System/Policy

Eight station candidates seek election to NPR Board

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The election to fill four member-director positions on NPR’s board is underway, with nine candidates vying for the seats. Voting for the seats started July 11 and will run through Aug. 11. The winners start three-year terms in November. For what is believed to be the first time, a candidate was put on the ballot by gathering petition signatures from NPR’s Authorized Representatives.

System/Policy

Former intern sues NPR, alleging employment discrimination

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A deaf college student has filed a lawsuit against NPR for employment discrimination, claiming that the network misrepresented the terms of the internship and failed to properly accommodate her needs during her employment. Catherine Nugent, a student at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., filed the lawsuit in the District of Columbia Superior Court in March. Nugent, a major in business administration, alleges that the network did not give her tools she needed to communicate with supervisors. The suit also claims that Nugent was assigned to teach sign-language classes to her colleagues though she had expected to learn about marketing. Nugent claims that NPR did not provide interpreters or interpreting software and fired her two weeks into the 10-week internship after she asked for accommodation multiple times.

Quick Takes

Thursday roundup: Jackson lands in Cleveland; Kalish remembers Adler

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• Maxie Jackson, formerly president of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, is now managing WCPN-FM in Cleveland, part of the ideastream public media network, the station announced Wednesday. The hire is part of an organizational restructuring at ideastream stations WVIZ/PBS, 90.3 WCPN and WCLV Classical 104.9. • Pubradio freelancer Jon Kalish wrote a remembrance of NPR reporter Margot Adler for the Jewish Daily Forward. Adler, who died Monday, was known for being a Wiccan priestess, but Kalish also saw her as “one of the many prominent Jews in the 1960’s counter-culture who, like Allen Ginsberg and Abbie Hoffman, rebelled against the established order.” Kalish worked with Adler at New York’s WBAI.

NPR

NPR Labs to end run as stand-alone unit after losing consulting work

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NPR will integrate NPR Labs into its general budget and tighten its focus on public radio after almost five years of running the division as self-sustaining. Under the restructuring, NPR Labs will transition from its status as a stand-alone unit and move from NPR’s distribution division to its technology and operations division. NPR Labs will also drop the Technology Research Center name that it used to market consulting work to clients. The restructuring eliminated the top job at NPR Labs, held by Rich Rarey, a 34-year NPR veteran. Rarey, who will leave July 31, took the job of director of NPR Labs in February when founding director Mike Starling took a voluntary buyout offer and retired.