1 –
Please detail your qualifications for the NPR Board.
My
public radio experience goes back to 1980, when I worked in Station
Services at NPR, eventually becoming director of that department. Following
a year with PTFP, I left DC in 1988 to manage WUIS in
I’ve
also chaired the DEI Board and served on the SRG board and several
community boards here in
2 -
As a Board member, how will you separate your station's self-interest from
network interests?
It’s
not hard to keep them separate. The
information the board receives and the conversations we hold focus on the
health and success of National Public Radio.
It’s crucial to NPR’s future that member stations as a group
succeed and thrive. I keep my
individual station’s narrow concerns out of the picture by concentrating
on decisions that do the most good for the largest number of NPR’s
constituents. Those decisions aren’t always easy ones, but not because
WPLN’s specific interests get in the way.
3. -
If elected to the NPR Board, on what Board Committee – or in connection
with what issue – do you believe you have the most to offer NPR?
If
re-elected, I would enjoy continuing to serve on the Governance Committee
and working on the issues raised in the recent governance study.
I have a strong desire to see the board and our member stations
examine governance in an objective, clear-headed way and consider changes
to make the board stronger, more efficient and productive.
I’ve
also enjoyed serving on the Finance and Administration Committee because it
has allowed me to observe NPR’s internal business mechanisms. It’s
clear NPR is competently and professionally managed.
4.
Would you recommend any changes to the way in which network program
providers charge stations for programming?
As
a station manager, I’m extremely concerned about the continuing rise in
network fees combined with the flattening of audience and the resulting
softening of membership and underwriting revenue.
Networks need to understand and address this situation by scaling
back their plans to expand and add new services because stations can’t
continue to raise more money from a diminishing pool of donors. Changes
have to be made before we reach a crisis.
5 -
Since the institution of the A-Reps meeting format, NPR has not achieved a
quorum for its Annual Meeting. Do you view this as a problem?
Do you have any recommendations for engaging more stations in the
citizenship of the annual meeting?
I
see our inability to achieve a quorum as symptomatic of a larger problem,
which in itself hard to define to everyone’s satisfaction. There’s a
growing sense that we need to pin down, make explicit and perhaps update
what we mean by “membership” in NPR. There is a sense that something
valuable and important about the culture of public radio is eroding,
including the loss of opportunities to meet face to face and engage with
one another.
It’s
premature to make recommendations for changes. We should start with a
direct conversation about membership with stations, then continue the
discussion to make sure NPR’s governance structure (including meeting
schedules and communication protocols) supports this agreed-upon sense of
membership. Only then can we
see what changes are called for.
6 –
Do you support the proposed changes in NPR Board composition and structure
described in the recently issued NPR Governance consultant’s report?
I
support changes in the NPR Board composition and structure as long as they
reinforce member stations’ conception of membership and make the NPR
board more efficient and productive. I
do not necessarily support the recommendations in the report, because the
study is only one person’s opinion and the start of a broader
conversation.
Some
of the changes in the report, which address how the board approaches its
work, do not require a conversation with the membership and should be
implemented in short order. More
support from NPR and streamlining meetings and committee structure fall
into this category of change.
My
inclination is to increase the number of non-manager directors on the NPR
Board and finding ways to nominate a slate of member directors more
representative of our network of stations.
Moving in these two directions would, I think, improve the
performance of the board.
7 -
What is your overall assessment of the NPR board? Is it responsive to
stations? Is it sufficiently high profile?
Overall,
I think the NPR board does a good job, but could do a better job. I think
the current board keeps the interests of members foremost, but doesn’t do
enough communicating with or interacting with stations.
This results from time to time in the perception that the board is
working against stations, or that, generally, it’s up to no good.
It’s clear when the board makes unpopular decisions that it has
not built up enough equity of good will with members.
As
to the profile of the board, it lacks adequate representation from the
major market stations, which deliver such a large percentage of our
national audience. It would be helpful to have the perspective and clout of
the larger public radio institutions working within the context of the NPR
Board.
8 -
As an NPR Board member, how would you distinguish between the types of
business you believe the Board should conduct in Executive Session versus
the business that should be conducted in Open Session?
First,
what can be discussed in closed session is limited by law, and NPR’s
General Counsel does not allow the board to abuse the principle.
When the board goes into Executive Session, it’s always for a good
reason.
That
said, the board spends too much time in Executive Session. Combined with
inadequate opportunities for interaction with members, stations begin to
feel the board is not open enough about its work, encouraging a sense that
the board is “up to something.”
The
answer is to limit time spent in Executive Session combined with greater
focus, openness and clarity surrounding the rest of the board’s work.
Unless you achieve the latter, it won’t help to simply address the
length of Executive Sessions.