America needs public radio more than ever. CEO John Lansing cited the erosion. "We were doing everything we could against the tide and couldn't keep clipping our costs as the revenue kept slipping," Lansing says. A later report commissioned by the NPR board found that questions had been raised about Oreskes' behavior even before his hiring and that concerns were raised throughout his tenure; the repeated and formal warnings by top executives (including Mohn) to Oreskes to stop the unwanted attention he paid to female colleagues proved ineffective. I will say in the last three or four weeks weve seen a little bit of an uptick in a positive way on corporate sponsorship. What we now call the North Star of our strategic plan is our DEI efforts as it filters through everything that we do with all of our work. Michael was a senior marketing executive at Scripps for Food Network and HGTV and really brings a lot of media marketing expertise. John Lansing, NPR's President and CEO, defended Kelly last weekend during an interview on NPR's All Things Considered program, saying that Kelley "is one of the most respected, truthful . We still remain one of the top, if not the top, podcasters in America. NPR CEO Jarl Mohn To Step Down After 5-Year Term Ends In June, Tensions Build In NPR Newsroom Over Handling Of Sexual Harassment Allegations, NPR Announces Newsroom Job Cuts Amid Restructuring. John Lansing, a veteran government broadcast and cable television executive, has been selected by NPR's corporate board to succeed its current chief, Jarl Mohn. We saw a lot of companies react to the [murder of] George Floyd and we did too. NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C. It was a reckoning for all of us together collectively at NPR. Current: Is there a timeline for that process? Lansing is a media executive with a deep understanding of journalism, having spent two decades as an award-winning journalist, successful newsroom leader and major market local media executive before becoming a global chief executive officer. I had no idea what was out there. Lansing was most recently the CEO of USAGM, a $800 million dollar independent federal agency that operates on multiple platforms reaching an average weekly audience of 345 million in 61 languages. Current: What are some of the highlights of that strategic plan? And the work goes on. In a memo to. "The challenges he will face at NPR are not dissimilar to challenges across the media landscape as a whole," said Sheikholeslami, who will soon take up the CEO job at New York Public Radio. How cool is it to be at NPR? In May 2020, four NPR female hosts of color Garcia-Navarro, King, All Things Considered host Ailsa Chang and Weekend All Things Considered host Michel Martin sent a letter to Lansing . hide caption. The ratings for our weekend magazine shows are actually slightly greater than they were a year ago pre-pandemic, so thats a bright spot.. Mr. Mohn led the push into podcasting and helped stabilize the organization after years of management turnover and budget deficits. Current: You recently made some changes to NPRs digital strategy by moving to integrate digital operations into divisions throughout the organization.This also includes eliminating the role of chief digital officer held by Thomas Hjelm at the end of February. Current. CEO John Lansing discusses NPRs diversity efforts, budget deficit and growing podcast competition. John Lansing, CEO, photographed for NPR, 22 January 2020, in Washington DC. Lansing blamed a slowdown in advertising dollars. He began his career in media at age 17 when he was hired as a studio technician and cameraman for WPSD TV in Kentucky. He served on the Bellarmine University Board of Trustees from 2010-2016 and was vice-chair 2014-2016. Lansing: Back in May and June, it was an alarming decline in radio ratings. In setting NPR's earlier rounds of budget cuts a couple months ago, Lansing consulted ahead of time with leaders of the unions representing workers at NPR with an eye to avoiding any layoffs. Lansing also elevated to chief strategy officer a former U.S. State Department staffer who recently pleaded guilty to having defrauded the U.S. Agency for Global Media out of more than $40,000 in government money in 2018, according to federal prosecutors. For July, NPRs 60 active shows among them Planet Money, Fresh Air and Wait Wait Dont Tell Me! were downloaded 141 million times and had nearly 21 million listeners in the United States, according to Podtrac. John Lansing will begin his term as President and CEO of NPR in October, 2019. This is simply disingenuous. Lansing: About 11 months ago, in February, a pilot group of 15 stations got together and put together an 18-month plan to begin the process. Well, I like NPR Politics a lot. NPR NPR Selects Voice of America Boss as Its New Leader, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/06/business/media/npr-john-lansing.html. The ratings for our weekend magazine shows are actually slightly greater than they were a year ago pre-pandemic, so thats a bright spot. And I think we have to extend that lead. Today, we feature John Lansing, CEO of NPR. NPRs search for a new CEO is finally over! "Management is about committing to strategy, making tough decisions.". Lansing has won plaudits from journalists for his rousing defense of a free press even while serving in the Trump administration, which has been notably hostile to traditional notions of the role of journalism in civic life. It puts a filter on that helps us explain even unpopular decisions, how they link to our mission. The work theyve done during the pandemic has been nothing short of miraculous in many cases, particularly given the summer of racial reckoning, the most unusual presidential election in memory and everything thats gone on since. Courtesy of Allison Shelley for NPR. It all goes back to our mission: serving the American public, recognizing the American public is a diverse mosaic that makes America great and strong, and making sure that we're building systems and content that resonates with all Americans. Now, he says, it must drum up more creative income sources, like the licensing of the popular show How I Built This to Amazon's streaming services, which he says generates $8 million annually. Lansing: Everybodys at a different place with DEI depending on where they stand, whether thats a person who is white and doesnt understand how white privilege has improved their standing in their career in a way that persons of color may have not experienced. Were working with them to do joint investigative reporting. Last year brought a host of challenges to NPR: a multimillion-dollar deficit, calls for changes in its workplace culture and a hit to broadcast listening. Such distinctions between news and programming are tricky, however, as programming oversees podcasts, including those that perform journalistic functions, such as Code Switch, It's Been A Minute, Planet Money, and Throughline. One thing I would say is, research the places you're looking at to either begin your career or advance your career and understand where they are on these issues. John Lansing will begin his term as President and CEO of NPR in October, 2019. At the center of a graphic is our commitment to DEI, and all of our work in that circle is surrounded by four pillars. NPR draws more than 28 million listeners each week and 40 million unique monthly visitors to its website both represent a rise of several million over those five years. He is passionate about NPR's public service mission and the role of a free and independent media in a strong democracy. I think you have to be transparent and be able to explain what you're doing, even if it's unpopular. ", "I am thrilled to work with NPR's exceptional management team, staff and journalists," said Lansing. He also vowed to make sure job cuts do not fall disproportionately on employees of color. Age: 62, Born on July 31, 1957, in Minneapolis That's a big thing too: having a common understanding of what management's committed to, what the Board supports, the work that's in front of us to live up to it, and ultimately diversifying our audience which leads to the business purpose. In an email to the staff on Friday, John Lansing, who joined the nonprofit as chief executive in September, projected that NPR would fall $12 million to $15 million short of the amount it had . John Lansing is taking over for outgoing CEO Jarl Mohn, who has led the organization for . Well, what we're doing right now, I think communication. Well, I'm fortunate that we have a terrific executive committee and leadership team, so we all share the daily ins and outs of managing a big organization. So those are the four pillars that rotate around the centerpiece, we call it the North Star, of our commitment to DEI. During the pandemic, NPR sidestepped layoffs through temporary cuts to pay and retirement contributions, distributed with an eye to shielding less well-paid employees, so they were most sharply felt by the most highly compensated staffers and executives. Lansing said in an interview with Current Thursday that one of his first observations upon joining NPR was that we needed to double down our efforts in diversity, equity and inclusion. You hear me say fairly often it's not a thing that's going to end; it's really a new way of operating with an awareness of this weakness that we need to address and build upon and ensure that it lives on and continues to improve. Were working with them to create regional newsrooms in Texas and California and the Midwest and in the Gulf. NPR has a new CEO. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images John Lansing is a former Obama appointee who was named president and CEO of NPR on Thursday. When you first got to NPR, what did you think? "Your mobility becomes extremely important to be involved and connected to audiences that are mobile and that tend to be, frankly, younger and, as we think of it at USAGM, future leaders, who can influence the rise of free and open societies.". Every time I hear it, I think that's a success by itself because we all have that as our guiding light. Diversity is the North Star of a newly implemented strategic plan, Lansing said, because it filters through everything that we do with all of our work.. It began to improve a little bit as we moved into August and September, as corporate sponsorships began to recover a little bit. Bellarmine alumnus and former trustee John Lansing, a veteran cable television and government broadcast executive, is the new CEO of NPR. "This will be a major loss.". I think there's an awareness, like in the way you asked the question about 'our North Star.' NPR Press Release. And what a breath of fresh air Whitney brings into the organization. He won praise for doing so and says he informed leaders of SAG-AFTRA on Tuesday about the impending job cuts. We established management commitments to the women of color so that we address specifically their concerns. NPR's chief news executive, Nancy Barnes, said Friday she would be leaving the network, prompted by NPR CEO John Lansing's decision to create a new executive role above her. After Lansing hopped over to NPR from USAGM in 2019, NPR had to be prompted by outside critics to include disclaimers on its USAGM/VOA stories to note Lansings past USAGM role. Will there be another stimulus? Lansing: Its on social media platforms or YouTube or through media partnerships. When asked about his priorities, Lansing invoked what he has called the network's "North Star'' since his arrival in the fall of 2019: a push to ensure the network has a bigger and broader audience base, rooted in younger and more diverse listeners, readers and consumers. I had been gone for the better part of a year or so. Scripps Networks The layoffs are in keeping with an increasingly grim landscape for media companies over recent months. All of that is to say that coming out of the reckoning of Memorial Day 2020 was for us and for me, in particular, a call to action internally at NPR to hear and reckon with our own issues internally. That was revised as a result. Lansing: SAG-AFTRA came out with their letter around our September board meeting in 2020. Share Your Design Ideas, New JerseysMurphy Defends $10 Billion Rainy Day Fund as States Economy Slows, What Led to Europes Deadliest Train Crash in a Decade, This Week in Crypto: Ukraine War, Marathon Digital, FTX. NPR's rigorous reporting and unsurpassed storytelling connect with millions of Americans everydayon the air, online, and in person. "And I want to look for areas that I can provide leadership to bring resources together as needed strategically to find the right priorities that make the most sense for growing NPR this year and then into the future.". I think as a white man, I know and have experienced that feeling of trepidation on discussions on issues of race, because there's an inherent fear that somebody is going to have a negative point of view about you. Lansing, who is 62, is. Did you plan for this or did it kind of just happen? ", "It's always difficult in these situations, and I don't want to minimize the impact that it will have on our colleagues and in some cases, you know, our ability to do what we do," Lee says. Let's say, I was walking out of high school into college, I had no idea what I was going to do. What was it like for you to watch that happen? Discovery, CNN cut hundreds of jobs and killed off its brand-new streaming service, CNN+. I think you have to be in front of your teams. Then I moved on to manage TV stations and cable networks. What is the outlook for the rest of the fiscal year? Current: Do you have any examples of how digital operations would be integrated into divisions throughout the organization? John F. Lansing (he/him) oversees one of the country's most iconic news organizations, whose rigorous reporting and unsurpassed storytelling connects with millions of Americans every day on the air, online, and in person. Within a few weeks, Lansing became convinced that projection would be unreachable. Current: What challenges have you faced in implementing your DEI plans? He soon made DEI the top priority at NPR. Born and raised in Albany, New York, Lansing was trained as a lawyer, and was long involved in politics and government.During the American Revolution he was military secretary to General Philip Schuyler. This is an edited transcript of the conversation among Lansing, Current Reporter Tyler Falk and Digital Editor Mike Janssen. During that financial crisis, NPR shut down shows and laid off scores of people. I think the work Keith has been doing long before I got here on diversity in tracking sources and the storytelling that we're doing around the company has really been effective in the area of DEI on radio, podcasting, and digital. Lansing describes himself as a citizen watching from the outside A private citizen? Because when you're all at work, you're all at work, and you go home to your individual situations. "We are delighted to welcome John, whose deep experience as a media industry executive and practicing journalist make him ideally suited to lead NPR into its next chapter," said Paul Haaga, Chair of the NPR board. So sad to lose an American institution to propaganda. Coming into public media, which I love, I noticed something that would be unusual in commercial media, in that there really wasnt a great investment in marketing podcasting to outside audiences off of our platforms. promoting Keith Woods to chief diversity officer, regional newsrooms in Texas and California and the Midwest and in the Gulf, I brought in Michael Smith as our new chief marketing officer, looking to sell the Pocket Casts podcast app, Suspension of NPRs Kroc fellowships disrupts talent development, career plans of student journalists. But it was not from a standing start. Now with the magazine shows on weekdays were about 20% behind last year, which is a significant improvement over where we were about eight months ago. Michael A. McCoy for NPR A federal inspector general's investigation has exonerated six government executives who were suspended last year after raising red flags about actions taken by. And our number one goal is to improve our audience diversity. It shouldn't be on any journalists of color, or anybody of color, to have to go and 'solve this problem' in somebody's company. Current: Companies like Spotify and Amazon have been pouring big money into podcasting. I got this part time job at a TV station to make a little money while I was going to college. He joined NPR after serving as CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media. In Mr. Mohns first full year on the job, NPR operated in the black after having run a deficit for five of the six preceding years. ", He continued: "Citizens in countries from Russia to China, from Iran to North Korea, have been victimized for decades. Lansing will begin his term at NPR in October and will succeed Jarl Mohn, who has been Chief Executive Officer and President since 2014. Mr. Lansing will start in October, replacing Jarl Mohn, who has run NPR since 2014. Last year, however, the U.S. Agency for Global Media came under fire when it emerged that it had bought Facebook ads targeting American citizens, in violation of laws meant to protect Americans from domestic propaganda. And its tied to the same variables you would know yourselves, which is, how fast can the vaccines be deployed? And some stations who had a schedule to go down actually were allowed to go down. Mohn fired head of news Michael Oreskes on Halloween 2017. Mr. Lansing rejected that accusation, saying that the agency was independent by law. Its a real business with real market dynamics.. He was responsible for strategic and operational oversight and P&L of the $2.5 billion division of Scripps Networks Interactive, including the company's portfolio of six cable networks Food Network, HGTV, Travel Channel, DIY, Cooking Channel and Great American Country and the $100 million Scripps Networks Digital division. NPR, the public radio giant that employs hundreds of journalists, is about to get a new chief executive. Essentially, the success of the company falls in your hands. September 6, 2019. Lansing, who is 62, is. So it's kind of inseparable, that coming in as CEO of NPR, and then six months in having the coronavirus, followed by a major economic downturn in the country and for NPR, and then the reckoning that summer. Lansing has earned an advanced degree in political agility. Were certainly not over, were not at a finish line. What advice would you give to young journalists of color when navigating these white spaces, but attempting to make a change? How do you think that the North Star, the strategic initiative, is going? NPR will cut 10% of its workforce, CEO John Lansing said Wednesday. Yet Mr. Mohns tenure was also marked by a sexual harassment scandal involving a senior news executive whom he had hired and a labor clash with hundreds of union workers. Its not a sidebar. Were consulting with digital media, were consulting with the division heads, and were doing it as an all-hands project so that we get it right. Your email address will not be published. John Lansing, president and CEO Chair of the NPR Foundation John McGinn Public members of the board Carlos Alvarez, CEO, The Gambrinus Company Fred Dust, designer, speaker, and consultant Paul G. Haaga Jr., retired, Capital Research and Management Company - Chairman of the NPR Board of Directors Pat O'Donnell, the executive director of the union's Mid-Atlantic unit, could not be reached for comment for this story. You go to college and all the sudden you're like 'wait a minute, I've got to do something when this is over.' Lansing: Lets go back in time. The Washington Post, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, eliminated its Sunday magazine and a handful of other jobs. So sad to me. In a private meeting on Thursday President Biden informed Senate Democrats that he will not use his veto power to block a GOP-led effort to repeal D.C.'s new crime law. It was about a $3 million cost to NPR for the fiscal year. hide caption. "When we say we are eliminating filled positions, we are talking about our colleagues - people whose skills, spirit and talents help make NPR what it is today," Lansing wrote in a memo to staff today. In these comments, John Lansing slides by with a public swipe at the Trump The streaming platform Spotify paid nearly a quarter-billion dollars to buy the podcast producer Gimlet, founded by former staffers of NPR and other public radio outlets. John Ten Eyck Lansing Jr. (January 30, 1754 - vanished December 12, 1829), a Founding Father of the United States, was an attorney, jurist, and politician. But second, we're mission-driven, and I think everybody in the organization lives and breathes that mission. But were going to continue to follow up on that going into this year. Its not something weve baked and were just going to hand it down. There were about 20, 25 different meetings in the course of about 45 days. Lansing: We arent in a position to answer that until we know for sure when the pandemic is going to subside. It is our work our North Star and our work are the same thing. I just think we have a special and unique thing as a company. Video Snippet With a nationwide network of award-winning journalists and 17 international bureaus, NPR and its Member stations are never far from where a story is unfolding. The work of those pillars will be done through the lens of improving our efforts on DEI. Mayor is said to be staying on at the network as a top executive and deputy to Lansing, retaining the enhanced portfolio she took on after Mohn's health crises. The only route to a successful engagement on this issue is to deal with it, to talk about it, and to take action. John Lansing, a veteran government broadcast and cable television executive, has been selected by NPR's corporate board to succeed its current chief, Jarl Mohn. They lost their objectivity and are now just pushing leftist ideology. Lansing: I dont know how long that may or may not take, but our emphasis right now is on our own internal digital strategy, digital production, digital storytelling. According to Nielsen data supplied by NPR, its programs and newscasts had an overall audience of 27.4 million in spring 2019. He is credited with restoring morale, in part by naming a noted journalist as head of the Voice of America: Amanda Bennett is a former top news executive at the Philadelphia Inquirer who previously held senior newsroom jobs at Bloomberg News and The Wall Street Journal. President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer speak to reporters as they depart the Senate Democrat policy luncheon at the Capitol on March 2. He promises NPR will build on its mission and values but adds, ""This will be a major loss." My story: npr.org NPR says it's cutting jobs by 10% as ad revenue drops Not exactly. Considering the demise of local newspapers around the country and the growth of our member stations newsrooms around the country, were really working hard to support their local journalism, because its so important to us. NPR faces financial pressures from two fronts. At a young age, my biggest goal at the time was to someday be a news director for a local TV station.
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