• by Ray Schultz , August 25, 2024

John Lansing, a veteran journalist who guided NPR through some rough times over the past few years, died on August 14. The cause was not disclosed. 

Lansing was hired by NPR in 2019. But he was soon confronted by the pandemic, falling ad sales, a $25 million deficit and other issues. 

Lansing oversaw the shift to remote work, slashed salaries for high-level executives and took other actions to shore up the operation. He also sought to achieve diversity both in the workplace and among the audience. 

“I felt that we needed to double down our efforts in D.E.I. throughout our organization in order to fulfill the promise to reflect the entire American public in terms of what America looks like,” he said in an interview with Current, a magazine that covers public media in 2021, according to the Times. 

However, 10% of the workforce was laid off last year. 

“He was the most levelheaded person in the room,” Steve Inskeep, a host of NPR’s “Morning Edition,” said in an email, the Times reports. “Just never lost his cool, that I saw. He took pride in his background as a working journalist and brought that experience to his job as an executive.”

Lansing left his post at NPR earlier this year.