NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C., on November 8, 2018. (Photo by Allison Shelley/NPR/Handout)

John Lansing, the former chief executive of public radio program distributor NPR, died this week at the age of 67.

The cause of death was not immediately known. His passing occurred on Wednesday, according to a story posted on NPR’s website.

Lansing’s death comes about six months after he stepped away from NPR, which he led over a four-year period, to include the coronavirus health pandemic.

“He had a tremendous impact on NPR’s workplace culture, understood the importance of NPR’s mission to support democracy by informing the American public, and led the organization to rise to the challenge of an unprecedented global pandemic,” NPR CEO Katherine Maher said in a note to employees.

Under Lansing’s tenure, NPR endured layoffs and some programming cutbacks, which the organization justified as necessary to address financial...

NPR Business Desk Editor Uri Berliner. (Courtesy image)

Public radio program distributor NPR has suspended its business desk editor Uri Berliner over an editorial he wrote that was critical of the broadcaster and its former executives.

The suspension of Uri Berliner occurred last Friday, but was only made public on Tuesday after NPR revealed it in a news story on its website. The story was apparently with Berliner’s blessing, as he reportedly provided documents outlining the discipline to its media correspondent, David Folkenflik.

The unpaid suspension occurred several days after Berliner penned an essay for the Free Press, a Substack-distributed newsletter founded by former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss. The newsletter offers “investigative stories and provocative commentary about the world as it actually is,” and is often a haven for think-pieces from those who feel disenfranchised by the perceived progressive tilt of the American mainstream media.

In his column,...

Veteran broadcaster Bob Edwards, best known for his long-tenured career with National Public Radio (NPR), where he anchored Morning Edition for almost 25 years, has died. He was 76. NPR CEO John Lansing confirmed the passing on Monday, noting Edwards died “peacefully” on Saturday night (February 10) with his daughters and wife, NPR anchor Windsor Johnston, at his side. “He smiled as we played the well wishes, loving memories and messages of healing that you all so kindly took the time to record for him,” Johnston wrote in a statement, per NBC News. “A tear slid down his face as he listened to those familiar voices under the bed of the old ‘Morning Edition’ theme.” According to The Washington Post, Edwards passed away at a rehabilitation center in Arlington, Virginia, of metastatic bladder cancer and a heart ailment. “We are saddened to hear that Bob Edwards has passed away,” Lansing said in a statement.

Bob Edwards, a Peabody-winning National Radio Hall of Famer who anchored NPR’s Morning Edition for nearly a quarter-century before moving to satellite radio, died Saturday. He was 76. National Public Radio announced his death but did not provide details.

Edwards joined the radio pubcaster in 1974 and soon afterward became a co-host of its signature news program All Things Considered with Susan Stamberg. He left that show in 1979 to be the founding anchor of Morning Edition, which he would host with his warm baritone until 2004. His first interview for the show was Charles Osgood, who died last month.

“Bob Edwards understood the intimate and directly personal connection with audiences that distinguishes audio journalism from other mediums,” NPR CEO John Lansing wrote in announcing the death, “and for decades he was a trusted voice in the lives of millions of public radio listeners.”

Related: NPR’s Linda Wertheimer, One Of The Network’s “Founding Mothers,...

The board of NPR this week announced the appointment of a technology executive to serve as the public radio program producer’s next chief executive officer.

Katherine Maher joins NPR after serving as the CEO of Web Summit for just three months. She also served as the CEO of Wikimedia Foundation, the not-for-profit parent company of Wikipedia, from 2016 to 2019, and worked with the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board toward the end of the coronavirus health pandemic.

Like other media companies, NPR has struggled in recent years to emerge from the pandemic as a financially-healthy company as individual and corporate donors close their wallets and reconfigure their charitable spending.

NPR generates revenue through sales of its radio programming to individual member stations — most of which are licensed to colleges and universities, but some of which are standalone not-for-profits with no connection to a school — with those stations increasingly reliant on corporate underwriting.

John Lansing, the president and CEO of NPR, said on Tuesday that he is retiring at the end of the year.

The NPR board of directors will conduct a national search for his successor, and he will remain in his role “as necessary to ensure a smooth transition,” the network said.

In a note to staff, Lansing wrote, “We have been through a lot together over the past four years, and you have made me proud every day. During the pandemic, we were there when America needed us most, reporting truthful life-saving information when disinformation was rampant. And we were there when America went through an overdue racial reckoning.”

Lansing has been in the position since 2019, having previously served as CEO of United States Agency for Global Media and, before that, president of Scripps cable networks company.

During his tenure, Lansing led NPR through the pandemic and turbulent presidential election and aftermath,...

Wade Goodwyn, a longtime correspondent for NPR’s national desk who reported on Texas and the southwest, has died.

Goodwyn was 63. The cause was cancer, the news organization said.

He worked for the network for more than 30 years, mainly from Dallas.

NPR CEO John Lansing wrote in a memo to staffers, “For generations of public radio listeners, including me, he was one of NPR’s iconic voices. Aside from that instantly recognizable voice, Wade was a uniquely gifted storyteller and a brilliant reporter. From the first words of one of his stories, you always knew you were being taken on a journey by a master of our craft. You were in for a true treat, whatever the subject matter.”

Goodwyn covered stories ranging from the Oklahoma City bombing to the American Sniper murder trial, along with natural disasters and other major events. His coverage of a single mom who was...

PBS said it has suspended posting to Twitter after Elon Musk’s social network pinned a “government-funded media” descriptor to its primary account. The public TV broadcaster joins NPR in ceasing Twitter activity following the Twitter changes, which the organizations say inaccurately represent them.

“PBS stopped tweeting from our account when we learned of the change and we have no plans to resume at this time,” a rep said in a statement to Variety. “We are continuing to monitor the ever-changing situation closely.”

PBS, which currently has 2.2 million Twitter followers, says that U.S. federal funding provides about 15% of the revenue for the public television system. According to the org, over the course of a year, 86% of all U.S. television households — representing more than 230 million people — watch PBS programming.

On Wednesday, NPR said it was suspending all activity on Twitter citing the social network’s “actions that undermine our...

San Francisco, April 13 (Ians) American media outlet NPR has become the first major news organisation to quit Twitter after the Elon Musk-run platform labelled it as a government-funded organisation.

After NPR, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) also left Twitter after being labelled as government-backed media.

NPR said it will no longer post fresh content to its 52 official Twitter feeds, including the primary @NPR handle, which has nearly 9 million followers.

Last week, Twitter placed a “state-affiliated media” label on NPR’s account. After a backlash, the micro-blogging platform changed the label on NPR’s account to “government-funded media,” the way it has done to the BBC.

“At this point, I have lost my faith in the decision-making at Twitter. I would need some time to understand whether Twitter can be trusted again,” NPR CEO John Lansing was quoted as saying.

PBS has also not tweeted from its main Twitter handle...

NPR will no longer use Twitter, accusing the platform of “taking actions that undermine our credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorially independent,” in a decision announced Wednesday, April 12.

The move makes NPR the first major news outlet to stop publishing new content on Twitter; the rule will apply to all 52 official Twitter feeds operated by NPR, such as NPR Music and NPR Politics. The decision comes after Twitter unexpectedly added a “state-affiliated media” label to the public broadcaster’s main account last week. That tag was later revised to “government-funded media,...

NPR says it will no longer post fresh content to its 52 official Twitter feeds after the news organization was labeled “government-funded media” on the Elon Musk-owned social media platform.

NPR’s decision comes a week after the organization said it had stopped tweeting from its main Twitter account.

“At this point I have lost my faith in the decision-making at Twitter,” said NPR CEO John Lansing in an article posted on NPR’s website. “I would need some time to understand whether Twitter can be trusted again.”

NPR says the “government-funded media” label – the description was amended by Twitter after relenting on an initial “state-affiliated media” tag – is “inaccurate and misleading,” and notes that NPR is “a private, nonprofit company with editorial independence” that ” “receives less than 1 percent of its $300 million annual budget from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting.”

“I would never have our content go anywhere that would risk our credibility,...

Update, Friday: NPR said that it has stopped tweeting from its main Twitter account after the platform labeled the news organization “state-affiliated media.”

A spokesperson said that the outlet stopped posting from @NPR “after they attached that false label to it because each tweet we publish would carry it. We have paused tweeting from that account until we hear back from Twitter on this. We’ve continued tweeting from our other accounts that aren’t mislabeled.”

NPR also changed its Twitter bio to read, “NPR is an independent news organization committed to informing the public about the world around us. You can find us every other place you read the news.”

NPR business reporter Bobby Allyn, in an email exchange this week with Twitter owner Elon Musk, wrote that Musk acknowledged that the label “might not be accurate.” But as of Friday, it is still on the account.

Meanwhile, Los...

Twitter on Tuesday evening affixed a “state-affiliated media” label — a marker used to help users identify outlets that are editorially controlled by governments — to NPR’s main account, despite previous policy guidelines specifically noting NPR did not fall under that category.

In a statement shared on Wednesday, NPR CEO John Lansing described the move as “unacceptable” and inapplicable to NPR, which receives member support from listeners and provides “independent, fact-based journalism.”

“We were disturbed to see last night that Twitter has labeled NPR as ‘state-affiliated media,’ a description that, per Twitter’s own guidelines, does not apply to NPR,” Lansing said. “NPR stands for freedom of speech and holding the powerful accountable. It is unacceptable for Twitter to label us this way. A vigorous, vibrant free press is essential to the health of our democracy.”

NPR did not receive any prior communication from Twitter on Tuesday regarding the label, and...

San Francisco, Feb 23 (Ians) Global media outlet NPR plans to lay off about 10 per cent of its current workforce, about 100 employees, as its financial outlook has “darkened considerably over recent weeks.”

In a memo to staff, NPR CEO John Lansing wrote: “At a time when we are doing some of our most ambitious and essential work, the global economy remains uncertain.”

NPR had announced a hiring freeze last year as part of a plan to cut costs.

Lansing said in the memo that the ad industry has weakened and they are grappling with a sharp decline in revenues from corporate sponsors.

“We had created a plan to address a $20 million sponsorship revenue falloff for FY23 but we are now projecting at least a $30 million shortfall. The cuts we have already made to our budget will not be enough,” he wrote.

“Unlike the financial challenges we faced during the worst of the pandemic,...

NPR plans to lay off about 10% of its current staff due to the soft ad market and a drop in revenue from corporate sponsors, as well as uncertainties in the global economy overall.

In a memo to staff, NPR CEO John Lansing wrote that “our financial outlook has darkened considerably in recent weeks. At a time when we are doing some of our most ambitious and essential work, the global economy remains uncertain.”

NPR had announced a hiring freeze last year as part of a plan to cut costs amid a $20 million falloff in sponsorship revenue. But for fiscal year 2023, that shortfall is now projected to be at least $30 million, Lansing wrote.

“The cuts we have already made to our budget will not be enough,” Lansing wrote.

NPR’s David Folkenflik, who first reported on the layoffs, wrote that the layoffs impact at least 100 people. NPR also is cutting many of its open positions.

National Public Radio will reduce its workforce by 10 percent as it grapples with what CEO John Lansing says is a “sharp decline” in sponsorship revenue.

“Our financial outlook has darkened considerably over recent weeks,” Lansing wrote in a memo to staff Wednesday. “At a time when we are doing some of our most ambitious and essential work, the global economy remains uncertain. As a result, the ad industry has weakened and we are grappling with a sharp decline in our revenues from corporate sponsors. We had created a plan to address a $20M sponsorship revenue falloff for FY23 but we are now projecting at least a $30M shortfall. The cuts we have already made to our budget will not be enough.”

So Lansing says that most of NPR’s open jobs will be eliminated, and that it will be reducing its existing workforce by 10 percent. More than 700 employees work at the public media firm.

Four years before he showed up as Han Solo in the original "Star Wars" movie, Harrison Ford had what Universal Pictures calls his "breakout role" with "American Graffiti" in 1973. Written and directed by George Lucas, "American Graffiti" saw Ford play a character named Bob Falfa who is out to make a name for himself as the fastest street racer in Modesto, California in the early 1960s. The sight of Ford in a white collared shirt and cowboy hat talking trash out of the driver's-side window of his "field car" has become a well-known movie image.

Less famous is the cameo Ford made in the 1979 sequel, "More American Graffiti." In the mid-to-late 1970s, before he reprised his role as Han Solo in "The Empire Strikes Back" and starred as Indiana Jones in "Raiders of the Lost Ark," Ford was still appearing in smaller parts in films like Francis Ford Coppola's "The Conversation" and "Apocalypse Now.

SAG-AFTRA and National Public Radio have agreed on a new nationwide contract covering 521 NPR employees including hosts, correspondents, newscasters, reporters, announcers, editors, producers, research, archive and data strategists, and news app developers and designers.

Members approved the contract Thursday by a vote of 324–4, with the executive board of the union’s Washington-Mid Atlantic Local ratifying the agreement by a unanimous vote that same day. Final approval of the contract is pending review and ratification by the SAG-AFTRA national executive committee later this month.

“Congratulations to SAG-AFTRA members at NPR on their new contract,” said SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher. “The power of collective action was on display for all to see with the successful ‘Wherever we are, we make NPR’ social media campaign. It demonstrates what’s possible when members stay engaged and stand together. We thank NPR for recognizing the significant contributions of our SAG-AFTRA members.”

“Members led our team in shaping this contract,...

Radio and podcast powerhouse NPR shared key stats and highlighted noteworthy programming at its virtual NewFronts presentation this afternoon.

The privately and publicly-funded media org comprises 17 international bureaus, 265 member stations, and upwards of 100 million viewers across all of its distribution platforms. (It also pointed out the emergence of smart sneakers as a crucial venue for listenership). In terms of its radio reach, NPR shared that 98.5% of Americans live within listening range of an NPR station -- making it a critical resource amid budget cuts at local TV news outlets.

CEO John Lansing also boasted that the company has eight of the top 20 most popular podcasts in America right now. That said, it's unclear what metric he was referring to; we've reached out to NPR for clarification and will update this post with any additional information.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

President Donald Trump praised Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for testy remarks to NPR host and reporter Mary Louise Kelly, telling him, “I think you did a good job on her, actually.”

At a White House ceremony with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump noted the presence of Pompeo and said, “That was very impressive. That reporter couldn’t have done too good a job on you yesterday. I think you did a good job on her, actually.”

Most reporters took Trump’s comment as having to do with NPR host Mary Louise Kelly’s interview with Pompeo on Friday, not Monday. Pompeo abruptly ended that interview as Kelly pressed him on when he specifically defended Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who was recalled from her post last spring.

After the interview ended, Kelly said, he glared at her for a moment and left the room. One...

After a conservative radio host questioned the mere existence of NPR, President Trump confirmed that notion, writing, “A very good question!”

Mark Levin, a bomb-throwing Trump sycophant, who is both a conservative radio and Fox News host, tweeted out an anti-npr statement in the aftermath of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s ornery interview with an NPR national security reporter on Friday. The president took Levin’s tweet as an opportunity to champion a cause that he’s pushed for in the past, the defunding of NPR.

A very good question!

President Donald Trump again suggested starting his own global news network to “put some really talented people and get a real voice out there. Not a voice that is fake.”

His remarks were yet another slam at CNN, but also existing media outlets that are funded by the U.S. government, the largest of which is Voice of America. Voa’s mission is to provide an “objective and reliable source of U.S., regional and world news and information,” and is set up with a “firewall” to be free of political interference.

Speaking to a crowd in Florida on Thursday, though, Trump criticized those entities, which are overseen by the U.S. Agency for Global Media. Trump said that “we used to have Radio Free Europe and Voice of America. We did that to build up our country, and that is not working out too well.”

Instead, he said that CNN...

NPR has tapped longtime media executive John Lansing to become its next president and CEO. Selected by the NPR board of directors, Lansing will start in October, succeeding outgoing head Jarl Mohn, who has occupied the role since 2014.

“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 NPR board chair Paul Haaga in a statement. “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.”

Lansing is heading to NPR from the U.S. Agency for Global Media, an independent federal agency whose networks include the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks.

“I am thrilled to work...

At least six employees have been fired at Miami’s Radio and TV Martí in connection with a controversial broadcast report that claimed philanthropist George Soros was “anti-Semitic.”

The Miami Herald reports several employees were let go in the wake of the report, which aired last May. Radio and TV Martí is a Us government-backed radio and television broadcaster based in Miami that transmits news in Spanish to Cuba, and offers worldwide access through its website and shortwave radio.

Earlier this week, reporter Isabel Cuervo, her editor Vivian Martínez, producer Janet Lomba and journalist Armando de Armas were notified that they would be dismissed, according to the Herald, which cited a Martí employee who asked for anonymity. Lomba produced the program Levántate Cubain, where Cuervo regularly promoted her Antena Live reports. De Armas wrote an article about a Judicial Watch lawsuit related to Soros that served as the basis for Cuervo’s report.

Fox wants its subscribers to know exactly what they’re paying for. The network is running a sweepstakes called “Stream It and Dream It” to promote its TV Everywhere platform where subscribers have a chance to win $25,000. Fox’s subscribers have access to all its channels through five of the network’s apps. Subscribers can stream the network’s content on multiple connected devices, such as computers, smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs. However, the network found most subscribers were not aware of these features. “A study from Hub Research earlier this year, commissioned by Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (Ctam), indicates more than half of pay-tv subscribers are unaware of the features and capabilities of TV Everywhere, and nearly 60% have never taken advantage of the service, which is provided at no additional cost,” said John Lansing, President and CEO of Ctam, in a release

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

Food Network has promoted Brooke Bailey Johnson to president of the cable channel. As the No. 2 executive to outgoing president Judy Girard, Johnson was expected to take the top spot after Girard announced that she would step down to run Shop at Home Network, another network owned by Food parent company Scripps Networks (HR 1/14). "This move not only allows Judy to devote her full attention to her new duties as president of Shop at Home but also provides continuity as Food Network continues to grow," Scripps executive vp John Lansing said. Johnson joined Food last year in the newly created position of senior vp and general manager (HR 5/28). She is a 10-year veteran of A&E Networks, where she served in the top programming post at A&E and helped launch the History and Biography channels. She exited the company in 2000 and left the industry for several years to spend time with her family. Still vacant is the senior vp programming position at Food, most recently held by Eileen Opatut, who left the network last year.