Jim Wiener is retiring at the end of June as chief programming officer for Public Media Connect, the Ohio pubcasting partnership.
Wiener joined Public Media Connect’s ThinkTV station in 1997. The organization now oversees CET in Cincinnati, ThinkTV in Dayton and the Southwestern Ohio Instructional Technology Association. He has been manager of program services and director of broadcast services and became chief programmer in 2016.
Before that he worked for WQED in Pittsburgh, first as a statehouse producer and reporter and later as program and operations manager.
Laurie Johnson-Ramirez was named executive director of content operations for Houston Public Media.
Johnson-Ramirez steps in for Kyle Claude, who became executive director of marketing earlier this year.
Johnson-Ramirez joined HPM in 2002 and most recently worked as news director. She also leads The Texas Newsroom, a collaboration among HPM and public media stations in Dallas, Austin and San Antonio.
Development
The Public Media Group of Southern California hired Cindy Galindo as CDO. Galindo most recently worked as assistant VP of advancement for the University of Southern California. She has also been CDO for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and manager of donor relations for the California Institute of Technology.
Content
Amy Isackson became an editor for collaborative journalism at NPR. She will report to Bruce Auster, managing editor for collaborative journalism. Isackson most recently worked as interim Southern bureau chief. She joined the organization full-time in 2021 as an editor of All Things Considered.
Ashleé Clark left her position as VP of digital for Louisville Public Media to become manager of growth for the American Journalism Project. Clark joined LPM in 2018 as culture editor and was promoted in 2020. She was also a senior associate editor for CNET and a reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Chelsey Perkins was hired as news director for KAXE/KBXE in Grand Rapids, Minn. Perkins most recently worked for the Brainerd Dispatch as community editor. She joined the newspaper in 2014 as a staff writer and was promoted in 2017.
Ann Fisher is retiring from WOSU Public Media in Columbus, Ohio. Fisher, host of the daily public affairs program All Sides, joined the station in 2009. Her last day on the air is March 26. “It’s a bittersweet moment for me as I’ve loved my time and my listeners,” Fisher said in a news release. “I am excited to see what’s ahead after more than four decades in daily journalism.” Additional details on the program will be announced in coming months.
Stasia Lanier is retiring from her positions as music director, digital editor and host of San Juan Sunrise for KSUT in Ignacio, Colo. Her last day with the station was Thursday. Lanier joined the station as an office manager in 1993 and started working as music director later that year. “I’ve worked in a lot of capacities here, but I think the personal engagement with listeners is probably at the top of my list,” she told the station in an interview. “I’m very moved by having people tell me how much my music programming has meant to them.”
Giulia Heyward joined WNYC in New York as a general assignment reporter covering state and local politics. Heyward most recently worked as a breaking news reporter for NPR. She was also a national education reporter for Capital B and was a national reporting fellow with the New York Times.
Katie Hyson announced on Twitter that she was hired as a race and equity reporter for KPBS in San Diego. She succeeds Christina Kim, who left the station for NPR last year. Hyson most recently worked for WUFT in Gainesville, Fla., first as a supervising editor of digital content and later as a Report for America Corps member. “North central Florida deserves great journalism. It was an honor to try to bring that to you,” she said in a farewell letter on WUFT’s website.
Governance
Kyle Claude, executive director of marketing for Houston Public Media, was elected to the University Station Alliance board of directors. He will serve a three-year term starting in April. Claude joined HPM in 2020 and previously worked as executive director of content operations. He was promoted earlier this year.
Fellowships
Raney Aronson-Rath, editor-in-chief and EP of Frontline, produced by GBH in Boston, was named a journalist-in-residence for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Constructive Communication, which is based at the MIT Media Lab. Aronson-Rath will expand her ongoing collaboration with the center, “where she has worked with researchers using an AI-powered tool to help map the information bubbles that stoke polarization into socio-political silos, and to come up with possible solutions to bridge increasingly dangerous divides,” according to a news release. In Aronson-Rath’s initial collaboration with the center, researchers tracked user engagement through tweets over a three-year period and worked with Frontline to build models that predicted the political diversity of its audience. As part of the project, researchers examined Frontline’s social media activity to determine how language used on different platforms to promote stories could be improved to help broaden the audience.
Nicholas Spitzer was named a National Heritage Fellow for the National Endowment for the Arts. Spitzer is host of American Routes, a weekly music program distributed by PRX. As part of the NEA program, recipients receive $25,000 to honor their lifetime’s work in contributing to the arts. Spitzer has produced American Routes since 1988 and currently works as a professor of anthropology for Tulane University in New Orleans.
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