Current (https://current.org/tag/npr/page/35/)
NPR girded for a difficult leadership transition Sept. 13 when its board authorized management to trim the network’s workforce by up to 10 percent through voluntary buyouts.
WKGC in Panama City, Fla., will replace NPR’s newsmagazines with BBC news programs distributed by American Public Media. The station, which is also dropping its NPR membership, cited duplication of NPR programs in the market as the reason for the schedule change, which takes effect Oct. 1, reports the local News Herald. During morning and afternoon drive times, BBC World News and NewsHour will air on the WKGC instead of NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered. WKGC is licensed to Gulf Coast State Community College and shares its service area with WFSU in Tallahassee, operated by Florida State University.
Science Friday, the weekly NPR series hosted by Ira Flatow, is pairing with Public Radio International in a new distribution deal to take effect in January 2014. The agreement calls for Science Friday, a signature element of NPR’s science coverage since its 1991 launch, to continue as a weekly radio broadcast under PRI distribution. In addition, Flatow and his producers will collaborate with PRI series The World, The Takeaway and Studio 360 to develop multi-platform content around science topics. “We’re excited to work with PRI to expand their science and technology coverage,” Flatow said in a PRI news release. “PRI shares our vision of serving the public by telling compelling stories about timely issues.
Paul Haaga, a lawyer and financier who has served as NPR vice chair since last fall, was appointed interim president as the news organization unveiled a major workforce reduction.
NPR ended the practice Aug. 30 of crediting the off-mike staff behind the scenes of its newsmagazines, citing evidence that the lists of names cue listeners to tune away. The network had been considering the change for some time, said Margaret Low Smith, senior v.p. of news. In addition, credits could not accommodate all staffers, so those named “ended up being a select slice of people,” Smith said. And stations aren’t always consistent in crediting their own staffs during the newsmagazines.
“My finding is that the series was deeply flawed and should not have been aired as it was,” the ombudsman wrote. Top NPR execs stood by the investigative reports.
NPR’s Ari Shapiro will end his stint covering the White House and head abroad in January to report from London, the network announced today. In London, Shapiro will replace Philip Reeves, who will become NPR’s Islamabad correspondent. Shapiro has covered the White House for NPR since 2010. He joined the network in 2003 and reported from Miami, Boston and Atlanta, then went on to cover national security and counterterrorism. In 2012 he followed Mitt Romney on the campaign trail.
Marian McPartland, a concert pianist and the long-running host of NPR’s Piano Jazz, died Aug. 20 at her home in Long Island, N.Y., of natural causes. She was 95.
The unexpected departure of President Gary Knell puts NPR in the all-too-familiar situation of looking once more for a leader.
This item has been updated and reposted with additional information. NPR President Gary Knell has taken a new job as the chief executive of the National Geographic Society. Knell will succeed the society’s current president, John Fahey, when his term at NPR ends in late fall. Knell has served as CEO of NPR since December 2011. He came to the position after heading Sesame Workshop.
An award-winning 2011 NPR investigative series about Native American children in South Dakota’s foster-care system was seriously flawed and should not have aired, according to an 80-page report written by NPR’s ombudsman.
Threadless, a online company that sells T-shirts with designs voted on by users, is calling for artists to submit designs inspired by NPR and public radio. “We’re all huge fans of NPR and the content they bring to the ears of so many people,” said Threadless CEO Jake Nickell in an NPR press release. “With all of the avid NPR listeners over here at Threadless, the idea of a collaboration between NPR and the Threadless community just made so much sense.”
Artists have until August 26 to submit creations for the “My Sound World” challenge, one of several themed challenges that the website hosts. Once submissions close, users will have one week to vote on the designs. The winner will receive a $2,000 cash prize, a limited-edition alarm clock with an NPR-inspired design by pop artist Peter Max, an autographed copy of the book This is NPR, a $500 Threadless gift code and a private tour of NPR’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The design that the community chooses will be sold online and at the NPR Store.
Boston’s WBUR joined NPR and other news outlets in advocating for more leniency when it comes to indecency standards, citing its reporting of the Boston Marathon bombing as an example.
Frontline and PRI’s The World reporter Arun Rath will join NPR in late September to host Weekend All Things Considered, which is relocating to NPR’s Los Angeles studios. Rath currently covers national security and military justice for Frontline, where he has worked since 2005. He wrote and produced three films for the doc series, with the most recent looking into war crimes allegedly committed by U.S. Marines in Iraq. Rath also reports on music for the PBS series Sound Tracks. Before joining Frontline, Rath worked as a producer for NPR’s On the Media and was a senior editor for Public Radio International’s Studio 360.
NPR and American Public Media are partnering with a new mobile app that curates talk radio and podcasts according to listener taste. Swell, which launched June 27, is the latest venture to bring digital radio programs to listeners through digital rather than terrestrial means.
More than 100 public radio stations have picked up the midday NPR news show Here & Now with its expansion to two hours July 1, many of them to fill the void left by the cancellation of NPR’s long-running call-in show Talk of the Nation.
The Online News Association, a nonprofit resource and support group for digital journalists, moved its offices into NPR’s new Washington, D.C., headquarters July 1.
Republican Colorado Congressman Doug Lamborn today reintroduced legislation to kill federal funding for NPR. Its language is identical to his bill that passed the House in 2011, which prohibited stations from using CPB funds to acquire programming or pay NPR dues. That bill never made it to the floor of the Senate. “At a time when millions of federal works are being furloughed, schoolchildren are barred from visiting the White House, and many military training flights are grounded to save money, it is unacceptable that taxpayers are still on the hook for millions of dollars each year to subsidize National Public Radio,” he said in a statement. “Additionally, it was highly inappropriate for NPR to move into a lavish new headquarters building partly paid for by taxpayers, many of whom continue to struggle under the worst economy since the Great Depression.”
NPR announced today that Tracy Wahl will become the new executive producer of Morning Edition.
NPR is advocating for the Federal Communications Commission to loosen its policies surrounding broadcast decency standards, and retreat from a “zero tolerances” approach to one that only targets “egregious cases.”