We're funded by your subscriptions, your donations, advertising, and a generous grant from the Wyncote Foundation. "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. Learn more at npr.org/about or by following NPR Extra on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And weve seen some significant success with that. 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The work of those pillars will be done through the lens of improving our efforts on DEI. And our number one goal is to improve our audience diversity. John Lansing, CEO, photographed for NPR, 22 January 2020, in Washington DC. NPR 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. NPR's programming division, which produces its industry-leading podcasts, has more than doubled since 2019. I think you have to be transparent and be able to explain what you're doing, even if it's unpopular. He soon made DEI the top priority at NPR. The network's fight for listeners' time has become more feverish. We are not just putting out regulations or policies and paperwork. You have stated that DEI is your top priority at NPR. "I don't anticipate that it would be like a haircut across every division, because that's just not management," Lansing says. "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.". And its something that I think will strengthen the ability for news programming, marketing and member services to be more responsive and to offer greater service to audiences in a more agile way. Why did you undertake this? 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. Tech companies that also rely heavily on advertising are undergoing layoffs too. Current: NPR has helped stations during the pandemic by delaying planned changes to the dues they pay. John Lansing testifying before a House Appropriations subcommittee in July. It's interesting. "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.". Live from. 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 broadcasters like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. NPR takes only a few million dollars a year from federal sources for its programs. 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. Prior to joining USAGM, he served for two years as the President and CEO of the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM), an organization that facilitates collaborative marketing initiatives for its members. Their editorial independence is enshrined in federal law, though it sometimes came under attack. 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. He was responsible for strategic and operational oversight and P&L of the $2.5 billion division of Scripps Networks Interactive, including the company's portfolio of six cable networks Food Network, HGTV, Travel Channel, DIY, Cooking Channel and Great American Country and the $100 million Scripps Networks Digital division. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Current is an editorially independent, nonprofit service of the American University School of Communication. Obviously, this job that you have as a CEO of NPR is a really huge responsibility. Lansing blamed a slowdown in advertising dollars. Were finishing up in the next two to three weeks the specific lists of actions and activities under these pillars. Lansing, who is 62, is. 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. Our third pillar is to optimize content and meet audiences where they are. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Lansing, 62, who is currently chief executive officer of the government agency that oversees Voice of America, Radio and Television Mart and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, among others . Podtrac, which measures the audiences of podcast publishers, has consistently placed NPR at the top of its monthly rankings. And were pleased to work with them. The roots of the VOA involved providing truthful reports to people under Nazi and Axis power rule during World War II. So I brought in Michael Smith as our new chief marketing officer almost a year ago. And so that was the way I looked at the future for me. The ratings for our weekend magazine shows are actually slightly greater than they were a year ago pre-pandemic, so thats a bright spot.. What would you go back and tell your younger self? 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. Diversity is the North Star of a newly implemented strategic plan, Lansing said, because it filters through everything that we do with all of our work.. While they do not broadcast within the U.S., the Voice of America and the other media outfits Lansing has overseen typically adhere to traditional concepts of factual, nonideological journalism, with the frequent exception of Radio Mart historically an anti-Castro and anti-Cuban communist outlet. Yet the tech and media industries' prospects stand at odds with a tight labor market and low unemployment more broadly. 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. 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. Way back when, I was a news cameraman. You go to college and all the sudden you're like 'wait a minute, I've got to do something when this is over.' . Current: Is there a timeline for that process? 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. This is an edited transcript of the conversation among Lansing, Current Reporter Tyler Falk and Digital Editor Mike Janssen. 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. 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. 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. Were working with them to do joint investigative reporting. Prior to that, Lansing was VP and GM of Scripps ABC affiliates. 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. Lansing served for ten years as a visiting faculty member at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. 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. Lansing also spoke to Current about the challenges of implementing his DEI plans, the organizations financial outlook and his thoughts about the recent controversies at USAGM. Current (https://current.org/2021/02/ceo-john-lansing-discusses-nprs-diversity-efforts-budget-deficit-and-growing-podcast-competition/). Lansing says the agency referred Haroon Ullah's expenditures to auditors and investigators after travel assistants flagged them; according to the Justice Department statement, Ullah admitted submitting fraudulent receipts for hotel room reimbursements and fake medical claims to get government payments of upgrades in airline seat assignments, among other offenses. Essentially, the success of the company falls in your hands. Current: What challenges have you faced in implementing your DEI plans? A member of the Republican Party, Gibbs was a software engineer and missionary before entering politics. And now in our budgeting were shifting some revenue for Michael to use that to promote and support our podcasts as they compete, as you note, with other large commercial businesses. No. 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. So Im pleased to see that that short era is over. The layoffs are in keeping with an increasingly grim landscape for media companies over recent months. NPR's president of operations, Loren Mayor, was the leading internal candidate for the chief executive position. Lansing describes himself as a citizen watching from the outside A private citizen? Selected by the NPR board of directors, Lansing will start in October, succeeding outgoing head Jarl Mohn, So at the end of the day, its a commitment, but this also has to be accountability. NPR Selects Voice of America Boss as Its New Leader, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/06/business/media/npr-john-lansing.html. America needs public radio more than ever. 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. I think that's where we all wind up. We can share resources and story ideas, and we can help organize and support those efforts. Everybody at NPR knows exactly what you mean when you say, 'What's our North Star?' In Mr. Mohns first full year on the job, NPR operated in the black after having run a deficit for five of the six preceding years. I dont know if youve been on the highway recently, but theres a lot more traffic on the highway today than there would have been last May and June. 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. What makes you so open and vocal about the need for diversity? August 20, 2022 August 20th is National Radio Day. 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. It began to improve a little bit as we moved into August and September, as corporate sponsorships began to recover a little bit. "Nothing is nailed down yet except the principles and what we know we have to reach.". Lansing: That was conducted back in September. Pozen Fellow At the Shorenstein Center. Mike Morgan/Mike Morgan When you first got to NPR, what did you think? You can't escape that. And I was very proud of the progress we were making. 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. As President, he held strategic and operational oversight of Scripps Networks Digital division and Scripps Networks Interactive, which includes six cable networks: Food Network, HGTV, Travel Channel, DIY, Cooking Channel and Great American Country. In a large part, the digital teams and the divisions will work together to reach a final model. So its a constant commitment to communication, to training, to accountability.