After forty years with NPR and thirty as host of All Things Considered, Robert Siegel will step down at the end of 2017.
In a statement to NPR.com Siegel wrote, “This is a decision long in the making and not an easy one. I’ve had the greatest job I can think of, working with the finest colleagues anyone could ask for, for as long a stretch as I could imagine,” Robert says. “But, looking ahead to my seventies (which start all too soon) I feel that it is time for me to begin a new phase of life. Over the next few months, I hope to figure out what that will be.”
Siegel joined NPR as a newscaster in 1976. He opened the network’s London bureau in 1979 and spent four years as Director of News and Information overseeing production of All Things Considered and Morning Edition and all other news and special events programming. He then took the reigns of ATC in 1987. Prior to joining NPR, Siegel worked as a reporter and talk host at 1290 WGLI Babylon NY and News Director at Jazz 106.7 WRVR New York.
I guess Robert Siegel is stepping down in the wake of President Trump planning to eliminate federal funding for public broadcasting. This would lead to an executive order that would force the Corporation of Public Broadcasting to dissolve and all NPR and PBS stations across the nation to shutdown.
That’s a bit of a stretch, Mike. Don’t overthink it. CPB, NPR and PBS will continue in some form and will weather this storm.