And as a CEO, and also as a white man, I want to know, how did you handle it when all eyes were on you? NPR maintains 17 national bureaus and 17 bureaus abroad. He joined NPR after serving as CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media. All rights reserved. How cool is it to be at NPR? Certainly in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder on Memorial Day weekend, our efforts accelerated and we doubled down on communication, training and listening. Pack then took a number of actions that raised fears about the independence of the agency, which includes Voice of America. Apple is reportedly building a podcast subscription service. administration regarding the now former managers of his former place of employment (USAGM) but claims the mantle of private citizen to do so. John Lansing , CEO of NPR NPR President John Lansing '09 is Bellarmine's 2021 commencement speaker, Honorary Degree recipient April 22, 2021 NPR P. Lansing 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. Lansing, who is 62, is. 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. 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. 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. He soon made DEI the top priority at NPR. Courtesy of Allison Shelley for NPR. Why did you undertake this? The network's fight for listeners' time has become more feverish. Lansing clearly had an ongoing interest in the USAGM story and the notion that that at some point along the line he did not provide his take, at minimum, to NPR reporting staff, on the story beggars belief. Doing that just requires that were putting more emphasis on the diversity of our decision makers, our leadership, our story selection, our source selection. In an interview, Lansing said he wants to build on NPR's successes in broadcast news and entertainment to become even more dominant in podcasting and more prevalent in streaming. Lansing says even that proved overly optimistic. I had no idea what was out there. Their editorial independence is enshrined in federal law, though it sometimes came under attack. It's not just what happened this week on the Hill, although that's important. He took over a troubled organization beset by infighting and bureaucratic inefficiency. Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas, Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information, news and insight around the world. Today, those individual situations are happening in the background when everybody's working, whether it's kids that are school age, or kids that are toddlers, or elder care, or spouses working in the same room or in the same apartment. Well, I like NPR Politics a lot. I would enjoy being on a podcast talking about politics. Mr. Mohn led the push into podcasting and helped stabilize the organization after years of management turnover and budget deficits. "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. We're funded by your subscriptions, your donations, advertising, and a generous grant from the Wyncote Foundation. Weve seen a gradual comeback. Board Memberships & Affiliations. Lansing says he remains committed to podcasting "1,000 percent," as well as the network's hallmark news magazines, such as Morning Edition and All Things Considered. I think that's where we all wind up. Its new president and chief executive is John Lansing, a former cable executive who for the last five years has run the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the federally funded organization behind. 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. 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. How is it a priority? Mohn placed an emphasis on fostering a more collaborative dynamic with the public radio stations that NPR serves and was given credit for making progress on that score. So Im pleased to see that that short era is over. 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. Lansing, who is 62, is. People, given the opportunity, will do the right thing in a way that hopefully makes them want to be here for a long time. 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. And it gives the lie to NPRs claim, through disclaimers, that it is simply reporting on its own the implication of the disclaimer being that there is no editorial control or direction from the CEO. A graduate of Bellarmine University, he was named to the Bellarmine University Gallery of Distinguished Graduates in 2010. Yet the tech and media industries' prospects stand at odds with a tight labor market and low unemployment more broadly. Current (https://current.org/2021/02/ceo-john-lansing-discusses-nprs-diversity-efforts-budget-deficit-and-growing-podcast-competition/). Lansing: When I came in in 2019, my earliest observation was that our biggest issue was the lack of diversity in our audience, and I felt that we needed to double down our efforts in DEI throughout our organization in order to fulfill the promise to reflect the entire American public in terms of what America looks like. That was due largely to reductions in corporate sponsorship and also additional expenses we were incurring in supporting our employees with paid time off, as we adjusted to the new working arrangements and the stresses that we were all under and also the additional expense of cleaning the headquarters multiple times a day on certain occasions. And its tied to the same variables you would know yourselves, which is, how fast can the vaccines be deployed? 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. Mr. Lansing will start in October, replacing Jarl Mohn, who has run NPR since 2014. NPR will cut 10% of its workforce, CEO John Lansing said Wednesday. It didnt begin in the summer it accelerated in the summer. 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. Lansing: Generally, the numbers that we would like to see in terms of the diversity of our audience were still lagging. Lansing: SAG-AFTRA came out with their letter around our September board meeting in 2020. Both Lansing and Sheikholeslami say he is adamant about pressing forward with reforms to the workplace culture at NPR that Mayor has already started to put in place. And weve seen that really help them grow. He guided the organization in becoming a leading developer of unique content across television, digital, mobile and radio platforms. 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. 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. Lansing: You have to imagine a picture, if you will. 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'd say if there's anything that I focused on, and still am focused on during the pandemic, it is to make sure that whatever the situation is, we are supporting staff to do their best work, supporting them when they're having other challenges and making sure that we're attentive and tuned in to employees that need help, that need a break, that need to be heard, whatever that may be. They lost their objectivity and are now just pushing leftist ideology. This is essentially the DEI work writ large, but also our culture of respect, safety, upward mobility, training and making NPR a world-class organization for which to work. If you had to create a podcast, what would it be about? 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"In terms of mission, understanding of media, the depth of experience, his strategic leadership, his commitment to people and culture, I would say those were really the key things that we were looking for," said Goli Sheikholeslami, vice chairwoman of the NPR board of directors and CEO of Chicago Public Media. Mohn had promised to attract major contributions to NPR before the end of his tenure; to date he has not landed the major eight- and nine-figure donations his stated aspirations suggested. You can't escape that. . Because when you're all at work, you're all at work, and you go home to your individual situations. "Governments around the world are increasingly cracking down on the free flow of information; silencing dialogue and dissent; and distorting reality," Lansing said in a speech he delivered in May to the Media for Democracy Forum. And how's that being measured and accounted for? "North Star"] for NPR on my arrival as supporting the diversity, equity, and inclusion of our staff so that we could become more relevant to our audiences and grow the diversity of our audiences. NPR is funded by the CPB/PBS which are funded in part by the U.S. government. National Public Radio will reduce its workforce by 10 percent as it grapples with what CEO John Lansing says is a "sharp . CEO John Lansing says ad revenue for podcasting shriveled even as general economy seems on mend. Did you know that one day you would become a CEO? The various challenges everybody's having from working at home, for example, you realize that everybody's situation is different when you're working. "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.". NPR's chief executive announced the network would lay off roughly 10% of its . Lansing, who is . Just be tuned into our folks. So I think that it has caused me to be more tuned in to hearing and understanding our employees. And for those stations that were scheduled to have a reduction, we allowed those reductions to go forward with a floor of 3% so that nobodys dues went up. That was revised as a result. I subscribe to the notion of leadership as a servant leader, that the role of leaders is to support the team to do their best work. But we made a firm commitment, as you know, to freeze station dues and fees. Under his leadership NPR has been reaching new audiences as the country's top podcast publisher and through platforms like smart-speakers and connected cars. 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. A member of the Republican Party, Gibbs was a software engineer and missionary before entering politics. Vox Media cut jobs by 7%; Gannett and Spotify by 6%. Obviously, this job that you have as a CEO of NPR is a really huge responsibility. So I wouldn't create a politics podcast because there are too many, and we have the best one of many already. 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. "What we've shown with podcasting is that we can take some of our core journalistic assets and we can create new formats and new programs around them and actually reach new audiences. Your email address will not be published. As we got to April of last spring, we saw a massive deficit develop for NPR on the order of about $25 million. Our third pillar is to optimize content and meet audiences where they are. What steps does NPR still need to take in this area? 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. It really stretched me to understand that flexibility is a good thing. For several years, it eliminated salary increases and suspended retirement contributions. Lansing: Thats a great question. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Public Media Now was created to be a centralized source of information and resources to help professional within Public Media be more successful. John Lansing is a former Obama appointee who was named president and CEO of NPR on Thursday. Ever since you started, you've been very vocal about it. September 5, 2019; Washington, D.C. The NPR Board of Directors announced today that it selected John Lansing to become its next President and Chief Executive Officer. I can't speak for other people, CEOs. I had been gone for the better part of a year or so. Required fields are marked *. It goes on to say that Mr. Lansing, 62, is currently the chief executive of the government agency, The U.S. Agency for Global Media, that oversees Voice of America, Radio and Television Marti, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, among others. She also has led initiatives to reform hiring practices and to sweep far more temporary positions into permanent slots, often working closely with the network's chief unions to do so. Everybody at NPR knows exactly what you mean when you say, 'What's our North Star?' 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. "I want to hear the ideas that are bubbling underneath right now and what people are excited about, what they're looking forward to developing," Lansing said Thursday. NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C. Lansing said he took pride in maintaining conventional broadcasts while appealing to new audiences, reaching about 25% more people each week. I'm kind of a politics junkie. Being a changemaker is awesome, but can have its own challenges as you're just trying to improve your career. I think you have to be willing to take hard questions. "Bloomberg Opinion" columnists offer their opinions on issues in the news. hide caption. That's something that perceptive journalists should be able to pick up pretty quickly. Selected by the NPR board of directors, Lansing will start in October, succeeding outgoing head Jarl Mohn, At Colorado Public Radio, I think there was a $300,000 donation that came out of that. He is. But here, Lansing basically jumps over those disclaimers using the lame attribution of private citizen.. 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. NPR's total workforce has grown by about 50 percent since before that crisis. 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. John Lansing, a media executive with government broadcast and cable television experience, has been named by NPRs board to succeed its current chief, Jarl Mohn who announced the plan to step down after his 5-Year term ended. "I have been an avid fan of NPR for many years. Lansing blamed a slowdown in advertising dollars. In late November, the network announced $20 million in cuts, including a near-freeze on hiring, elimination of most travel, and suspension of internships. Podtrac, which measures the audiences of podcast publishers, has consistently placed NPR at the top of its monthly rankings. Lansing: We arent in a position to answer that until we know for sure when the pandemic is going to subside. Or 'How are we doing on the North Star?' And so in late 2019 we began working on a set of priorities for the calendar year 2020 that included promoting Keith Woods to chief diversity officer; putting more energy behind our effort to have 100% sourcing and notating the diversity of our sources; and hiring, leadership, unconscious bias training, et cetera. John Lansing - Quick Profile. He made his mark in his current job with stirring defenses of journalism, free from government interference. How does the economy react to all of that? Scripps Networks September 5, 2019; Washington, D.C. - The NPR Board of Directors announced today that it. So hes doubling down on lack of diversity, does that mean he wants his audience to reflect the other half of the country, the conservatives in flyover country?
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