves AIR, WNET selects ‘Amanpour’ team and other comings and goings

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Sue Schardt, CEO of the Association of Independents in Radio, resigned Thursday.

Schardt

Luis Perez, vice chair of the AIR Board, will oversee operations until a successor is hired, according to an announcement from the board Thursday.

“While my work at AIR is complete,” Schardt said in the announcement, “I remain committed to supporting those focused on expanding and diversifying public media service across the country.” Schardt has been active with the organization for 21 years.

Schardt assumed leadership of AIR in 2007. “Since that time, AIR has achieved unprecedented growth and diversification,” the announcement said.

Under her tenure, AIR more than doubled its producer network and launched AIR’s Localore project in 2010. The initiative teamed up independent producers and stations.

AIR Board Chair Jennifer Ferro told Current that “Localore is a signature project for AIR and we expect the next director will enhance and continue it.”

Schardt also launched AIR’s New Voices Scholarship program in 2009 to cultivate a diverse pool of young audio producers. Some 175 working journalists are alums of the project.

Ferro said AIR’s board is “grateful for Sue’s service and leadership, and for the strong foundation we now have in place for AIR’s next chapter.”

The executive producer for PBS NewsHour Weekend will become EP for WNET’s late-night public affairs series Amanpour and Company at its launch in September.

Davis

Scott E. Davis has run the weekend news program since 2015. His earlier experience includes senior broadcast producer for Need to Know. Previously he worked as supervising producer for national series including Religion & Ethics Newsweekly. Prior to joining WNET, Davis was supervising producer for Now with Bill Moyers. Temporarily replacing Davis as acting EP at PBS NewsHour Weekend will be Senior Producer Dana Roberson.

Co-EP for Amanpour and Company will be Gina Kim, who also worked on Now with Bill Moyers as well as Moyers and Company. Most recently, Kim executive-produced the five-part PBS national series, #MeToo, Now What?

Amanpour and Company is a collaboration between WNET and CNN.

Eric Nuzum, a former programming VP at NPR, is departing his executive post at Audible.

Nuzum

Nuzum joined the Amazon subsidiary in 2015 as SVP of original content. “Audible is a great company, and I’ve had a three fantastic years here,” Nuzum said in an email, adding that “I’ve done what I wanted to accomplish here and am ready to move on.”

“I’ve always said that my next move would be to set up my own company, and that’s the direction I plan to head over the next few months,” Nuzum said.

He also said he is finishing a book due in the fall.

“Looking forward to sharing lots of exciting news in the coming months,” Nuzum added.

Content

Handley

Carol Handley joins KNKX in Seattle as director of music programming Aug. 20. She succeeds Nick Francis, who retires this month after 13 years. Most recently, Handley was interim GM and host at KBCS-FM in Bellevue. Her long jazz programming and hosting experience dates to the mid-1980s at stations including KJZZ, the AM station of Triple-A KZAM-FM in Seattle. In 2011 she launched the local jazz news site Smooth in Seattle and Carol Handley Presents, a concert production company, online jazz station, website and podcasts featuring musician interviews.

Colorado Public Radio in Centennial continues its newsroom expansion with three hires. Daniel J. Schneider is digital innovations editor, focusing on digital strategy, web development and innovations for news reporting. He previously developed digital products at the Denver Post. Bente Birkeland is covering public affairs. She has reported from the statehouse in Denver since 2006 for 16 public and community radio stations. And Natalia Navarro is working as a general assignment reporter. Navarro has been freelancing since 2013 as a photographer and reporter for outlets including the Arizona Daily Star.

Angela King starts work Monday as local Morning Edition host on KUOW in Seattle. Her previous experience includes anchoring King Broadcasting’s Northwest Cable News channel, also in Seattle.

Adeola

Journalist Liz Adeola has joined KUED in Salt Lake City as host and producer of the upcoming weekly magazine series This is Utah. Most recently, Adeola worked as a multimedia journalist and anchored ABC affiliate RTV6 in Indianapolis. She also worked at stations in Ohio, Illinois and Texas.

Jon Hanrahan has been hired as assistant producer for On the Media at WNYC in New York City. He previously worked on Meet the Composer, another New York Public Radio presentation.

Lori Todd, NPR’s senior social media editor since 2015, begins work Monday as director of the digital desk of Cronkite News at Arizona PBS. Todd, who will also hold the faculty rank of professor of practice, will teach students at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication how to create multimedia content. Earlier in her career she worked in newspaper design at the Austin American-Statesman and Miami Herald. Todd also served as outreach coordinator for the public radio series Under The Sun on WLRN in Miami.

Shan Wang, staff writer at Nieman Journalism Lab, is joining The Atlantic next month as newsletters editor. Wang will help oversee expansion of the publication’s roster of seven newsletters. In an announcement, Editor in Chief Jeffrey Goldberg and TheAtlantic.com Editor Adrienne LaFrance told colleagues that Wang “has many fascinating and creative ideas about how nuances in format, distribution, timing and news strategy can make the difference between a solid newsletter and a world-beating hit.”

Maggie Stogner is the new executive director of the Center for Environmental Filmmaking at American University in Washington, D.C. She succeeds Chris Palmer, who has announced his retirement. “Under Maggie’s leadership, the center will remain focused on inspiring a new generation of environmentally oriented filmmakers and media experts who are committed to producing high-impact creative work that is informative, ethically sound, entertaining and makes a positive difference,” said Jeff Rutenbeck, dean of the School of Communication.

Two media professionals with ties to public broadcasting are serving on the Journalism Advisory Council for the nonprofit Religion News Service. Michael Wolfe is co-executive producer of Unity Productions Foundation, which has produced several documentaries for PBS on Muslim themes. And Ju-Don Marshall is chief content officer of WFAE in Charlotte, N.C. and previously was executive editor and SVP at NewsCorp, overseeing its Beliefnet website.

Management

Dana Whitehair is no longer GM of Delmarva Public Radio in Salisbury, Md. “DPR is undergoing a leadership change, with a search for a new general manager to be launched in the near future,” said Karen Olmstead, interim provost and SVP of academic affairs at licensee Salisbury University, in a statement. Programming Director Chris Ranck and Development Director Anne Dudley are sharing interim GM duties. Whitehair had led the station for five years. Earlier in his career he spent 16 years at KUT in Austin, Texas. Whitehair declined comment to Current. Olmstead said she cannot comment on personnel matters.

Lakshmanan

The Pulitzer Center has hired Indira Lakshmanan as executive editor. Currently she is the Newmark chair in journalism ethics at the Poynter Institute and a Boston Globe columnist. Lakshmanan began her career on the foreign desk at NPR. She also freelanced in 80 countries for outlets including Bloomberg and the International New York Times and guest-hosted public radio programs including 1A, The Diane Rehm Show, Here and Now and On Point. Joe Sawyer, founder and executive director of the Pulitzer Center, called Lakshmanan “a proven leader, a compelling voice both for the maintenance of essential journalism standards and for engagement with the global issues that affect us all.”

Fellowships

WFAE in Charlotte, N.C., has selected this year’s recipients of the 10-week Roger and Marilyn Sarow Reporting Fellowship. Cole Del Charco is a 2018 graduate of UNC Chapel Hill’s School of Media and Journalism and participated in the Next Generation Radio project and the Transom Storytelling Workshop. He is assisting with the station’s podcasts as well as working on daily news coverage. And Jasmin Herrera, a journalism senior at Chapel Hill, recently spent a semester in Puerto Rico reporting on power issues following Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Herrera is assisting with social media, email and research. The fellowship is named for Sarow, WFAE’s GM for 27 years who retired in 2015, and his wife and aids young journalists exploring careers in public media.

Sales

Current has hired Amanda Iannuzzi as account manager for classified ads. From 2004–14 she worked at WQED-FM, “just down the hall from the home of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” she said, in roles including producer, technical coordinator, traffic manager and intern coordinator. Iannuzzi also freelanced as a sports writer for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

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Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that Handley worked at KJZZ in Phoenix.

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