1 – Please detail your qualifications for the NPR Board.

• President & CEO, Oregon Public Broadcasting (January 2006 to present)

• President & CEO, Nashville Public Television (November 1998 to December 2006)

• Vice President, WGBH/Boston (January 1992-November 1998)

• PBS, Washington , DC (1982-1991)

• Chairman of the Board, Association of Public Television Stations (APTS) 2002-2004; board of directors, 1998 – 2005

2 - 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?

The major contribution that I could make would be in the area of helping to determine an appropriate strategic direction for the organization, which would include creating a new “compact” between NPR and its member stations.  NPR is at an important strategic crossroads at the moment.  While there has been a great deal of conversation and process around a new strategic direction for the organization, I am concerned that NPR is strategically adrift at the moment, unable to clearly define a strategy and take appropriate action.  

3 - What is your overall assessment of the NPR board? Is it responsive to stations? Is it sufficiently high profile?

While I know many of the current members of the board, it is difficult for me to assess the workings of the board.   In this area, I have more questions than positions to offer.  Does the board meet too frequently and for too long?  Six meetings a year (now reduced to five) for multiple days seems excessive to me, particularly if there is effective professional leadership and an agreed upon strategy.  Does it have the right mix of skills, particularly with regard to NPR’s finances and investments?   Probably not the optimal mix given the complexity of the organization’s finances and the size of its endowment (given that few, if any, station managers would qualify as “financial experts” as defined by the AICPA).  How does the board balance between NPR’s role as a membership organization and that of a program producer?

4 - NPR does not currently have a conflict of interest policy and procedure for Board members. What sort of policy should be established in order to handle conflict of interest situations when a board member has a primary duty as an employee or officer of a competing station, network or distributor?

Because it’s a membership organization, there is always going to be some push and pull between the duty of care that NPR board members have to NPR and to their own organizations.  Sometimes this is portrayed as a conflict of interest, when in many cases it really isn’t.  As a membership organization, it is incumbent upon the NPR board to develop strategy and policy that aligns with the interests of member stations (as well as being appropriate to the organization itself). 

The health of NPR is intertwined with that of its member stations.  Currently, more than 70% of NPR’s revenues can be attributed directly to its distribution relationship with member stations, while most stations rely on a strong NPR for their own financial health.   I don’t view this as a conflict of interest, but rather a coincidence of interest.

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? 

It’s a problem if the lack of a quorum is preventing important issues from being resolved.  From my participation in three of these meetings now, I am not surprised that there is a lack of a quorum as most of these meetings are quite perfunctory and the planning meetings are over-facilitated and under-inspired.  In some cases, the process feels inauthentic or even manipulative. If there is important business to conduct, if the meetings and interactions are considered to be time well spent, people will come.  I have a feeling that, by their absence, many NPR members are telling us that they don’t find the meetings to be a worthwhile investment of time and money.   Apathy could be the biggest challenge that NPR has with its members.

6 - What suggestions might you have to add diverse experience and opinions to the board and management deliberative process? Would the reimplementation of working advisory committees with station staff members and others for specific topics and issues serve as a way to expand knowledge and increase awareness of station’s needs, feelings and reactions? 

There’s a delicate balance to be achieved between input and decision-making.  Public broadcasting has a tendency toward hyper-democracy that can make it difficult for national membership organizations like NPR to act in a swift and appropriate manner.  There is also often a confusion between being heard (always a good thing) and doing what a particular station or representative wants done (which if taken to an extreme results in chaos).  My observation of some of the process undertaken in the last couple of years is that it is often backwards.  As an example, at the A-Reps meeting in 2007, there was a lot of discussion about a governance study that the board would be receiving two weeks later.  We spent a lot of time and energy discussing what might be in that study; and had the timeline not been backwards and the study released prior to the meeting, we could actually have used the time to talk about the actual results and perhaps moved things forward.

7 - 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? 

The NPR board is subject to the open meetings requirements of the Communications Act, which requires all meetings to be open to the public and that reasonable notice be provided.  There are several circumstances under which the board can hold a closed session in order to consider matters related to individual employees, proprietary information, litigation, or other matters requiring the confidential advice of counsel, or the purchase of property or services whenever premature exposure of such purchase would compromise the business interests of the organization.   I take a fairly conservative approach to interpreting this and believe that as much of NPR’s business should be conducted in open session as possible, with as little in closed session as necessary.  Several years ago, I was one of a handful of people who compelled PBS to conduct more of its business in open session, after many years of holding even routine budget discussions in closed session.