NPR's incoming CEO Katherine Maher spoke at the Web Summit last fall. She briefly led the organization after its founder resigned following comments on Israel and Gaza.
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NPR's incoming CEO Katherine Maher spoke at the Web Summit last fall. She briefly led the organization after its founder resigned following comments on Israel and Gaza.
Armando Franca/Associated Press
NPR has selected former Wikimedia Foundation Director Katherine Maher to lead the network through a time of declining broadcast audience, economic uncertainty and technological disruption.
In an interview prior to announcing his appointment, Maher said his experience at the foundation underscores the importance of NPR's mission to serve the public independent of commercial interests. “Both of these organizations have strong alignments around integrity and autonomy,” Maher said.
Marr said he intends to build on the fierce loyalty instilled in many listeners to NPR's newscasts and everything else. (She said the word “content” makes her cringe.)
And Maher said he will work to expand the pool of people who experience that deep attachment.
“It's important to match needs and pleasures so that people come back again and again and have a real desire to participate in what we have to offer,” Maher said.
The appointment of Mr. Maher, 40, as NPR's 12th permanent chief executive officer and president represents an embrace of generational change with roots firmly planted in the digital age. In her work in the fields of technology and international affairs, she has sought to promote the free flow of information as a tool to expand democracy. She started her career in the financial industry.
Mr. Ma has never worked directly in journalism or news organizations. That's in contrast to many of NPR's predecessors, including current CEO John Lansing and his new appointments at CNN and television stations. washington post.
NPR Board Chair Jennifer Ferro, who led the search committee, said Maher offers visionary corporate leadership and proven fundraising ability. And she cited Maher's ability to serve as a powerful ambassador for the network to and on behalf of its hundreds of public radio member stations.
“NPR has a lot of power and needs to be more widespread. We need to build that brand,” said Ferro, president of public radio station KCRW in Santa Monica, California.
Ferro said the network, which is a nonprofit corporation, needs a proven leader who will be in the position for a long time. (With Mr. Maher's appointment, NPR has replaced 10 permanent and acting directors over the past 20 years.)
And Ferro said Maher was instrumental in building Wikipedia into a trusted organization that shares similar values to NPR, such as broad access to information and democracy.
Maher will start at NPR in late March.
Who is Katherine Maher?
In an interview, Ma said that her first exposure to NPR was when her parents listened to it in the car, and that it helped her decide on the direction of her life.
As a high school student in Connecticut in 2000, Maher recalled being intrigued by a peace summit convened by then-President Bill Clinton that included top Israeli and Palestinian leaders. However, her teachers did not provide enough information to satisfy her interests.
Maher was riveted when he heard about long-time NPR foreign correspondent Deborah Amos from the Middle East. After her graduation, she moved to Cairo to study Arabic. She also spent time in Syria and other countries in the region.
“I have seen what it means for people to fight for their rights, access to information, and self-determination,” Maher said. “If it wasn’t for those moments in the driveway driving to school every day, I don’t think I would be sitting with you today.”
She joined the Wikimedia Foundation's communications team in 2014 and became CEO two years later. So Maher amassed a generous $140 million endowment to support Wikipedia's promise to “unlock the world's knowledge.”
NPR stations typically receive monthly donations from listeners who subscribe as paying members. NPR just recently began experimenting with direct donations from listeners, rather than large donors.
Maher said Wikimedia taught her the power of giving, both big and small.
“A huge number of people [were] Donate $2-3 to support their mission. And that allowed us to make decisions about things that we were interested in that weren't necessarily aligned with what the market was interested in. ” Maher said. That allowed us to fight for our values, even if new viewership didn't bring us back right away. ”
After leaving Wikimedia in 2021, Maher said he joined a series of boards because he wanted to learn more about governance. She resigned from an advisory board at the U.S. State Department to take a job at NPR. She said she will continue to serve on the boards of the nonprofit Consumer Reports and the Signal Foundation, which supports secure messaging apps used by journalists and dissidents overseas.
Lansing's work on NPR
2023 has been a tough year for NPR, with layoffs and podcast cancellations due to expected revenue shortfalls. Lansing announced last fall that he would step down early, months before the end of his five-year contract, but would stay on until his replacement was named. He cited his desire to travel with his wife while his daughter studies abroad.
But with a series of seeming successes, Lansing built the network's priorities around what he called its “North Star,” allowing NPR's programming and staff to better reflect the full picture of America. From the time he arrived in the fall of 2019, Lansing argued that it reflected both a moral and strategic imperative.
CEO John Lansing has led NPR since 2019, a time of innovation and upheaval.
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CEO John Lansing has led NPR since 2019, a time of innovation and upheaval.
Mike Morgan/Mike Morgan
NPR has become significantly more diverse. More than 4 out of 10 employees are non-white. 16% are black, which is higher than their share of the U.S. population.
As a music publisher pitchfork Gone — folded GQ NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts and its music podcasts have emerged as more important than ever with artists and millions of listeners and viewers.
NPR's Featured Programs; morning paper and Taking everything into accountis the nation's top two radio news and talk broadcast program. It is the third largest podcast production company in Japan. During Mr. Lansing's tenure, NPR won its first Pulitzer Prize for its collaboration with member stations, “No Compromise.''
The challenges Maher inherited at NPR
Despite recent accomplishments, NPR's viewership has declined and its financial position has weakened over the past two years. The network suffered an unexpected and sharp decline in its podcasting revenue due to unrealized fears of an economic collapse. The company was forced to lay off 10 percent of its workforce. NPR canceled four podcasts. Mr. Lansing's candor has helped him maintain the trust he built with leaders of NPR's largest union.
NPR was not alone in the financial crisis, which Mr. Lansing called an “existential crisis.” The network has found itself at the forefront of a media recession that has tripped up many of its peers.of washington post And that Los Angeles Times In the end, it dropped by an even higher percentage.of LA Times The newsroom has shrunk by a third in the past eight months.
This pressure accelerated turnover among NPR's top ranks. NPR's chief operating officer, finance director, human resources director and programming director have all left in the past eight months. Not everything was replaced.
Lansing said the network is now on strong financial footing.
Mr. Lansing, 66, comes to NPR with an extensive background in media and journalism, having risen from a local television newsroom to lead Scripps' cable television channels and website. He later led the U.S. Agency for Global Media, a government organization that oversees federally funded international broadcasters such as Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.
Maher is no stranger to crisis.
In October, Maher became chief executive of WebSummit (think of it as a tech-centric Davos conference), a gathering of technology entrepreneurs, investors and thought leaders in Portugal.
The founder of WebSummit had resigned following an outcry over his comments about Israel after the Hamas attack.
on podcast masters of scaleMaher said he saw it as a moment of crisis.
“The biggest difference I was looking at was: Is this company in crisis or is it a company in crisis? I’ve seen both and worked in both. And the latter is about rushing into something.'' It has pretty solid bones, and it's about, “How do you survive that moment?''
Maher doesn't think NPR is an institution in crisis. Rather, she says there are challenges and opportunities.
“When I get there, I recognize that we need to move relatively quickly to ensure the organization has all the pieces in place, and that we need to be thoughtful about how we do that,” she said. .
Among Maher's most important tasks is hiring a chief content officer to oversee the newsroom, podcasts and other programming. Edith Chapin, NPR's head of news, is currently serving as content director on an interim basis.
Still, Maher visibly paled at the word “content,” calling it an “empty vessel” and suggesting she would come up with another title that “speaks more deeply to our mission.”
Disclosure: This article was reported by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflick and edited by NPR Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp. In keeping with NPR's own reporting protocols, no company officials or news executives reviewed this story before it was published.
