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. All rights reserved. The roots of the VOA involved providing truthful reports to people under Nazi and Axis power rule during World War II. And so I had a very visceral reaction to that happening in my hometown, and that it was so egregious the murder of an innocent person captured on video, on a phone. 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 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. NPR Facebook Post with Comments. He spent two decades at Scripps Networks, starting as a station manager in the Detroit, MI affiliate; eventually becoming President of Scripps cable networks company from 2005 to 2013. That survey happened in the fall of 2020. As we got to April of last spring, we saw a massive deficit develop for NPR on the order of about $25 million. 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. The first pillar is to expand the power of the national-local partnership into the on-demand future. 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. Essentially, the success of the company falls in your hands. 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? There was one the year before I was here, then this was the follow-up. 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. "The result, I believe, is a war on truth. Vox Media cut jobs by 7%; Gannett and Spotify by 6%. 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. During that financial crisis, NPR shut down shows and laid off scores of people. "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.". Harvard Kennedy School. Lansing previously held positions overseeing the Scripps Co.'s local television stations and then its national cable channels, which include the Food Network and HGTV, among others. I thought, wow. At Colorado Public Radio, I think there was a $300,000 donation that came out of that. NPR will cut 10% of its workforce, CEO John Lansing said Wednesday. John Lansing will begin his term as President and CEO of NPR in October, 2019. It did not drive a lot of immediate donations, but there were some. But thats our commitment. And my top goal is to support, in particular, the women of color at NPR so that they feel like they have more upward mobility. 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. Were working with member stations on topic teams for, say, political reporting or criminal justice reporting across the system. 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. Our third pillar is to optimize content and meet audiences where they are. Theres no question about it. There were about 20, 25 different meetings in the course of about 45 days. Lansing said he took pride in maintaining conventional broadcasts while appealing to new audiences, reaching about 25% more people each week. It began to improve a little bit as we moved into August and September, as corporate sponsorships began to recover a little bit. But also, what are the larger things that are happening? National Public Radio will reduce its workforce by 10 percent as it grapples with what CEO John Lansing says is a "sharp . To be a part of creating the future of such an important institution is humbling, exciting, and a distinct honor.". I think you have to be willing to take hard questions. "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. If we don't get this right, then our audience of the next 50 years will lack the diversity that would give it the ability to grow and thrive and prosper and even survive. 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. Now Lansing says he wants to draw on the intellectual and creative impulses of his new staffers as he leads a domestic journalistic powerhouse with an international reputation and reach. I'm kind of a politics junkie. 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. "A really important strategic vector that we'll be talking about more within the company going forward is maximizing the value of the content wherever it can live and wherever the audience demands it," NPR Chief Operating Officer Will Lee says in an interview. Current: Last year, the SAG-AFTRA union called out NPRs previous failures on issues of diversity, equity and inclusion and asked management to commit to accountability measures. NPR's president of operations, Loren Mayor, was the leading internal candidate for the chief executive position. Lansing will start in his new position in mid-October. For several years, it eliminated salary increases and suspended retirement contributions. Scripps Co., says whenever an economic slowdown appears imminent, marketing budgets get slashed. 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 . And I was very proud of the progress we were making. It was hard for everyone. 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. Current: NPRs budget also took a hit because of the pandemic. 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. 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. "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. John Lansing will begin his term as President and CEO of NPR in October, 2019. There's always going to be things here and there that have to be worked out, because that's just the way a company is, but I've never been in a company before where it was so understood that we're here to serve the American people. Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft have announced more than 50,000 job cuts combined in just the past few months. You can't escape that. "Jarl would be the first to say that it is the area where he feels that his work was not complete," Sheikholeslami said. Weve seen a gradual comeback. 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. The network's fight for listeners' time has become more feverish. 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. hide caption. 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. I, and the management team, all of us, we determined that was going to be a priority for the year 2021. 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. David Westin speaks with top names in finance about the week's biggest issues on Wall Street. 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. 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. 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. But second, we're mission-driven, and I think everybody in the organization lives and breathes that mission. Lansing, who is 62, is currently the chief executive of the government agency that oversees Voice of America, Radio and Television Mart and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, among others. Were certainly not over, were not at a finish line. "Bloomberg Opinion" columnists offer their opinions on issues in the news. We collected a lot of data and we have a lot of good follow-up opportunities, and Ill continue to offer myself up as a direct resource in that pilot project. August 20, 2022 August 20th is National Radio Day. 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. And I had a lot of interest in how my former team was being treated, but more importantly, just as an American citizen, how the work of USAGM through VOA [Voice of America] and RFE/RL [Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty] was threatening to undermine the interests of the United States government by politicizing journalism that was meant by law to be free of political interference. "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. I just started in May. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly. Did you plan for this or did it kind of just happen? 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. "The combination of his health issues plus the situation with Mike Oreskes did derail his plans.". Listeners consider public radio an enriching and enlightening companion; they trust NPR as a daily source of unbiased independent news, and inspiring insights on life and the arts. CEO John Lansing cited the erosion of advertising dollars, particularly for NPR podcasts, and the tough financial outlook for the media industry more generally. Its pretty clear to me that the ratings decline in radio is driven by commuting patterns. 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. Podcasting in particular allows NPR to reach audiences that are not necessarily tied to a radio., Paul Haaga, the chairman of NPRs board, said in a statement that Mr. Lansing was 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..