My remarks to the NYPR Community Advisory Board on How We’re Moving Forward in 2018
To all listeners:
Last night, I was invited by the New York Public Radio Community Advisory Board (CAB) to speak about recent events at NYPR and the important efforts we’re undertaking to towards creating a 21st century workplace that is free from harassment and sets the standard for diversity, equity, and inclusion. My remarks are below.
I was delighted to hear the thoughtful comments made by members of the community during the public feedback session. All feedback offered during these sessions is shared with me and our Board of Trustees on a regular basis; it was good to hear this firsthand. Our community’s engagement is something we treasure.
I was not able to answer questions, but if you have any comments or have thoughts you would like to share, please feel free to reach me at president@wnyc.org.
Thanks as always,
Laura
Thank you Barbara. Good evening.
I want to thank you for inviting me to say a few words today.
All of you are here because of the passion and dedication you have for public radio.
You’re the reason we feel excited and inspired to come to work every morning—not just to create great radio, but to create the kind of community that brings people together from every corner of the city, on a chilly night in the dead of winter, to talk about what we’re doing here at New York Public Radio and how we can do even better.
As you know, it is a critical time for the media industry and for our country. In my career, I’ve never seen such a seismic shift in the national conversation about workplace culture: how we treat each other, what we owe each other, and what responsibility we have to create an environment where everyone is respected and valued.
And we have an imperative to use this moment—I feel that particularly strongly as a woman leader. With #MeToo, #TimesUp and #WhyWeWearBlack, we are having a different conversation and we have the opportunity to set a new standard for an inclusive and respectful workplace. As Sarah Jessica Parker said at the Golden Globes, “PARITY, EQUALITY, AND SAFE WORK ENVIRONMENTS SHOULDN’T BE CONTROVERSIAL.”
For NYPR, this is a moral responsibility. And it’s also a business responsibility. Because we simply cannot do the work we want to do—brave, urgent, vital work—unless we live our values every day.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion cannot be side notes or afterthoughts. They must be engrained in our culture and in everything we do.
That’s how we’ll build an organization that attracts the best talent from all over the world, and sets the standard for a 21st-century workplace.
That’s how we’ll continue to be a leader in building community and sparking courageous conversations, like the ones we’re having right now.
That’s how we’ll serve as a model for excellence and a beacon for other organizations who seek to open hearts and minds, speak truth to power, and make space for civil dialogue in an era of historic isolation and polarization.
I know many of you are here tonight because you have questions about some of the changes we’ve made in the past few weeks. I want to start by explaining what we decided, and why, and what it means for our programming and our community.
Three weeks ago, we terminated the employment of longtime hosts Leonard Lopate and Jonathan Schwartz.
We didn’t make this decision lightly. We knew that it would rattle our community. We knew that some listeners would be upset, some angry, some convinced we did the wrong thing. We recognized, with deep sadness, that some would abandon us after many years of loyalty.
But we also knew that we could not continue to employ Mr. Lopate and Mr. Schwartz at NYPR.
About a year ago, we received complaints from a number of people about Leonard Lopate’s behavior. We investigated. Leonard was given an official warning that he was creating an uncomfortable work environment for other members of our staff, and was asked to take one-on-one anti-harassment training.
Similarly, complaints from staff late last year resulted in disciplinary action against Jonathan Schwartz.
Then in November and December of last year, new allegations of inappropriate behavior against both Jonathan and Leonard came to light after the earlier warnings, trainings, and disciplinary action.
We hired independent investigators to review the allegations. They interviewed Mr. Lopate and Mr. Schwartz, as well as multiple witnesses—and in both cases, they uncovered a pattern of behavior, over many months, that violated our standards for providing an inclusive, appropriate, and respectful work environment.
Given the results of the investigations, the decision was made to terminate Leonard and Jonathan’s employment. This was not a decision that was taken lightly—their supervisors, and the executive committee of the board and I were aligned around this decision.
We recognize that Leonard Lopate and Jonathan Schwartz have made many contributions to NYPR and we are deeply saddened to have had to take these steps. But our higher commitment continues to be to ensure an inclusive and respectful environment for our staff, guests and listeners.
We are committed to learning. The Board has also engaged an outside investigator to help us understand what happened and what went wrong. This investigation will report directly to the Audit Committee of the Board.
This investigation will include a review of where our policies and our actions fall short, and recommendations for addressing these issues. All of this will inform the important work we are doing around our processes and our culture moving forward.
This moment is an opportunity for us to lead. And in just the past few weeks, we’ve hit the ground running—asking tough questions, charting a path forward, and doing the hard work of creating change from the inside out.
Here are some of the specific changes we’ve begun to make as we look to the future—changes that have to do with who we are, what we do, and how we communicate.
First, we’re focusing on who we are: Our people are the most important asset we have, and it’s our job to ensure that the best and brightest want to come here, and stay here.
- Review of Human Resources Policies prohibiting harassment retaliation and discrimination: using feedback from small group meetings, and outside investigator Debra Shapiro, to determine if there are changes to be made to reflect new aspirations.
- Training: Sexual Harassment workshops started yesterday for all staff and will roll out over the next two months.
- Assess improvements to our “per diem” workforce.
- We are reviewing the results of a culture survey we gave to all staff, and will convene an internal task force to create a set of shared values and to recommend some ways to build upon our strengths to improve the culture of our workplace.
- We’re also speeding up the rollout of our three-year plan for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and infusing everything we do with a DEI perspective.
- Finally, we’re assessing our overall organizational structure and opportunities at the highest levels of our organization, and ensuring that we’re creating a culture of dignity and respect. I’ve engaged Madhulika Sikka, a leader in public media, to assess our content division and to develop a set of recommendations to improve the structure of the content division, with particular focus on equity in decision-making, compensation, and advancement.
Second, we’re focusing on what we do: the programming that makes us a leader in our industry.
I’m excited to announce that we’ve established a cross-departmental team to guide the creation and development of our new midday show. In the next several months, the team will develop a program brief, and solicit internal and external ideas for a daily program that entertains, inspires, and engages our listeners, and that represents the diversity of this great city. I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with.
Finally, we’re focusing on how we communicate—both to our listeners and to the public.
As a public media organization, we have a commitment to transparency and accountability. That’s why we take your feedback so seriously, and why meetings like this are so important. There is no NYPR without our community of dedicated listeners.
At our last CAB meeting, we heard your questions and concerns about how we choose the companies and organizations that underwrite our shows. Because of this feedback, we have decided not to accept Williams sponsorship anymore.
Which is to say: your presence here matters.
Know that we take all your questions, concerns, and ideas very seriously, and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for sharing them with us.
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