Greg Gutierrez was promoted to chief broadcast engineer at Arizona Public Media.
Gutierrez succeeds Frank Fregoso, who joined the station as a transmitter engineer in 1996 and was promoted to the chief role in 2007.
Gutierrez joined AZPM in 2022 as a broadcast engineer. He previously held engineering roles for Perspective Image, Fairfax Public Access and commercial television stations in Washington, D.C., and Tucson, Ariz.
In addition, Garrett Leeper was hired as senior broadcast engineer. Leeper started his career in the U.S. Air Force as a radio frequency technician in 2012. After 10 years of service, he worked as a technician for Lockheed Martin and ATS Automation. He was most recently a federal system technologist for Motorola Solutions in Washington, D.C.
Tiziana Dearing was named anchor of Morning Edition for WBUR in Boston.
Dearing, who starts the job Sept. 18, takes over for Rupa Shenoy, who left the position in June.
Before joining WBUR in 2019 as host of the midday program Radio Boston, she was executive director of the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University, president of Catholic Charities for the Archdiocese of Boston, CEO of Boston Rising and a professor at Boston College’s school of social work.
In a WBUR news story, Dearing said she is looking forward to meeting “a huge swath of Greater Boston as they get up and start their day.”
Content
Jennifer Wing was appointed news director of KNKX in Tacoma, Wash. She succeeds Florangela Davila, who left the station in December. Wing most recently worked as associate executive director of programs for Companis, a nonprofit in Seattle that matches volunteers with organizations. She previously worked for KNKX as a reporter and producer of Sound Effect and was also co-host of Transmission.
Andrew Kenney announced on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he was promoted to editor of Denverite, a news website owned by Colorado Public Radio. He succeeds Denverite founding editor Dave Burdick, who stepped down in June. CPR acquired Denverite in 2019. Kenney worked for Denverite from 2016–18. He joined Colorado Public Radio in 2021 as public affairs reporter.
Kara McGuirk-Allison became a senior radio editor for the Center for Investigative Reporting, which produces Reveal and merged with Mother Jones magazine last year. McGuirk-Allison is the founding producer of Hidden Brain, an independent program that continues to air on NPR. She was also a producer for Disney’s This Week in Marvel, NPR’s Justice Talking and WUNC in Chapel Hill, N.C.
Jessica Waffles was hired as host of the KXT Local Show, a weekly program launched in 2017 by KXT in Dallas, operated by KERA. Waffles has been a part-time photographer and contributor for KXT since 2021 and runs her Waffles Weekly podcast and media firm. “I feel so fortunate that KXT and North Texas are embracing me as a trusted champion of our local music scene,” she said in a news release. “I’m a passionate supporter of North Texas musicians, and I can’t wait to get into the booth and continue that advocacy on air.”
Governance
Paul Lindsey was elected chair of the community advisory board for Arizona Public Media. Lindsey, a retired real estate entrepreneur, first served on the board from 2013–22 and rejoined the board last year. Jodi Bain, a founding partner of the Bain Law Firm who joined the board in 2017, was elected vice chair. Edward G. Frisch, a retired associate VP of academic resources, planning and management in the office of the provost for the University of Arizona, was reelected secretary, a position he’s held since 2020.
Fellowship
Wesley Early, a reporter covering Anchorage for Alaska Public Media, was selected by the Poynter Institute for its 2024 Leadership Academy for Diversity in Media, which involves a weeklong in-person training seminar Sept. 9–13 in St. Petersburg, Florida. Early first joined the station as an intern in 2016 and has also been a web editor and producer.
The News Product Alliance announced a second cohort of enrollees in its News Product Management Certification, which requires three and a half months of classes. The public media professionals in the cohort are Emily Abshire, product editor of digital news platforms for NPR; Christina Kiewkajee, membership audience coordinator at PBS39 in Bethlehem, Pa.; and Arielle Retting, growth editor at NPR. Jahna Berry, COO for the Center for Investigative Reporting, is an instructor for the cohort. The program was created in partnership with the J+ program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York.
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