John Lansing, former CEO of NPR who oversaw the network during the pandemic, dies at 67

Former NPR CEO John Lansing, who led the organization during the pandemic before resigning in the spring, died on Wednesday at the age of 67.

Lansing joined the network in 2019 and his four-year tenure was marked by numerous challenges, including the COVID pandemic, a national reckoning with racism and mass layoffs. His successor, current NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher, praised him for leading the network “through some of its most difficult times.”

“John understood the importance of NPR’s mission to support democracy by informing the American public and led the organization to meet the challenge of an unprecedented global pandemic,” Maher wrote in a opinion“His speed and decisiveness during this difficult time enabled NPR to maintain uninterrupted, high-quality programming at a time when trustworthy news was vital to Americans.”

One of Lansing’s priorities was Diversity, equity and inclusion. NPR public editor Kelly McBride said that when Lansing hired her in early 2020, he told her he wanted to make NPR’s staff and content more diverse and broaden its audience to better reflect the entire United States.

Under Lansing, NPR established a DEI office and appointed a Chief Diversity Officer. In 2023, people of color made up 40% of the leadership team and 42% of the total workforce, up from 9% and 33%, respectively, in 2019. However, under Lansing’s tenure, there were also Sensational resignations of several women of colorwere NPR’s top anchors.

Like many of its peers at other news organizations, Lansing has had to make major cuts to address industry-wide financial challenges. At the end of 2022, NPR Hiring freeze and spending cuts due to declining sponsorship revenues. A few months later dismissed more than 100 people, about 10% of the workforce.

Lansing ultimately decided to resign several months before the end of his term. McBride, who is also a senior vice president at Poynter and chair of the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership, said that despite setbacks like the layoffs, she credits him with keeping NPR on the air during a difficult time and for continuing to champion diversity despite financial difficulties.

“I just had so much respect for his integrity and his leadership style,” McBride said. “He was a really, really good guy, and that’s not always the case with media executives. A lot of them are smart and very good journalists or very good business people. But he was just a really good guy on top of all those other things.”

Prior to NPR, Lansing was CEO of the US Agency for Global Media. He got his start in journalism at age 17, working as a studio technician and cameraman for WPSD-TV in Paducah, Kentucky. From there, he worked his way up the career ladder, eventually holding a number of executive positions, including president of Scripps Networks.

Lansing’s cause of death has not yet been announced. He leaves behind his wife and four children.