Heather Riddle was hired as SVP and chief development officer for American Public Media Group.
Riddle succeeds Randi Yoder, who retired. Her first day with APMG is July 22.
Riddle most recently worked as VP of institutional advancement and alumni relations for Augsburg University in Minneapolis. She was also director of development for Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota and VP of university advancement for Concordia University.
Mike Sauter was promoted to VP of broadcasting for Pittsburgh Community Broadcasting Corporation, the parent organization of WESA and WYEP.
Sauter steps up from his role as station manager of WYEP, the dual licensee’s music station. He joined WYEP in 2004 as PD. He has also hosted The Midday Mix and worked as music director. In his new role, Sauter oversees both WYEP and WESA, Pittsburgh’s NPR News station.
“While I have a deep love for the music that WYEP plays every day, I have also, always been a voracious news consumer and thusly, have great respect for what my colleagues on 90.5 WESA bring to the media landscape in the Pittsburgh region,” Sauter said in a news release. “I’m excited to have an opportunity to work with all of the producers and show hosts here at Pittsburgh Community Broadcasting to make sure we’re serving the needs of the very passionate listeners of both WYEP and WESA.”
WYSO Public Radio in Yellow Springs, Ohio, promoted News Director Jason Saul and hired two reporters.
Saul, who signed on last year as news director, is now news and programming director. His previous jobs include managing producer for BirdNote, managing director for No Idea Media and director of digital services and corporate development representative for WWNO in New Orleans.
Reporters joining the news team are Alejandro Figueroa and Mawa Iqbal. Figueroa, a recent graduate of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, covers food insecurity issues in southwest Ohio and across the state. His position is supported in part by a grant from Report for America. Iqbal graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism last year. She has reported for KBIA in Columbia, Mo., and interned at Kansas City PBS. Iqbal is WYSO’s general assignment reporter.
“With a growing team of enterprising reporters, WYSO is uniquely positioned to become a journalistic powerhouse in this region,” Saul said in a news release. “We are investing in the people and resources we need to dig beneath the surface to hold powerful people and systems accountable.”
Vermont Public Radio announced newsroom changes.
Henry Epp, a host for All Things Considered, will become a reporter covering economic issues. Epp continues to co-host The Frequency, a morning news podcast. He remains as host of All Things Considered until the station hires his successor.
Abagael Giles, a digital producer, moves into a new job in the newsroom as the reporter covering climate change and the environment. VPR developed the position earlier this year as part of its collaborative fundraising initiative with NPR, according to a news release. Giles, who joined VPR in 2019, will work with NPR’s Science Desk.
Síle Shigley will host Simply Folk, a Sunday night folk music program produced by Wisconsin Public Radio.
Shigley has been a librarian for the series since she joined WPR in 2000 and became a fill-in host in 2013. She has performed in the group Navan, a Celtic a cappella vocal quartet.
“One of the wonderful things about this genre is that it doesn’t have to be limited by industry standards,” Shigley said in a news release. “On ‘Simply Folk’ we might play a nine-minute ballad, to spoken word, to something recorded on a back porch out in the country somewhere. Folk music is so much more expansive than a three-minute song. You need that long to tell a story sometimes.”
Content
Dave Rosenthal was named managing editor of the Mountain West News Bureau for Boise State Public Radio. The bureau, launched in 2018, is a public media collaboration with stations in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico and Wyoming. Rosenthal previously worked as managing editor of Side Effects Public Media, a health initiative led by WFYI in Indianapolis. He was also managing editor of Great Lakes Today, led by WBFO in Buffalo, N.Y., Ideastream Public Media in Cleveland and WXXI in Rochester, N.Y., among others. Rosenthal has also led an investigative reporting unit for the Baltimore Sun.
WHRO Public Media in Norfolk, Va., hired Ryan Murphy as a reporter. Murphy most recently worked as a reporter for the Virginian-Pilot. He has also been a reporter for the Daily Press in Newport News. “Ryan’s been a thoughtful and diligent reporter from one end of Hampton Roads to the other. We’re excited to have his local knowledge, expertise and fair journalistic mind on our team,” said News Director Mechelle Hankerson in a news release.
Cresencio Rodriguez-Delgado is reporting from California’s San Joaquin Valley for the Communities Initiative launched in March by PBS NewsHour. Funded by PBS, Craig Newmark Philanthropies and 26North Foundation, the project hires journalists in areas that have historically lacked national news coverage. Rodriguez-Delgado previously directed communications for Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability. He was also a reporter for the Fresno Bee in California.
Pam Fessler, a national correspondent for NPR, is retiring from her role as the organization’s reporter covering poverty, philanthropy and elections. Since joining NPR in 1993, she has covered homeland security and worked as an editor on the Washington Desk and the Midwest national desk. She was also chief elections editor.
Fellowships
Four of the 20 fellows selected for the Sulzberger Executive Leadership Program at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism work in public media: Ernesto Aguilar, executive director of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters; Tracy Brown, CCO for Chicago Public Media; Ha-Hoa Hamano, principal product manager of NPR One; and Tina Pamintuan, GM of KALW in San Francisco. During the 21-week program, each fellow will create a strategic project that is central to the mission of their organization, according to a news release.
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