Harassment and Bullying Allegations Rock WNYC After Departure of Celebrated Host

On the morning of August 11 of this year, John Hockenberry signed off for the last time as host of WNYC’s The Takeaway, the show he helped to launch almost a decade earlier. That afternoon, dozens of staffers gathered in the company’s cafe on the 8th floor to fete the man many called “Hock.” There was sparkling wine and an extended tribute of recorded audio messages from producers past and present. It seemed a fitting sendoff for a TV and radio legend: Hockenberry had four Emmys and three Peabodys to his name, and had reported from war zones, all as a paraplegic who uses a wheelchair since he was injured in an automobile crash at age 19.

At 61, Hockenberry was departing the show for unspecified reasons and with no clear plans for the future. In a statement released at the time, he said, “Ultimately, in every challenging career, there comes a time when it is important to know when to move on” and called The Takeaway “a more personal statement about what I believe radio, and particularly public radio, should be than anything I have ever done.”

For months, however, the executives who decided to let Hockenberry go had been confronted with two uncomfortable facts: a confidential allegation of harassment that had recently been lodged against him and a noticeable decline in his skills as an on-air talent — he sometimes missed interviews, arrived unprepared, and even fell asleep on the job.

An investigation by WNYC News found two previous allegations of sexual harassment at The Takeaway that were not reported to top station executives. But those officials were aware of other problems at the show. For years, co-hosts and producers had been warning them that Hockenberry bullied colleagues, creating a hostile work environment. While Hockenberry’s moods ebbed and flowed over the years, producers and managers with the show never succeeded in reining in his temper.

Both WNYC and Public Radio International, two of The Takeaway’s producers, refused to say who made the decision not to renew Hockenberry’s contract, what role any of these factors may have played in their decision, or whether Hockenberry received a settlement or any other form of severance. In an emailed statement, Jennifer Houlihan Roussel, vice president for communications at New York Public Radio, wrote: “NYPR and PRI did not renew John Hockenberry’s contract as host of The Takeaway when it expired on June 30, 2017. We agreed to communicate John’s departure as his decision.”

Through a spokesperson, Hockenberry released a statement about the harassment allegations:  “I’ve always had a reputation for being tough, and certainly I’ve been rude, aggressive and impolite. Looking back, my behavior was not always appropriate and I’m sorry. It horrifies me that I made the talented and driven people I worked with feel uncomfortable, and that the stress around putting together a great show was made worse by my behavior. Having to deal with my own physical limitations has given me an understanding of powerlessness, and I should have been more aware of how the power I wielded over others, coupled with inappropriate comments and communications, could be construed. I have no excuses.”

Crossing Lines With Co-Workers

In 2011, a female producer for the show said she and John Hockenberry were discussing work when he forced a kiss on her without warning. Upset, the producer fled the room. She later told her husband and a friend about the incident, but did not report it to management at the station.

"I said to John, 'This cannot happen,'” said the woman who asked to remain anonymous. “It was so unexpected! I ran! It was a betrayal." Her husband and the friend both confirmed the details of her account.

The next day, in a Google Chat reviewed by WNYC News, Hockenberry wrote to her: “Sorry for everything. Life falling apart.” And then a minute later: “Didn't mean to involve you.”

The producer decided to look for another job and soon after left WNYC.

"I thought about whether to file a complaint, and decided, it was not in my best interest professionally,” she said. “Nobody ever told me it was not good for my career, but I knew it wasn’t."

In 2012, there was a second incident involving another female producer. According to sources with knowledge of the situation, Hockenberry suggested that they get a hotel room together, which greatly upset her. As she recounted this incident to senior members of The Takeaway staff, she was in tears. Before the event, the producer had already made a decision to leave the show, and did not want human resources to be involved.

Then, early in 2017, a third incident came to light. According to a source who was briefed on the complaint, a female journalist who had been an occasional guest on the show reported to a WNYC staff member that Hockenberry had messaged her persistently over the period of about a year. His insistence bothered her. Even when she stopped returning his messages, he persisted in contacting her. The journalist, Suki Kim, wrote about her experiences for New York magazine’s website The Cut in an extensive article detailing Hockenberry’s overtures.

In her account, Kim also reported that in 2014, Hockenberry kissed another former member of The Takeaway staff, Kristen Meinzer, and made lewd online comments to her. Kim also spoke with former interns at the show who were disturbed when they heard similar comments from Hockenberry directed at them.

Bullying In The Workplace

WNYC News spoke with more than two dozen current and former employees at The Takeaway, most of whom asked not to be named. Some praised Hockenberry’s sharp intellect, creative thinking, and interest in mentoring young producers. Some described a complex personality that could be brash and provocative in one moment and compassionate in the next. Yet almost all in some measure blamed Hockenberry for poisoning the atmosphere on the show.

One former producer noted that Hockenberry seemed to enjoy asking questions that would provoke her.

“It was, ‘Are you really married? Everything OK with your husband? Are you single yet?’” the producer said.

In 2011, a male producer, who is gay, said he heard Hockenberry call him a “transsexual” in front of several colleagues. That night, the producer wrote Hockenberry a message saying he had “an extraordinary amount of respect” for Hockenberry, but was “disgusted” by his comment. The producer shared the email chain with WNYC News.

Hockenberry’s response came later that night: “I did not call you a transexual [sic]. I called [employee name redacted] one and somebody else chimed in. I am obviously sensitive to the ugly dreadful morale around our show. If you think I'm worthy of an HR complaint please make one. You would hardly be the first. You obviously weren't privy to the whole conversation with [names redacted]. But if you were and they agree with you that I was a bastard then please get me fired. You would be doing me a favor. Happy Thanksgiving.”

The producer told WNYC News he doesn’t think Hockenberry is, in fact, homophobic or transphobic. “I think he’s a jerk,” he wrote in a text. Hockenberry later apologized and the producer said he accepted the apology.

Several producers noted that Hockenberry seldom used company email, but instead favored Gmail and instant message, often at all hours of the day and night.

“You never knew when you got up in the morning or went to bed at night whether there’d be some kind of ‘u up?’ message from Hock,” said another former producer. “He had this idea that things were much more casual than they were or should ever be between hosts and producers.”

Another female producer showed WNYC News what she said was a fairly typical example of Hockenberry's small provocations. It read, in part, “just feel like you have expressed a low tolerance for flirty or needlessly emotional texting etcetera,” adding, “it's totally fine….”

In team meetings — particularly those right after the show ended — Hockenberry would, at times, belittle or browbeat a producer if he felt their segment went badly.

“I felt it was a hostile work environment,” said a former manager at the show. This person added that female staffers came to one-on-one meetings “bawling” because of the way Hockenberry treated them. This manager confronted the host over his bullying, but when that didn’t get results, the manager alerted human resources as well as Dean Cappello, WNYC’s chief content officer and the executive in charge of the program at the time.

Finally, the manager raised Hockenberry's behavior with Laura Walker, President and CEO of New York Public Radio. While Walker reportedly met with Hockenberry to discuss the issue, this manager, who is no longer with the station and does not wish to be named, said it felt as if executives at the station never took adequate action to stop the abuse.

In a statement responding to the recent media reports, Walker said she was “deeply disturbed” by the allegations, and that the conduct “as reported would clearly violate NYPR's standards and workplace practices. As CEO, I deeply regret that our culture and protocols did not work as they should, such that the full nature and extent of the allegations are just now coming to light. I apologize, we can do better.”

A Mission To Reflect Diversity

From its debut in 2008, The Takeaway described itself as a different kind of public radio show, integrating digital culture and new voices in a fast-paced rebuke to NPR’s comparatively staid “Morning Edition.” At the time the show launched, many of the producers were in their 20’s. For some, it was their first steady job.

In 2009, PRI executive Alisa Miller said the mission included adding “unique cultural perspectives and diverse voices to the American public." The program received funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in its early years. As part of the process, WNYC submitted reports to CPB detailing the appearances of minority and women guests on the show.

In the beginning, the show had two hosts. But the big personality that made Hockenberry a compelling presence could also work against his on-air partners. Celeste Headlee, the show’s second co-host who joined in 2009, said that after an initial period of friendliness with her, Hockenberry became hostile.

“He would bang on tables, he would yell and then we’d go into the show,” Headlee said. “While we were on the air, he would talk over me, he would interrupt me….In some cases, he would jump in on the segments and sort of hijack the interview that I was in the middle of doing.”

Eventually their exchanges became so hostile, management introduced a new rule: neither host was allowed to participate in the other host’s interviews.

“That wasn’t the design of the show at all, it was meant to be more collegial,” Headlee said.

After complaining to her manager, Headlee was sent, at the station’s expense, to see Dr. Lorna Ozmon, a radio coach. Headlee understood that Ozmon had been directed to teach her techniques for dealing with difficult personalities. A manager at the show at the time said Ozmon was supposed to help Headlee with other on-air skills as well. It was not possible to ascertain whether Hockenberry also received coaching.

In April of 2012, Headlee said she filed a formal complaint with human resources, detailing Hockenberry’s “abusive” behavior. Three months later, WNYC announced The Takeaway would switch from a four-hour show to a single hour. That same month, Headlee said she was told her contract would not be renewed.

About her complaint, Headlee said, “As far as I know, it never went anywhere.”

Jennifer Houlihan Roussel, the spokeswoman for NYPR, did not answer questions about Headlee’s complaint, citing the station’s policy of not disclosing details of confidential personnel matters. She said Headlee’s departure occurred when the show changed format and reduced the size of its staff.

Headlee became the second woman of color to depart the co-host chair in a little over four years. Headlee is mixed race. The previous co-host, Adaora Udoji, who is Nigerian-American, also clashed with Hockenberry both on and off the air. Udoji did not respond to requests for comment.

After Udoji left, Farai Chideya, who is black, was an occasional fill-in co-host. She told New York magazine that after one argument, Hockenberry said: “You shouldn’t stay here just as a ‘diversity hire,’ he told her, according to Chideya. “And you should go lose weight.”

When The Takeaway went to a one-hour format, much of the original concept was discarded. The time slot changed so the program no longer competed directly with NPR’s “Morning Edition.” The BBC, a partner organization from the start, ended its ties. To be sure, Hockenberry brought fresh perspectives as a person with a disability, but now the solo host of a show that was supposed to broaden public radio’s appeal was a middle-aged, white, heterosexual man who had already won many accolades as a journalist.

Passers-by of Hockenberry’s glass-walled office might have noticed an Emmy statuette on prominent display, next to an antique typewriter. Hockenberry was consistently one of the highest paid people at the station, receiving $403,613 in wages and other compensation in fiscal year 2016.

Even after becoming the show’s leading voice, Hockenberry was still prone to make provocations, including offensive comments to a black person concerning American slavery. When Rebecca Carroll arrived in 2015 as a producer in the WNYC newsroom, she was invited to attend a show meeting for The Takeaway. Carroll, who is black, said: “We all sat down and inside of probably three minutes John said to me in front of his staff something like, ‘If it feels like a slave plantation mentality here at WNYC, that’s because it is.’” Carroll added, “Without gauging my response, he went on to talk for about ten minutes about his work championing black voices.”

“Meanwhile, the rest of the staff are kind of sinking into their chairs,” Carroll said.

Hockenberry sent her a lengthy email the next day which was reviewed by WNYC News as a part of this reporting. It included an apology. He also apologized to The Takeaway staff. According to Carroll and another source, no investigation or formal action was taken.

A Big Decision for Management

Until this summer, Hockenberry appeared to have the steadfast support of the station’s top executives, including Walker and Cappello. Cappello had a particularly strong connection to The Takeaway: he was part of the team that planned the show starting in 2007. In 2008 and 2009, he served as acting executive producer for about a year, and for years afterwards, he held sway over budget and personnel decisions. In late 2016, Cappello passed decision-making authority to WNYC’s Vice President for News, Jim Schachter.

Around that time, an unexpected problem presented itself: according to several sources, Hockenberry’s greatest asset, his on-air skills, began to fray. Where his wits had once been dazzlingly quick, producers said he sometimes seemed sluggish. He arrived late or missed interviews and sometimes was unprepared. Producers scheduled fewer live interviews and more pre-tapes so they could edit out any embarrassing material.

Alarmed, two producers on the show began keeping a log of Hockenberry’s lapses. These producers shared the worst examples with WNYC executives. John Hockenberry’s spokesperson did not respond to questions about his performance.

Then, in early 2017, a WNYC staffer called a company hotline to file a complaint on behalf of Suki Kim, alleging that Hockenberry was bothering Kim with messages that Kim found intrusive and unwelcome.

A few months later, Hockenberry’s contract was set to lapse. Now, decision-makers had two troubling factors to consider: the harassment complaint against him and his disappointing performance on the job. Despite requests for an interview, neither Walker nor Cappello nor Schachter would explain how the decision was made to let Hockenberry’s contract end, or how they weighed the various factors.

On July 21, 2017, Cappello announced Hockenberry’s retirement from the show in an internal email. He gave no explanation and offered no succession plan. In a public statement released by WNYC and PRI, Cappello said of Hockenberry, “His relentless pursuit of the truth is something we will carry forward.” The release also noted that the program had 2.7 million weekly listeners and ran on 271 stations around the country.

Hockenberry's last week at the Takeaway in early August included what the show called a "fond farewell," including a selection of his favorite interviews and affectionate tributes from listeners. Hockenberry signed off with a six-minute soliloquy:

"Here and now we mean to explore, investigate, be unafraid in our critiques, and uncynical in our hard looks at what we believe is really going on. It's what this show does, a show about democracy and the power of all of us prodded sometimes I suppose by a host who's doing more than just reading. And this program The Takeaway will be doing that long after I'm gone, and it's what I'll be doing wherever I go next, long after I say — take a breath, John — goodbye."

One producer on the show said staffers felt obliged to celebrate the host that week, but they didn’t really understand the circumstances of his departure.

“There’s still frustration with the fact that station management has not really come clean,” the producer said last week. “I don’t think anyone on staff believes John just said, ‘Time to give it up and move on.’”

Since then, The Takeaway’s Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich has been hosting the show while a search is conducted for a permanent host. In September, Hockenberry filled in for Charlie Rose on his PBS and Bloomberg TV show.

Public Scrutiny for Public Media

On social media, reaction to the story in New York magazine was swift and angry. Some Twitter users excoriated the station for failing to protect women, especially women of color, while current and former WNYC employees expressed shock over Hockenberry’s behavior and solidarity with the women who spoke out.

Other people, identifying themselves as donors to the station, threatened to pull their financial support. WNYC relies heavily on listener support. “I'll wait for a weekday statement, but unless senior execs are fired and a credible process for discrimination complaints is put in place, I'm canceling my sustaining membership,” one person wrote.

In recent years, WNYC has publicly pushed for greater participation by women and people of color in public media. In 2015, the station launched “Werk It,” a podcasting festival specifically aimed at women. That first year, Walker, WNYC’s CEO since 1996, told the women in the room that it was the “fierce...founding mothers” of NPR who made her fall in love with radio journalism in the first place: Nina Totenberg, Linda Wertheimer, Cokie Roberts, and Susan Stamberg.

“For me, these women served as an inspiration,” Walker said. She went on to call for podcasting to become “the very first form to eradicate the gender gap on the talent side.”

During Walker’s more than two decade tenure at WNYC, the station has promoted and hired many women, including vice presidents and executive producers.

But for several women who work at WNYC, Hockenberry’s longevity at The Takeaway is evidence that public radio is not living up to its own ideals. The public revelations of his behavior come on the heels of a harassment allegations that recently forced out NPR’s senior vice president for news, Michael Oreskes. (In a statement reported in the New York Times, Oreskes said: “My behavior was wrong and inexcusable, and I accept full responsibility.”)

In the course of reporting this story, four women approached WNYC News to say they recently filed harassment complaints with the station and have been dissatisfied with the response from human resources.

Roussel, the NYPR spokesperson, said in an email, “Like other organizations, NYPR has received complaints over the years that allege inappropriate conduct or statements. We have strong policies that prohibit discrimination, harassment and retaliation, as well as procedures for reporting and investigating complaints when they are made. Most recently — in emails sent in May and November 2017 — President and CEO Laura Walker encouraged employees to come forward with any complaints, and this message was reinforced at an all staff meeting in October 2017.”

The week before Thanksgiving, a group of about a half-dozen, highly-placed women at WNYC requested a meeting with Walker. For about an hour, they raised concerns ranging from the relative lack of women on air and in decision-making roles, to the handling of harassment claims. The Takeaway was also a key part of the discussion. According to people who attended the meeting, Walker said she heard their concerns.

Since then, WNYC has hired an outside advisor to “undertake a full review of our policies and procedures,” according to an email from Walker to staff. One source said the advisor is attorney Deborah Shapiro who focuses on employment issues. She did not return a request for comment.

Walker has also announced she will meet with NYPR employees in small groups, to hear their concerns.

In an all-company email sent on Saturday, Walker addressed Hockenberry’s departure for the first time publicly, writing in part: “Some of the behaviors described in The Cut, including the author’s own complaint [Suki Kim], were known to NYPR, and we investigated and took action at the time. We learned about other allegations after John left the company. And some, we learned about for the first time from the article. We take every allegation seriously. And like you, we are deeply concerned.”

In public forums like Facebook and in private conversations, a fierce discussion is now taking place about whether WNYC’s top leaders could have remained unaware of problems at The Takeaway for so many years.

One former producer for that show noted that a 2014 article in The Daily Beast, titled “Shows on NPR, Ranked in Order From Glorious to Unbearable” gave The Takeaway an F- grade and suggested a drinking game: “Every time a female guest has to politely correct Hockenberry after he has explained her field of expertise to her, take a shot. By the time you get to work, you’ll either be arrested or fired.”

Celeste Headlee, who now hosts the Atlanta-based public radio show On Second Thought, said she was not aware of sexual harassment when she worked at The Takeaway. She added that the thought that some female colleagues were hurt while she was at the show is “horrifying to me.” She said she hoped WNYC will do some hard soul-searching.

“When someone is willing to bully and harass their co-workers, it’s time to take a second look, because you have no idea how much further that goes.”

Jessica Gould contributed research for this story. This story was edited by Sean Bowditch, Charlie Herman and Kate Hinds. Senior WNYC management had no oversight of or influence on this story.

Editor’s note: This article has been revised to describe more specifically the language John Hockenbery used in a meeting with The Takeaway staff and newsroom producer Rebecca Carroll.