Douglas J. Bennet Jr., Who Pulled NPR Out Of Financial Trouble, Dies At 79

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

https://www.npr.org/2018/06/11/6190...ulled-npr-out-of-financial-trouble-dies-at-79

NPR Released a statement on their former leader.

Former NPR President Douglas J. Bennet Jr., who took over a troubled organization in 1983 and led it to stability during his decade at the helm, has died, his family announced. He was 79.

His death Sunday was announced on Twitter by his sons, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado and James Bennet, the editorial editor of The New York Times, and by his daughter, Holly. No cause of death was reported.

Bennet had early jobs in Congress and was an an assistant secretary of state under President Carter before becoming head of the U.S. Agency for International Development in 1979. He was named president of National Public Radio in 1983, when the still-young organization was in the midst of "a budget debacle, and we'd laid off a tremendous number of people," said Robert Siegel, former host of All Things Considered.

"His mission was to sort it out, to manage it well and make it healthy, which is what he did," Siegel said.

Bennet, said Siegel, brought balanced budgets to NPR and, with board Chairman Jack Mitchell, he changed the financial structure of NPR and its member stations.

"Doug was very sharp, very bright ... and was very wise about Capitol Hill," said Siegel, who directly reported to Bennet for four years as NPR's news director. During that time, he said, NPR also debuted several now-popular national programs.

"We launched Weekend Edition Saturday. The next year we launched Weekend Edition Sunday. We took Fresh Air from WHYY Philadelphia and made it a nationally distributed NPR program," he said. Talk Of The Nation, launched in 1991 to provide coverage of the Gulf War, also became a long-running show.

 

[FreddyE1977]

NPR is out of financial trouble?

 

[TheBigA]

NPR is out of financial trouble?

Compared to 1983, yes. Although the threat now is the same as it was then.

Remember who was president in 1983.

A lot of the funding mechanisms that are in place now came about during Bennet's time.