Chapin knowledgeable CEO Katherine Maher of her intentions two weeks in the past, earlier than the funding rescission invoice cleared the Senate. Chapin plans to remain till September or October, and he or she emphasised that her departure is just not linked to the vote.
“I have had two big executive jobs for two years, and I want to take a break,” Chapin, who is also NPR’s performing chief content material officer, informed her personal outlet. “I want to make sure my performance is always top-notch for the company.”
“She has led with conviction, clarity, and compassion—always putting the public’s interest first. Her impact on NPR’s journalism and on the many people she mentored and supported over the years is immeasurable,” Maher mentioned.
Even when unrelated to the federal defunding of NPR, Chapin’s departure comes at a fragile second for public media. The roughly $1.1 billion reduce to the Company for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund NPR, PBS, and member stations, is predicted to strike a major blow to native journalism, particularly in rural areas that closely rely upon authorities help. Whereas NPR itself receives solely a small portion of its price range from CPB, member stations face steeper penalties. Some get greater than half their funding from the federal government.
That cash runs dry on Oct. 1.
Maher has pledged to chop NPR’s working price range by $8 million to partially offset the impression, offering reduction to the stations hit hardest. Sadly, that’s only a drop within the bucket. Public radio stations have misplaced $350 million for every of the next two years.
Chapin joined NPR in 2012 and was promoted to the community’s prime editorial position in 2023, shortly thereafter taking up the place of performing chief content material officer. Her tenure has spanned a turbulent interval marked by layoffs. And she or he helped strengthen ties between NPR and its member stations, selling native collaborations.
An individual walks into the One Franklin Sq. Constructing, dwelling of The Washington Submit newspaper, in June 2024, in Washington.
However her departure isn’t occurring in isolation. Throughout the media, distinguished journalists and executives are leaving their posts because the business adjusts to Trump’s return to energy—and his unrelenting assaults on the free press.
Simply this week, The Washington Submit misplaced Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Jonathan Capehart, the most recent in a wave of high-profile departures. Fellow writers Ruth Marcus, Eugene Robinson, Philip Bump, and Perry Bacon Jr., amongst others, have stepped away just lately. And prime editors have additionally resigned or taken buyouts. All of this follows the Submit’s proprietor, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, asserting earlier this yr that he would pressure the outlet’s editorial web page to hew nearer to a conservative line of selling “free markets.”
Additionally on Tuesday, the Submit’s fundamental TikTok character, Dave Jorgenson, introduced his departure. He informed The New York Occasions that management was primarily “rolling out the red carpet” for workers to take buyouts in the event that they didn’t align with the Submit’s new path.
The upheavals aren’t restricted to print, both.
And Trump’s rhetoric branding the press because the “enemy of the people” has now manifested as direct authorities motion towards public media.
Chapin could say she’s not stepping down due to Trump, however her departure highlights how a lot the bottom is shifting beneath journalists. The stress is actual, and it’s unsettling the media panorama. As skilled voices go away the sphere, the dangers to unbiased journalism solely develop.
