Resignation Comes at Sensitive Time for NPR...
>>>Resignation Comes at Sensitive Time for NPR
By ELIZABETH JENSEN and BRIAN STELTER
Published: March 9, 2011
In the midst of a brutal battle with Republican critics in Congress over federal subsidies, NPR has lost its chief executive after yet another politically charged embarrassment.
Vivian Schiller, who joined NPR two years ago, offered her resignation to the public radio organization’s board late Tuesday, half a day after a conservative filmmaker released a video that showed one of NPR’s fund-raising executives disparaging Republicans and Tea Party supporters in a conversation with people posing as prospective donors.
The revelations came less than five months after the hasty and much-criticized firing of Juan Williams, a longtime commentator, for remarks he made about Muslims on Fox News.
When Ms. Schiller’s resignation was made public Wednesday morning, Dave Edwards, the chairman of NPR’s board of directors, said the two episodes “became such a distraction to the organization it hindered Vivian Schiller’s ability to lead the organization going forward.”
Ms. Schiller had been quick to disavow the videotaped comments made by the fund-raising executive. “But I’m the C.E.O.,” she said in an interview, “and the buck stops here.”
This latest episode comes at a precarious time for both NPR and its counterpart on television, PBS. Public attention on the federal deficit combined with a series of politically incendiary missteps by NPR have given Republicans numerous opportunities to call for the elimination of government financing for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports local public stations. Those stations have been longtime scourges of many conservatives who say they are engines of liberal bias.
Ms. Schiller said her resignation was in part intended to ease “the de-funding pressure on public broadcasting.”
But the Republican majority leader, Representative Eric Cantor, showed no sign of easing up, saying Wednesday, “Our concern is not about any one person at NPR, rather it’s about millions of taxpayers.”
Public media advocates say that if the cuts take effect, news, cultural and children’s programming would suffer.
Ms. Schiller’s sudden departure leaves NPR preparing for the budget battle with no permanent chief executive, no head of fund-raising and no head of its news department.
“There’s a vacuum there,” said Tim Eby, the general manager of St. Louis Public Radio and a former chair of the NPR board. “There’s still a vacuum in news leadership. It’s a terrible time.”
Joyce Slocum, NPR’s general counsel, will serve as interim chief executive while a committee seeks a permanent replacement.
NPR, which provides some of the country’s most popular radio programs, like “All Things Considered” and “Morning Edition,” receives little direct money from the federal government. But local stations typically receive about 10 percent of their operating budget from federal sources, and in turn buy programming from NPR. The federal government allocated $420 million in direct funds for public broadcasting in 2010, up 5 percent from the prior year.
Station managers, directly in the line of fire for any budget cuts, were infuriated over the firing of Mr. Williams, and were further incensed by the video that surfaced on Tuesday.
“Frankly, the management of NPR shouldn’t be in the press,” said Mark Vogelzang, who runs WBFO in Buffalo. “When personnel issues are handled poorly at a national level, it reflects poorly on our member stations in our communities,” he said.
By the usual standards of corporate behavior under pressure, Ms. Schiller’s departure was unusually swift. On Tuesday, James O’Keefe, a conservative provocateur, released a secretly taped video of Ronald Schiller, an NPR fund-raiser (and no relation to Ms. Schiller), who thought he was in conversation with potential donors from a Muslim organization.
Mr. Schiller was heard to say that many Tea Party supporters are “seriously racist” and that NPR would be better off without federal money although many stations would “go dark.”
Mr. Schiller, who was already scheduled to leave NPR, apologized and resigned Tuesday night. But the episode again raised questions about the management of NPR and Ms. Schiller, in particular.
“Doesn’t anyone in NPR’s top management think of the consequences before they act?” asked NPR’s ombudsman, Alicia Shepard, in an essay Wednesday.
Read more at The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/business/media/10npr.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/business/media/10npr.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2
