NPR Leader Out After Board Clash

[flashl]

Source: Washington Post


Ken Stern's New Media Forays Rankled Public Radio Affiliates

Ken Stern, one of the key architects of National Public Radio's rapid growth over the past decade, stepped down as chief executive yesterday following a clash with NPR's board over the direction of the organization.

Washington-based NPR said Stern, 44, was leaving "by mutual agreement," but gave no details about the circumstances of his departure.

People at NPR said, however, that Stern and the organization's 17-member board had clashed repeatedly over several of Stern's initiatives, including NPR's expansion into new media. Those initiatives often riled station managers, who saw them coming at the expense of serving the hundreds of public stations that pay dues annually to NPR.

NPR's board, which includes 10 members from station groups, declined to renew Stern's contract yesterday.

Washington Post

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/06/AR2008030603473.html?hpid=topnews

[Sal Minella]

1. Maybe we can get Bob Edwards back???

Actually I hope he'd tell NPR to take a flying leap if they asked him to return.

[BearSquirrel2]

6. NPR is going conservative ...

I've heard some really mouth foamers on All Things Considered. Marketplace is a nightmare, except for the fact that the stories are longer it could be a Faux News program.

[Festivito]

7. Agreed. Last few years NPR has sucked right-wing wise.

And it needs to quit the contrived RW lying points.

[NashVegas]

8. NPR Has Been Relatively Conservative For Some Time

And Stern may well be part of the reason.

Modern day NPR is to Public Radio what Whole Foods is to the organics movement. It will pick up the most marketable trends and put them in nice, pretty packages.

[Javaman]

10. Going? it's been there for the past 2 years. nt

[CatholicEdHead]

2. Their main competition is American Public Media

aka Minnesota Public Radio. They have Marketplace, Speaking of Faith, Prairie Home Companion, Futuretense, Weekend America, etc...

Outside of Morning Edition and All Things Considered there is not much on NPR proper.

[WCGreen]

3. They all work together, kind of like a national office and local

affiliates...

There are all sorts of regional programs that don't recieve national air time but do recieve financial assistance from NPR...

[Tesha]

5. Hey! How can you forget the Car Talk guys! And "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!"

Those are the two best programs on NPR! If they
flushed everything else, it would be a big
improvement in the programming, on average.

Tesha

[CatholicEdHead]

9. Ok, I will give you Click and Clack and Wait Wait

The Diane Rehm show (I pick up online) puts me to sleep pretty quickly.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. I listen only because it's the only source for classical music on the radio

Their news coverage is depressingly mainstream, even right wing.

The only program I try not to miss is Performance Today.

[kestrel91316]

12. Our local KPCC got rid of Car Talk on Saturday AMs recently (boo,hiss)

and has some nonsensical talking head crap on now, some panel just jabbering about events of the day. Totally SUCKS.

[AP]

4. CPB funds NPR based on a congressional mandate that never contemplated new media

So, when NPR demands stations to set up new media distribution initiatives, they can't guarantee them the money to do those things, so the stations end up having to fund it themselves.

I think that might have been the problem here. The stations might think that NPR should have lobbied for funding before asking the stations to do all these new activities.

[kestrel91316]

13. One of my beefs about our local NPR station lately is we have to listen

to some uber-RW Libertarian FREAK from Orange County two mornings a week - some guy from the Orange County Register who has the most ugly, snide, snarky attitude toward anything not extremely RW. I LOATHE that man.