Vivian Schiller - FishbowlNY

NPR Fights Back: Survey Shows Most Listeners of NPR Are Conservative

Ujala Sehgal — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 12:17:34 +0000

Steve Inskeep, co-host of NPR’s “Morning Edition,” is stepping up to the plate in defending NPR. He writes for the Wall Street Journal on Thursday:

I can point out that the recent tempests over “perceived bias” have nothing to do with what NPR puts on the air. The facts show that NPR attracts a politically diverse audience of 33.7 million weekly listeners to its member stations on-air. In surveys by GfK MRI, most listeners consistently identify themselves as “middle of the road” or “conservative.”

As for James O’Keefe, the activist whose video prank led to NPR chief executive Vivian Schiller losing her job, Inskeep loftily recounts hearing of the story while he was reporting from Egypt. When he had dinner that night with the NPR Cairo bureau, they barely discussed the NPR news back home. Writes Inskeep:

I noticed a contrast between the news that NPR reports from the Arab world and the news NPR has lately made at home. Each news story revealed the values of the people reporting it… I congratulate Mr. O’Keefe for upholding his values: faith in the power of video to mislead.

Zing! NPR could have used some of Inskeep’s backbone when the O’Keefe story broke, before it fell over itself apologizing and getting rid of people. Now this latest defense might just be too late.

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NPR Creates New Senior Management Role Focused On Diversity

Amanda Ernst — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:45:00 +0000

National Public Radio is increasing its focus on diversity with the addition of a new senior manager role.

Keith Woods, the dean of faculty at the Poynter Institute, has been named as the first vice president in charge of Diversity in News and Operations for the nonprofit organization. In his new role, Woods, a former consultant to NPR, will “lead the development of NPR’s vision and strategy for diversity, and will play a central role in its implementation across the NPR newsroom, throughout the organization and in the public radio community as a whole,” NPR said. He will join NPR full-time in February.

Woods, a journalism veteran who has served on two Pulitzer Prize juries, will work with NPR’s CEO Vivian Schiller to help broaden the radio network’s content in order to reach a more diverse audience. He will also provide coaching and training throughout the organization and its member stations to help deal with issues of “content, recruiting and workplace environment strategies,” the company said.

Full release after the jump

NPR’s Schiller: “Our Plans For Going Forward Is More”

(Photo by Kenny Irby)

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WNYC Throws A Gala To Thank NYT For Selling Classical Music Station

Amanda Ernst — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:50:00 +0000

Last night, New York public radio station WNYC threw a gala at Gotham Hall to celebrate its recent acquisition of New York’s classical radio station WQXR and honor its former owner, The New York Times Co.

Hosted by Alec Baldwin, the evening featured performances by folksinger Judy Collins and opera diva Deborah Voigt. David Sanger, a New York Times correspondent and host of the “Washington Report” on WQXR — and grandson of the station’s founder Elliott Sanger — presented the Times Co. with an award, accepted by Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., commemorating the company’s stewardship of WQXR since 1944.

Later, Baldwin announced that the winner of the evening’s raffle would get a radio — actually, an Internet radio tuned to WQXR. “The New York Times got a piece of glass, for the millions and millions of dollars they’ve coughed up,” he said. “A piece of glass. The winner of the raffle gets a radio.”

(Video and more pictures after the jump)

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The News Literacy Project: Bringing Accountability Into the Classroom

Drew Grant — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:00:10 +0000

Vivian Schiller, Soledad O’Brien and Alan Miller Photo via Meredith Goncalves

Last night, Time Warner hosted a litany of major media players, all gathered in support of The News Literacy Project. Founded by Alan Miller, who left his investigative reporter position at the Los Angeles Times to do the unthinkable – teach students to think critically about the barrage of information thrown at them on the Internet — the program attracted the attention of board members like NPR CEO Vivian Schiller, CNN‘s Soledad O’Brien and Paul Mason, formerly of ABC News. Also on hand yesterday evening was The New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., one of the evening’s co-hosts and participants in last night’s silent auction to raise money for the NLP.

Launched last spring, the NLP brings journalists from across the media world to social studies, English, and history classes in middle and high schools in New York City, Maryland, and Chicago where they teach students how to think critically and pick out reliable information from the overwhelming amount of news that bombards them every day.

Last night’s fundraiser included panels with some of the inaugural members of the program, including Anabel Rivas, a graduate of New York’s Facing History School (one of the three public schools that participated in the first NLP program), as well as Facing History’s principal Gillian Smith, Vice Principal Mark Otto and AP English teacher Kristina Wylie, whose classroom was one of the first to benefit from the News Literacy Program.

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Former Microsoft, Evri Exec To Lead Public Media’s Corporate Sponsorship Firm

Amanda Ernst — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:54:00 +0000

National Public Media, the corporate sponsorship firm for NPR, PBS and Boston-based WGBH, named Stephen Moss its president and chief executive officer yesterday.

It’s a perfect time to announce the change, as NPR is coming off its pledge week and CEO Vivian Schiller just last week proclaimed that her organization had the tools to survive the recession that’s bogged down the media industry.

Moss, a former technology executive with a background in print media, joins NPM from the web technology company Evri, where he served as vice president of business development. Prior to that, Moss worked for Microsoft as VP of sales, and general manager of Bill Gates-owned Corbis. While there, he helped launch the MSN video service. Moss also previously worked as CEO of Internet ad network DoubleClick Media.

Moss started his career in advertising sales at McGraw-Hill‘s magazine publishing division, and he went on to lead sales divisions for Thompson Financial‘s American Banker and BusinessWeek in Asia. He also worked on the agency side at Seavex Limited, working with clients like BusinessWeek and CNN.

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NPR’s Schiller: “Our Plans For Going Forward Is More”

Amanda Ernst — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:25:00 +0000

NPR president and CEO Vivian Schiller claims she is an optimist, yet she opened her keynote address at mediabistro.com’s UGCX conference with a scary premise. “I’d like to start by really, really depressing you,” she said.

Schiller then took a moment to run quickly through some sad statistics of the media industry — statistics we know all too well. Like, for example, 11 percent of full time news jobs were cut in 2008. Or that major newspapers in San Francisco and Boston lose about $1 million a day. Ouch.

“This is pretty grim stuff,” Schiller admitted. “But we’re in the middle of such a change, an evolution or revolution in the news business.”

Schiller said she remains optimistic because new models will rise out of the ashes of the dying media business model.

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Rather’s CBS Suit Dismissed|Gannett Says Thirds Q Results Will Surpass Expectations|Advanstar Restructures|NPR CEO Vivian Schiller

Amanda Ernst — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:00:00 +0000

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

TVNewser: Dan Rather‘s $70 million lawsuit against former employer CBS Corp. has been dismissed. And in other CBS news, check out this profile of “60 Minutes” correspondent Byron Pitts, who reveals he was functionally illiterate until he was 12.

Associated Press: Gannett‘s shares jumped 18 percent in premarket trading today after the media company announced that its third quarter earnings were likely to surpass expectations. Gannett will publish its earnings October 19.

Folio: Advanstar Communications announced a restructuring, cutting its debts by $385 million.

More: A profile of Vivian Schiller, president and CEO of National Public Radio. “We have a lot of women in senior leadership,” Schiller said of NPR. “I was the first female CEO. But our head of news is a woman, our general counsel is a woman, our new senior vice president of administration and finance is a woman, our head of communication is a woman. The spirit of Cokie [Roberts] and Linda [Wertheimer] and Nina [Totenberg] and Susan [Stamberg[ very much pervades it.”

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NPR CEO Vivian Schiller: ‘Local is the Big Play’

Glynnis — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:36:44 +0000

The interview we did a few weeks back with NPR president and CEO Vivian Schiller is now up on mediabistro.com. This past January Schiller left her position at the NYTimes.com, where she’d led the team responsible for the Times‘ much-admired Web overhaul, to take on what she describes as her dream job at NPR.

Schiller arrives at NPR at an interesting moment — it’s no secret newspapers are struggling to stay afloat and amidst the dramatic decline in local and international newspaper reporting, NPR, along with its 860 member stations and 38 international bureaus, is well-positioned to step in and fill in the gap.

Schiller spoke at some length about NPR’s local strength, its plans to capitalize on that, and what her long term plans are for the organization.

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NPR Sees Considerable Rise in Listener Numbers

Glynnis — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 10:24:33 +0000

Amidst daily talk about the death of news and good reporting and the demise of print newspapers being a threat to democracy as we know it NPR is thriving. WaPo is reporting that the cumulative audience for NPR‘s daily news programs hit 20.9 million people a week last year, which is a 9 percent increase over the previous year.

Surprised? Probably you shouldn’t be (our tour through cable-land last week certainly gave us an even greater appreciation). We have an soon-to-be-posted interview with new NPR CEO Vivian Schiller and during our conversation she talked a lot about local being the big play at NPR as well as the audiences devotion to the brand. And certainly as local and international reporting are increasingly cut as a result of the recession, NPR and its member stations, along with its 38 bureaus around the world (more than CNN) are well-positioned to step in and fill in the gap. And the numbers are definitely interesting.

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NPR’s Schiller Responds to Shafer Over Newspaper Endowment Plan

Glynnis — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:58:37 +0000

During an interview we just did with NPR CEO Vivian Schiller today for an upcoming ‘So What Do You Do?‘ feature, Schiller directed us to her response last week to Jack Shafer‘s piece ‘The Case Against Foundation Ownership of The New York Times‘, which we had somehow missed. In his column Shafer argues against the idea of endowment as a solution to the financial woes of newspapers. Schiller, who just last month left her post as head of NYT.com to take up as head of NPR, had this to say:

It has been surreal to follow the debate that has unfolded in recent weeks on the subject of endowing news organizations — as if this is a new idea. And, we are non-commercial and not-for-profit. NPR is supported by philanthropists, grants, corporate sponsorship, and by our member stations. (They are funded similarly, and well as by millions of listeners nationwide). Our endowment was formed in 1993 and stands at $205 million. We are the living, breathing prototype of the kind of operation David Swenson, Steve Coll, Jack Shafer and others are imagining — and imagining to be revolutionary.

So let me inject some reality into the debate! (You can read the rest of her reality check here!)

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NPR Taps NYT‘s Vivian Schiller As President and CEO

Glynnis — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:22:38 +0000

NPR announced today that after an eight month search they have named Vivian Schiller President and Chief Executive Officer, effective January 5, 2009. Schiller comes to NPR from The New York Times Company where she is currently serving as Senior Vice President and General Manager of NYTimes.com. Per the press release:

During her tenure at The New York Times, she led the day-to-day operations of NYTimes.com, the largest newspaper website on the Internet, overseeing product, technology, marketing, classifieds, strategic planning and business development. Before joining NYTimes.com, Ms. Schiller spent four years as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Discovery Times Channel, a joint venture of The New York Times and Discovery Communications.

Full release after the jump.

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TimesSelect To Go Free … To College Kids

Dylan — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:02:34 +0000

Thomas Friedman approves

As part of its “journalistic mission to get people talking on campuses,” nytimes.com is set to give free access for its often-ridiculed TimesSelect content to all those with a “.edu” e-mail address. The open access begins March 13. Vivian Schiller, senior vice president and general manager at NYTimes.com: “We wanted to open that up so that college students and professors can have a dialogue.”

The Times also wanted to drum up buzz for its “Win a Trip with Nick” contest, in which op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof, chooses one college or graduate student and one middle or high school teacher to accompany him on a June trip to Africa.

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