Current: How have your priorities for NPR changed since you became CEO? 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. Ever since I've started, I've noticed that you've been very vocal about the need for diversity. Follow Bloomberg reporters as they uncover some of the biggest financial crimes of the modern era. Live from. So mentally, how do you manage that? Discovery, CNN cut hundreds of jobs and killed off its brand-new streaming service, CNN+. How is it a priority? Current: NPR has helped stations during the pandemic by delaying planned changes to the dues they pay. Lansing: Thats a great question. It didnt begin in the summer it accelerated in the summer. Learn more at npr.org/about or by following NPR Extra on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. That was revised as a result. 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. He served on the Bellarmine University Board of Trustees from 2010-2016 and was vice-chair 2014-2016. We saw a lot of companies react to the [murder of] George Floyd and we did too. The network's fight for listeners' time has become more feverish. Again, I think it's about getting it intertwined into everything we do. Being selective, having mentors both white and people of color mentors that you can have confidential conversations with and gain some thoughts to help you develop your strategy, standing up for yourself which essentially is what happened at NPR through the climate survey and holding leaders accountable for everything. The ratings for our weekend magazine shows are actually slightly greater than they were a year ago pre-pandemic, so thats a bright spot.. He began his career in media at age 17 when he was hired as a studio technician and cameraman for WPSD TV in Kentucky. NPR was seen to align itself with federal workers at VOA who essentially conducted an internal uprising on government time, while NPR made quite clear in its coverage where it stood. We've made some good forward progress around hiring, with requiring that our hiring panels be diverse, requiring that our finalists have diverse representation at a minimum, but of course there's no maximum, in terms of a list of finalists. 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. As we got to April of last spring, we saw a massive deficit develop for NPR on the order of about $25 million. I think there's an awareness, like in the way you asked the question about 'our North Star.' How has that effort been progressing? I had been gone for the better part of a year or so. If you had to create a podcast, what would it be about? 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. A new chief content officer will oversee NPR's news and programming divisions, which have frequently collaborated and almost as frequently clashed over resources and . That with a combination of expense cuts, including our employees and our management all taking voluntary pay cuts and benefit cuts, helped close that deficit gap. CEO John Lansing discusses NPRs diversity efforts, budget deficit and growing podcast competition. At the U.S. Agency for Global Media known until last year as the Broadcasting Board of Governors he presided over 53 percent growth in the weekly audience for the agencys networks over the last three years, to 345 million. hide caption. The network has won acclaim for its coverage of wars and disasters, yet suffered its own crisis and tragedy in 2016 when its David Gilkey and Zabihullah Tamanna were killed while on assignment in southern Afghanistan. But also, what are the larger things that are happening? Four years ago, Lansing was named by President Barack Obama to be the first chief executive of the broadcasting outfit that was renamed the U.S. Agency for Global Media. Did you plan for this or did it kind of just happen? Weve seen significant growth in Code Switch, in Louder Than a Riot, in Sam Sanders podcast [Its Been a Minute], in part because for the first time in a while, were really investing in marketing support for those podcasts. So sad to lose an American institution to propaganda. Weve had a couple of significant anonymous gifts that have helped shore up our forecast for the coming fiscal year. Lansing, who is 62, is. NPR's search for a new CEO is finally over! 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 "However, when you think how we look out longer term, right, not just for 20 years, but several years out, it's really about building a sustainable financial future for NPR.". Lansing: They were for general. It was a reckoning for all of us together collectively at NPR. Current: NPR and a group of stations started a pilot project around collaborative fundraising in 2019. I established DEI as our top priority on Jan. 5 of 2020. NPR undertook a strategic reorganization last fall, reinstating the position of a chief content officer overseeing both the newsroom and the programming division. NPR, the public radio giant that employs hundreds of journalists, is about to get a new chief executive. "He is a listener and a collaborative leader with a passion for our public service journalistic mission who will help us continue to expand the audience for our storytelling. The varied broadcasters also offered jazz and other music to appeal to people under communist regimes using a soft form of diplomacy. Mr. Lansing rejected that accusation, saying that the agency was independent by law. In an interview on Friday, Mr. Lansing, 62, praised NPR as a home of high-quality journalism and audio production, and said that in addition to supporting traditional radio broadcasting he wanted to help NPR further its expansion into areas like podcasts, where the radio network has already been a leader. So those are the four pillars that rotate around the centerpiece, we call it the North Star, of our commitment to DEI. We'd like to revisit a story that first broke yesterday and . Apple is reportedly building a podcast subscription service. Today is a good day to remember the vital role public radio plays in providing the information we all need to fully exercise our rights in our democracy. You'll find out about what they do and what they're inspired by on the daily. In what ways do you think NPR has forced you to grow, and in what areas are you growing that you weren't before NPR? Our goal of developing our audience as a younger and more diverse audience requires that we invest in marketing, we invest in content, and we partner with platforms where those audiences can be found rather than expecting younger and more diverse audiences to come to our platforms, necessarily. Lansing's tenure at the agency has not been without controversy. 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. And its where our focus needs to be right now. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. A review by the House Foreign Affairs Committee faulted the agency for insufficient oversight but noted that an internal task force was already having an impact. In an interview, Mr. Lansing called the ads a rogue incident and said it had been corrected. "When I think of NPR and I think of the member stations collectively, I think really of journalism as a public service, not tied to a profit motive," Lansing told NPR News. "I don't anticipate that it would be like a haircut across every division, because that's just not management," Lansing says. Last year, the network booked $134 million in such corporate underwriting, a record built on strong growth in podcasting revenue in recent years. The agency has an annual budget of $808 million. How does the economy react to all of that? It has become enshrined in our three-year strategic plan as the centerpiece of all of our work. Trump has notably praised authoritarian figures, including the leaders of North Korea, the Philippines, Russia and Turkey and has waged his own fight against journalists. Theres no question about it. It's interesting. 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. Were they targeted to specific spending areas or just for general costs? David Westin speaks with top names in finance about the week's biggest issues on Wall Street. You have stated that DEI is your top priority at NPR. NPR's programming division, which produces its industry-leading podcasts, has more than doubled since 2019. He also vowed to make sure job cuts do not fall disproportionately on employees of color. 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. That's something that perceptive journalists should be able to pick up pretty quickly. NPR Start Date: Mid October, 2020 I'm just passionate about how good leadership can lead to good outcomes, and that led me here. But here, Lansing basically jumps over those disclaimers using the lame attribution of private citizen.. 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 recent remarks online, Johnson, who is Black, focused on a more competitive landscape for NPR journalists, including people of color. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly. John Lansing is taking over for outgoing CEO Jarl Mohn, who has led the organization for . 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. I'm kind of a politics junkie. 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. The staffing cut, which will cost at least 100 people their jobs, comes in response to the "erosion" of advertising revenue, particularly for the network's podcasts, NPR reported. When will that freeze be lifted? And the fourth one is to diversify and grow our revenue models so that were not overly reliant on one or two revenue streams to help strengthen our future financials. While serving as chief operating officer, she took on a greater role during two of Mohn's medical leaves and in the aftermath of the sexual harassment scandal. I think there are interesting trends to follow and try to understand. Last year, President Trump appointed Michael Pack as USAGMs CEO. Michael was a senior marketing executive at Scripps for Food Network and HGTV and really brings a lot of media marketing expertise. The first pillar is to expand the power of the national-local partnership into the on-demand future. The network had run deficits in six of the seven previous years; under Mohn, it has achieved a slight surplus for each year during his tenure, even as the annual budget grew by more than 40%. 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. Lansing is a veteran executive and journalist who has spent decades leading complex media companies in growing their relevance and reach, while strengthening their business operations. This documentary-style series follows investigative journalists as they uncover the truth. So I think that it has caused me to be more tuned in to hearing and understanding our employees. Here's what to do in a worst case scenario. So its a constant commitment to communication, to training, to accountability. National Public Radio (NPR) CEO John Lansing announced in a Wednesday memo that the network will lay off 10 percent of its staff and freeze vacant positions. John Lansing will begin his term as President and CEO of NPR in October, 2019. hide caption. NPR, the public radio and podcasting giant, has a new leader after years of growth and internal turmoil.