The Scoop
In her first four months on the job, the new CEO of New York Public Radio has swiftly eliminated many of its seniormost figures, surprising the organization’s staff and unsettling some of its remaining leaders.
Christy Tanner, a veteran of CBS News, took the helm at NYPR in early February. Since then, she has let many of its top figures go with little explanation to staff. She ousted CFO and COO Thomas Reno. She pushed out Jennifer Schell Podoll, the executive in charge of overseeing fundraising efforts. She decided to bring in a new head of communications to replace longtime VP of comms Jennifer Houlihan Roussel. And she dismissed the organization’s liaison to the board of trustees after an argument this spring. None of the departures have been announced publicly.
It’s not uncommon for a new CEO to bring in new leadership, and Tanner told The New York Times in February that part of her mission early on would be to shore up the public media organization’s finances. But the volume of departures has surprised other senior leaders, two of whom told Semafor that they were concerned Tanner didn’t have a plan to replace the people she fired, and were worried that the terminations would negatively affect the organization’s internal morale, and ability to raise money and recruit new talent. These questions were raised at an all-staff meeting earlier this year, three people who attended the meeting told Semafor.
In an interview on Friday with Semafor, Tanner said she could not comment on personnel decisions, but said that she has been committed to growing the organization. She told Semafor that NYPR plans to announce several new hires next month to editorial positions focused on expanding live events and streaming.
“In any evolution, there are necessary changes to help fuel growth and expansion, and I do not take those changes lightly,” she said. “My role and the role of the board of trustees [is] to protect the legacy and mission of the organization while also scaling and growing to meet the future. I was brought on to lead that change with humility and pragmatism.”
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Max’s view
In recent years, NYPR has faced steep financial challenges amid a drop in philanthropic and individual donations. As I first reported in 2024, then-CEO LaFontaine Oliver announced that the organization was laying off 8% of staff, saying, “Without swift action, we will soon face significant questions about our ability to continue to serve New York.”
The Trump administration’s decision to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funneled federal money to local radio stations around the country, also took a bite out of NYPR’s finances — though the organization pointed out to The New York Times last year that it was relatively insulated from federal funding, which accounted for just 4% of its annual budget.
But a recent surge in support for public media following the Trump administration’s funding cuts boosted NYPR. When Tanner took over earlier this year, the organization had actually posted some modest recent gains, surpassing its $57.7 million yearly fundraising goal by roughly $4 million.
Tanner told Semafor there was a “really strong foundation of revenue” built around donor and individual member support, and said that she had been tasked with making NYPR a multiplatform media organization that also serves its existing listeners.
That dual mandate also illustrates one of NYPR’s most pressing challenges. Public media audiences are loyal but aging. NYPR has tried to hedge against this with social media content and podcasts aimed at younger audiences. But while NYPR was once a trailblazer in the podcast space, the organization has been forced to make cuts to its podcast arm as other media organizations have caught up. In conversations with people around the organization in recent years, they’ve told me the balance between satisfying existing audiences and attempting to maintain relevance for the future has often tipped toward the former.
Notable
- NYPR’s internal staff frustrations and bickering have garnered significant media attention. As Semafor’s Ben Smith, then The New York Times’ media columnist, wrote in 2021, WNYC was a hotbed of news media’s “Mean Too” movement, as staff there argued over whether hosts and employees were bullying each other. The tumult at what Smith described as “America’s biggest and angstiest public radio station” resulted in the departure of On the Media cohost Bob Garfield. As I wrote around the same time, WNYC staff also clashed with editor-in-chief Audrey Cooper, who eventually left to lead The Baltimore Banner.
- Two hosts of The Takeaway, WNYC’s rival to NPR’s Morning Edition, left following staff complaints. When the show was finally cancelled in 2023, host Melissa Harris-Perry criticized the organization’s decision, saying it was “an act of institutional cruelty and abuse by the executives of WNYC.”