NPR hires new top exec
by Brian Mann on October 3rd, 2011
North Country Public Radio’s main national network, NPR, has hired Gary Knell to serve as the organization’s new CEO.
Knell — who replaces Vivian Schiller who was ousted following the Juan Williams scandal — was the head of Sesame Workshop, the organization that produces the popular PBS program “Sesame Street.”
According to Knell, he hopes to “depoliticize” the conversation about NPR’s future.
“It’s not about liberal or conservative — it’s about fairness,” Knell said, in an interview with NPR. “We’ve got to make the case we’re delivering a fair service, not only in the way we do our jobs, but in the way we disseminate the news.”
Tags: media, npr, public radio
“It’s not about liberal or conservative — it’s about fairness,” Knell said, in an interview with NPR. “We’ve got to make the case we’re delivering a fair service, not only in the way we do our jobs, but in the way we disseminate the news.”
It will be interesting to see if and how he accomplishes this. I wish him well and he has my support!
“It’s not about liberal or conservative — it’s about fairness,”
That’s great! It’ll be great when we start hearing from people like Kucinich, Sanders, and Chomsky on NPR to balance the daily stream of ideas from Bachman, Parry, the Heritage Foundation, Wall Street in all its varied forms, Ron Paul, and the Tea Party.
That’ll be much more fair.
Well said knuck. It’s about time the mainstream media broadens its conservative bias and starts including liberal and progressive politicians, proposed policies and info from think tanks.
The press/media also needs to confront those who deny or distort factual reality. The press/media pretend they are being balanced when they don’t challenge ridiculous statements. The press/media has been bullied for so long by conservatives that they are afraid to have a backbone because it would just “prove” the press/media is liberal. A conservative Republican can say the earth is flat and the press/media will react by getting a Democrat’s response and then say “here are two different views on the subject” – even though they know the earth isn’t flat.
Major media is owned large corporations and their “news” divisions are looking more like advertising departments. A truly free press was recognized by our country’s founders as essential. The ongoing consolidation of media into only a few hands is not a healthy situation and needs to be reversed.