Current (https://current.org/category/people/page/73/)
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KUOW President Wayne Roth, a former NPR Board chair and past recipient of CPB’s Murrow Award honoring outstanding contributions to public radio, will retire in September. During his 45-year career in public broadcasting, Roth provided strategic leadership to public radio on both the local and national levels.
NPR stations won 82 large-market regional Murrow Awards, while small-market pubcasters captured 91. Among all stations, WLRN in Miami topped public radio’s regional winners by taking 11 awards in 13 Murrow categories: overall excellence, breaking news, continuing coverage, feature reporting, investigative reporting, news documentary, new series, hard-news reporting, use of sound, writing and website. “We feel thrilled and humbled by the honor,” said Dan Grech, news director. “I couldn’t be prouder of the team.”
Four additional large-market pubcasters each won six Murrows: KQED in San Francisco, WBEZ in Chicago, KUT in Austin and WBUR in Boston. And four large-market stations each won four Murrows: KUOW in Seattle; St.
The nonprofit InsideClimate News won this year’s National Reporting Pulitzer Prize for its investigative series The Dilbit Disaster: Inside the Biggest Oil Spill You’ve Never Heard Of. Reporters Elizabeth McGowan, Lisa Song and David Hasemyer took on a seven-month investigation about a 2010 oil spill in Michigan’s Kalamazoo River. The winning package consisted of a three-part narrative and follow-up articles delving deeper into the circumstances of the oil spill. “It was an important story, and we told it well through the eyes of the people who experienced it and who are investigating it,” said David Sassoon, founder and publisher of ICN. Sassoon started ICN six years ago as a blog with just two people.
Merrill Brockway, a producer and director of several PBS arts programs who was best known for his work on the Great Performances spinoff Dance in America, died May 3 in Santa Fe, N.M. He was 90. Brockway was born in Indiana and began a career as a piano teacher and accompanist before entering TV at the age of 30. He wrote and directed for CBS affiliates in Philadelphia and New York before leaving commercial TV for PBS in 1975, when Dance in America launched. He worked on the program, produced by New York’s Thirteen/WNET, from 1975–88, capturing some of America’s most renowned dancers and choreographers on film. Dance in America spotlighted the work of Martha Graham, Thyla Tharp, and the New York City Ballet as choreographed by George Ballanchine, among many others.
The first television broadcast in China was transmitted in 1958. The first time that Ling Ling Sun watched a television program was 20 years later, when she was 18. Now she is engineering manager for television broadcast services at WOSU in Columbus, Ohio, and was recently appointed vice chair of the PBS Engineering Technology Advisory Committee.
George Walker, the host of local broadcasts of All Things Considered on West Virginia Public Radio for nearly 12 years, was found dead in his Charleston home over the weekend, local authorities announced May 6. Details of his death are awaiting an autopsy. He was 60. Walker joined WVPR in 2002 as a part-time announcer. In addition to hosting ATC, he produced the station’s weekly program Music from the Mountains until host Joe Dobbs retired in 2008.
Orlando pubcaster WMFE-FM has hired LaFontaine Oliver as its new president and g.m., replacing José Fajardo who left in December 2012. Oliver comes to the station from WEAA-FM in Baltimore, a jazz and NPR news station licensed to Morgan State University. He joined WEAA in 2007 and, while there, created the nationally syndicated Michael Eric Dyson Show. Oliver has also held management positions with SiriusXM in Washington, D.C., and Radio One, an urban-oriented, multimedia company based in Silver Spring, Md. “We are very excited to bring LaFontaine into this very important role,” said Derek Blakeslee, chair of the Board of Trustees of Community Communications Inc. , WMFE’s license holder.
Wayne Roth, longtime station chief at Seattle’s KUOW-FM and a past recipient of CPB’s Murrow Award honoring outstanding contributions to public radio, plans to retire in September. Roth’s influential pubradio career spans 45 years. During nine years on the NPR Board in the 1980s, Roth “played a critical role in reinventing NPR, moving it from reliance on federal funding and directing those funds to the stations instead,” according the announcement released by the University of Washington, KUOW’s licensee. His long service on the NPR board included two years as chair from 1988-90. Roth joined KUOW in 1983. During his tenure, the station — which serves Puget Sound, western Washington and Southern British Columbia — has become a pubradio powerhouse.
Mark Leonard, g.m. for Illinois Public Media in Urbana, takes over as g.m. and c.e.o. of NET in Lincoln, Neb., Aug. 1. He will step into the spot vacated by current G.M. Rod Bates, who is retiring June 30 after 30 years in pubcasting and 18 years of leadership at the station. Leonard’s appointment was announced today by Ken Bird, chair of the Nebraska Educational Telecommunications Commission, who said Leonard “is the right fit for Nebraska and NET.” Leonard has worked at six pubcasting stations over 32 years.
Karen Everhart, a media reporter and editor who has covered public broadcasting at Current for more than two decades, has been promoted to managing editor. She joined Current in 1991 and has reported on the programming, politics and funding of both the public television and radio systems, as well as the growth of nonprofit news organizations specializing in investigative journalism and local news coverage. Prior to her March 2012 interim appointment, she was Current’s senior editor covering public radio and digital media.
David Hinman, executive director and general manager of KBTC-TV in Tacoma, Wash., is leaving to manage cable television and video services for Pierce County, Wash., which “allows me to participate more with the creative side of television, which I thoroughly enjoy and have missed.”
Mary Mitchelson, deputy inspector general at the Department of Education Office of Inspector General, will take over as CPB inspector general June 3. She replaces retiring CPB IG Kenneth Konz. The CPB Board selected Mitchelson for the position, which is responsible for promoting economy, efficiency, and effectiveness; preventing fraud, waste and mismanagement in CPB programs and operations; and independently auditing CPB’s internal operations and external grantees. CPB Board Chair Patty Cahill said in Monday’s announcement that Mitchelson “brings a high level of integrity and extensive managerial skills” to the post. Mitchelson has been with the Department of Education’s IG office since 2000.
President Barack Obama on Thursday nominated Brent Nelsen, a political science professor at Furman University in Greenville, S.C., to a term on the CPB board expiring in January 2016. Nelsen would replace former Vice Chair Gay Hart Gaines, an interior designer and civic activist whose term expired in 2010. He is chair of the Educational Television Commission, which oversees SCETV in South Carolina. This is the president’s third recent CPB nomination. In February, he selected Los Angeles attorney Bruce Ramer to serve another term, and chose educator Jannette Lake Dates to replace former Board Chair Ernest Wilson, whose term expired in 2010.
Bret Marcus, the KCET exec who led production of the station’s acclaimed local news series SoCal Connected, is among the 22 employees riffed in the layoffs announced last week by KCETLink, the new public media outlet formed in a merger of the Los Angeles pubTV station with noncommercial satellite channel Link TV. Marcus, a former commercial TV news executive, served as KCET’s chief content officer and executive producer of the award-winning SoCal Connected, the local public TV news show that had a storied history producing investigative series and other news reports that made a difference in communities in the region. “I feel like I had a great run there,” Marcus told Current. SoCal Connected and its predecessor, California Connected, “were very unusual programs, produced by some of the best people in the news business. I’m very pleased about that.”
The CPB Board today honored retiring CPB Inspector General Kenneth Konz with a resolution of appreciation for his service in the post since 1998. Konz told the board he arrived 15 years ago thinking he’d stay for two years. “This has been a collegial, wonderful group of people to work with,” Konz said. “I am sure with the people I leave here and the new inspector general, the office will continue in good hands and continue to have a good relationship with CPB.” The independent office audits CPB grants, investigates complaints from citizens, promotes efficiency and works to deter fraud, waste and mismanagement in CPB programs and operations.
Mhari Saito, a reporter for Cleveland’s ideastream, died April 15 from a long battle with gastric cancer. She was 41. Saito began her career as an NPR stringer in Cambodia in the late ’90s before becoming an urban-affairs reporter for WHYY in Philadelphia. She moved to Cleveland with her family in 2003 and began working for ideastream in August 2005. While at ideastream, Saito reported on various topics, including the housing market, and contributed lighthearted local features.
One of the five men who filed a civil complaint against Kevin Clash has withdrawn his lawsuit alleging sexual impropriety by the former Sesame Street puppeteer. On April 13, a plaintiff identified in court records as “D.O.” agreed to drop his lawsuit against Clash. Jeff Herman, one of the attorneys representing D.O. and four additional plaintiffs, said the decision was not the result of an out-of-court settlement. “My client decided to dismiss his lawsuit so that he can focus on his career,” Herman said in a statement. “[D.O.] originally filed to support the other victims and to stand up for himself.
Marita Rivero, vice president and general manager for radio and television at producing powerhouse WGBH, is stepping down after nearly 30 years at the Boston station. Effective in June, Rivero will be succeeded by Liz Cheng as g.m. for television and Phil Redo as g.m. for radio.
Jane Nebel Henson, a puppeteer and philanthropist who was the widow of Jim Henson and founder of The Jim Henson Legacy, died in her Connecticut home April 2 after a long battle with cancer. She was 79.
Kathleen Megargee, a freelance television journalist who hosted programs on Pittsburgh’s WQED and the former New Jersey Network, died March 23 from natural causes at her home in Bensalem, Penn. She was 58.