Note: The following transcript is created by both humans and AI, so despite our best attempts may contain errors.
Bull: It's Friday, May 19, 2023. My name is Brian Bull, lead interviewer and consultant for the public radio oral history project. Our interview today is with Bill Siemering, an early pioneer behind much of National Public Radio's guiding principles and programming. He joins us from Philadelphia. Good day, Bill.
Siemering: Good day. How are you, Brian?
Bull: I'm well, how about yourself?
Siemering: Fine. Thanks.
Bull: Good. Good. It's an honor to meet you and I'm looking forward to our conversation.
Siemering: Thank you.
Bull: Bill, let's just go over some of the biographical details with you. Can you please share with me your birthday and your hometown please?
Siemering: My name is Bill Siemering, and I was born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, which is just maybe 15 miles from Madison.
Bull: I lived for a few years in Waunakee, Wisconsin when I worked at Wisconsin Public Radio and so I know that area pretty well.
Siemering: Good. Yes. It's probably changed a little bit. Have you been out there lately?
Bull: Not too lately, maybe five years, something like that.
Siemering: Yeah, maybe a strip mall or two on there and maybe an improved road or so but yeah, it's very much kind of still has a lot of charm.
Bull: And what was your first experience with radio? We're talking about you being a young boy living outside of Madison, Wisconsin. Can you tell me what your first formative experience was with radio?
Siemering: Sure. I went to a two-room country school outside of Madison. And twice a day the teacher would turn on the Wisconsin School of the Air. So I learned art, music, social studies, nature studies, all from radio. So my first experience with radio was that it was a source of imagination and information. And it's still that way. Because every time I turn on public radio, I learn something new.
Bull: You went from high school into WHA. You were pretty active in a number of things in theater and other activities. I was just kind of curious how you went from high school into a career in radio.
Siemering: Sure. I went to West High which was very good public school, and was very active in the theater there. And stage crew and designing scenery acting in plays and things like that. And my teacher was Ruth McCarty, whose husband was the director of WHA or the university station, and then it was the FM network covering the whole state
And so she suggested that I go down to the station and see if they had anything for me. I thought I might design seeing referred television or something. They were just starting television. So he said we don't have anything for you here but why don't you go over to radio. And I began there working as an engineer. So that was my first opportunity really to work in the medium itself.
Bull: WHA is regarded as the oldest radio station in the nation. So what did it mean for you personally, Bill to work at this place?
Siemering: Well, I was I felt, you know, part of history really and there was a big mural in the reception room, the station in Radio Hall, that showed the history of radio. And I saw that every day of course, that I worked there. So I was very conscious of the history and of the power of radio. And so in a way, this interview is really about where do ideas come from? And so I already talked to you about how hearing the Wisconsin School of the Air was my first real contact with radio in a meaningful way and that formed what I thought radio was. (laughs)
And with WHA the university station that had an extraordinary large audience, and it was it was well regarded. There was a large professional staff. They were producing these programs for the Wisconsin School of the Air. And then there was a College of the Air university lectures and things like that. So l was introduced to a very strong station that had a very important public service.
Bull: What were some of your general duties around the station, Bill?
Siemering: I started in the recording room and recorded lectures and edited programs that came in. That was the first thing I did. Then gradually I went on air was an announcer and acted in radio plays and things like that.
Bull: In 1962 you were called into ‘BFO to supervise the student newspaper and radio station. How was this a formative experience for you, Bill?
Siemering: Well, this was very different than WHA because it was a student club. Really. WBFO was off the air in the summers and during breaks. So it was off the air during the day really and would go on the air after classes about 5 o'clock. So it wasn't really a serious station as it was in Madison. But it was a good station in that it had promise, I think and, Dean (Richard) Siggelkow was the one who hired me at Buffalo.
And I had known him at the University of Wisconsin, and I knew that he would provide protection for me, journalistically that is there wouldn't be any problem with interference. And he said, This is just a small bush now and you can help grow it and I loved the way he was looking toward the future of this. So that pleased me. And he was good with his word. He always looked out for the station. He was very supportive of it in the administration.
So as a university station, I thought it was an opportunity for experimentation. And we did build a station up so it was more serious. So I made it grow, if you will. So it was a building process. And we had some excellent students that went on to have significant careers in radio, for example, Ira Flatow, who has done Science Friday at NPR, Mike Waters, who became a host of All Things Considered, and others like that. So we had really a strong staff that evolved. So it was nice to have that strength in the station then.
I appreciated the student talent, you know. In addition to experimentation, we - for example - worked with the creative associates there, in the music department. And Mariana Shea, one of the creative associates came and said, "I'd like to do a program with sound links from around the city having microphones there.” I said, “sure.” And so we did that. It ran for 27 hours! (laughs) Which is something we wouldn’t do now.
I asked the FCC if we had to have station IDs. They said yeah, you do. I thought it was a continuous composition. (laughs)
So that was one example. And she went on. She called it “City Links WBFO” and she replicated some of that elsewhere. No other station would ever do that. But we didn't have a very large audience. So why not, you know? And so you would wake up in the middle of the night, you'd say “I wonder what the city sounds like now?” and one of the microphones was at a Best Home steel factory. In other words, at Pillsbury had a nice little bell sound machine and so on.
And you could hear planes coming in also. So you could say, "Gee, I wonder if Harry's on that plane? That's his landing." Anyway, it was that kind of John Cage like thing. Another time we had reproduced in our program guide a number of paintings by students in color. And so we had them talk about the painting. So we called it “Talking Painting.”
And somebody, a student, composed some music in response to the painting. So it was that kind of - I'm gonna say playfulness- that I think was important.
And then on a more serious side, coming from Madison, which was pretty homogenous, Buffalo is a miniature eastern city with great diversity. And so I worked with some of the people of color there and we had a series, we began with a series called "To be Negro." Now this was 1962. So that was, it was basically: what is it like to be a Black person in Buffalo? And so it was really important to have Caucasians understand this. Now, we do much more of that. But that was at that time, it was kind of revolutionary, I guess.
Bull: I know being from small town, Wisconsin, which was also, as you said, pretty homogenous. It must have been interesting for some of the community members out there and buffalo to see a non-Black person really helping out in providing these experiences, providing these opportunities for their perspective to be shared. On radio that does sound pretty revolutionary.
Siemering: So we set up a studio in the heart of the Black community, where they originated about 27 hours a week of programming. And essentially, the whole weekend programming came from that facility. And that was a wonderful experience for them to give voice. Well, they had voice this was a wonderful way to amplify the voices and to actually hear what they cultural was we sponsored a Black arts festival, things like that. People brought in their poems and photographs. We reproduced some of those in the program guide.
So it was really meaningful engagement with the community. And again, these were citizens that had something to say they hadn't had experience in broadcasting, but they had something to say and they developed a strong audience in the black community.
Bull: You know, it's interesting because today in this world of social media, we have people who can do podcasts, they can do tick tock, they can do a lot of self-publishing and self-advocacy. But back then looking back to, again, this was 1969-1970...a very different generation on time having access to a microphone on a radio signal really was for many the only way to kind of get heard to get noticed.
Siemering: Yes, there really weren't people of color on the media in newspapers or -- there were people of color doing radio, but it was all music. They were often white-owned, but there wasn't any chance for real discussion or insight into their lives and to have it on basically a mainly Caucasian middle-class audience.
Bull: Bill, you described unrest and strife in March 1970 Which led to the area with WBFO getting tear gassed by police. 300 of them by your account. How did your station respond to this?
Siemering: That was a very important time, Brian, because we learned a lot about radio listeners and credibility. So in spite of the extremely high emotions, as long as listeners heard some guests on the air expressing their views, we had credibility with them. And they had also listened to opposing views, usually presented on the same program. So this was in marked contrast to traditional journalists, filtering of ideas, which may feel results in distortion. So as a responsible broadcaster, we didn't just provide access to the airwaves for broad range of viewpoints, but we also clarified the issues by selecting articulate spokespeople, providing a quiet setting and through the discussion leader techniques of defining problems, questioning, restatement and summation, our attitude was more like that of a counselor trying to have an individual share his or her perception of reality, rather than an interrogating journalist.
We also discovered that radio is best when it's true to the nature of the medium that is one it has immediacy, variety, spontaneity, respect people and ideas.
Bull: Now, one of the innovations that came to WBFO was the creation of a program called This is Radio.
Siemering: Yes.
Bull: Can you please describe the show for me?
Siemering: Sure. So that's part of our discovery at this time. So after the disorders for four hours each afternoon, instead of regular programs, we simply said, “This is Radio” and had interviews recorded in live press conferences, talks, news reports, and a mixture of musical styles.
So with this experience behind us, we proposed to expand and improve this concept. And I asked for grants from Corporation for Public Broadcasting. During this period, of course, television was the dominant medium, and I always felt that we were not respected (laughs.)
Siemering: I felt sometimes they kicked sand in our face, you know, and television tried to keep us out of the CPB because we were “not respectable” and it would take money away from television which was really important. So I was really, I'd had it, with that! And so that's why I said “This is radio, dammit!” I mean, that's what I meant. Look what radio can do. They can be immediate, and have a lot of different elements in it. And it's worth listening to. It's worth showing some respect. So that's why I called it that.
Bull: You certainly wanted to punch and emphasize that this was a radio production as opposed to any other medium.
Siemering: Right, and capitalizing on the strengths that I'd mentioned before, you know, and it was nice that the newspapers respected what we had done with covering the riots, and they said we were a voice of reason amidst the chaos. And that notched us up in terms of respectability and professionalism in the community. So that's why I felt kind of confident for doing it that way.
Bull: And you talked to about how the program could be a mix of news, but also a mix of music and maybe some softer features. So was this kind of the groundwork that created some of the later news magazine programs as we know them today?
Siemering: Right. It was out of all this that you wondered, earlier on about how influential was my time in Buffalo. You can see how one thing led to another and how all these experiences really influenced me.
Bull: Public Broadcasting had support in the late 60s through the 70s. But it sounds like as you mentioned, already, Bill that the emphasis was more on TV and radio. How did that notion sit with you and other members of the NPR founding board?
Siemering: Yeah. So we really were determined to have the very best and original kind of programming and have really a sense of purpose. And so, as you've heard, one of my themes there was to be inclusive. We went from educational to public, and I thought a lot about that because to me, that meant inclusive, that means everyone. Not that education keeps people out, but you know, it has a different connotation. And so that's why I spent a lot of time the purposes statement.
I think it was because of that paper that came out in 1969 that the board of directors I was on the founding board, asked me to write the purposes for NPR and I'd like to read maybe just a few parts of that. And again, the theme, you can hear some of these themes that we discovered:
Siemering: (reading) "National Public already will serve the individual. It will promote personal growth will regard the individual differences with respect and joy, rather than division and hate. It will celebrate the human experiences initially varied, rather than vacuous and banal. It will encourage a sense of active, constructive participation rather than apathetic helplessness.
“The total service should be trustworthy, enhance intellectual development, expand knowledge, deepen oral aesthetic enjoyment, increase the pleasure of living in a pluralistic society, and result in a service to listeners, which makes them more responsive, informed human beings and intelligent responsible citizens of their communities and the world.”
And then in talking about what the program would be like or the editorial approach, I said, "They will not substitute superficial blindness, for genuine diversity of regions, values, and cultural and ethnic minorities which comprise American society. It would speak with many voices and many dialects. The editorial attitude would be that of inquiry, curiosity, concern for the quality of life, critical problem solving, and life loving.
“The listener should come to rely upon it as a source of information of consequence, that having listened has made the difference in their attitude toward the environment and themselves.”
Bull: That's a very progressive mindset that's reflected in those principles and mission statements. (yes) You feel Bill that NPR and other public radio entities have been pretty good and consistent in following those principles?
Siemering: Well, I think I think they've tried to (laughs) in many cases, I'm told that these ideas are kind of helped. Now it was both aspirational. I thought, practical, you know? There's just one other differentiation I had here with commercial radio, if you will. I said "listeners should feel that the time spent with NPR was among their most rewarding in media contact. National Public Radio will not regard its audience as a market or in terms of its disposable income, but as curious, complex individuals who are looking for some understanding, meaning and joy in the human experience."
And I think it's true that listeners regarding it as their most important media contact, at least that's what they tell us.
Bull: And I think also to cements the relationship between public radio and its listeners who are very still much the source of support for public radio in general, both NPR and all the listener stations that trust and that credibility is what I think drives many listeners to make pledges and support during these frequent fundraisers of ours.
Siemering: Yes, and the fact that it is unique, you know, it has to be substantially different from what they get on commercial radio, or other sources.
Bull: So Bill, who were the first NPR board members that you worked with?
Siemering: Well, the board was they wanted to have an election for board members among the stations, and they divided it up regionally, so there was somebody from each region in the country represented on the board. And the as I say, we were elected among the membership. So they were all station managers and generally known in the community.
Bull: Would there be any names that people on the national level might recognize?
Siemering: I don't think so today. Well, Bill Kling was on from Minnesota Public Radio, and he? (Bull: Oh, sure.) You had a small station in college Ville at the time. That's grown into a huge network. Minnesota Public Radio. Yes. Yeah. No, that's very prominent.
Bull: What do the stations think of using that money for NPR?
Siemering: Well, it was kind of mandated in the CPB that the funds would be used to have a network and provide a programming service.
Bull: Now Bill, you hired a number of prominent women, including Susan Stamberg and Linda Wertheimer, very familiar names to longtime listeners on Public Radio. Can you tell me about working with those people?
Siemering: Well, the very first person I hired was Carolyn Jensen, who had worked with Deutschevelle as a researcher and I hired her as a researcher and source because of course, there wasn't Google to check facts. But the most important thing was to have accuracy and credibility. And I needed somebody to do that. And so that was the first person I hired. She was very bright and went on to become an excellent producer, actually at NPR.
Bull: She married Alex Chadwick too, didn't she?
Siemering: Yes. Right. Right. A whole series, in different places in the world, is just remarkable. I believe we have a sacred trust with our listeners to be accurate. and fair and respectful. So it just happened that she was a woman but she wasn't hired because she was a woman it was because she was so bright and capable. And that's the way it was with hiring other people. So I did happen to hire quite a few women simply because they were the best candidate.
And you mentioned Susan, at that time, it was pretty easy hiring people because now it gets kind of complicated with committees. All kinds of hoops that people have to jump through. But when Susan came in, I really didn't need to look at her resume. I mean, she just exuded this wonderful curiosity. She has a wonderful voice. And she is as comfortable doing features as doing news. And she can modulate the difference.
So I of course looked at her resume, and went on to…but l just knew that that's the sound that I wanted to hear NPR have. And Linda (Wertheimer) had come having worked at CBS and Linda was the first director of All Things Considered.
Bull: So already you had kind of assembled a very strong production team and team of hosts and reporters. The very first broadcast of All Things Considered on NPR coincided with a major anti-war demonstration there in Washington D.C.How did this show that NPR could handle news coverage back then, Bill?
Siemering: Well, that was a wonderful test for us. Right out of the box, there, really. To take this challenge and cover. And again, having had this experience in Buffalo, we had some of those same reporters in, like waters and Smokey Baer and Rich Firestone some of those as well as Ira (Flatow.) So we again fanned out to get a lot of different sounds and viewpoints and edit it down into about a 25-minute documentary, which I thought was remarkable to be able to produce a documentary that quickly and of that quality, of hearing the different points of view. So, I felt that gave us a good start, really.
Now in all honesty (laughs), you know, we were starting a new program. There wasn't an NPR sound, per se. We were all finding our way. We all came from different backgrounds, and we didn't know how much staff we needed to cover 90 minutes for a daily news show. So we're all finding our way, kind of in the wilderness. And so you're in kind of beta form. But there's only the only way you could do it, you know, we did mock ups for a week or so. But you know, you have to be real about it. So on one program you might have something really brilliant, and something that you were kind of embarrassed about (laughs).
But another thing I would talk about on that first program was the first voice in the tease was a nurse who happened to be an addict, a drug addict. talking about when Harry comes knocking on your door. And I had that there is making a statement really that we aren't going to talk about a problem. We're going to talk with people about their lives and how they're experiencing it. First person. So that was that was an intentional statement about our editorial approach. And that same program we had Alan Ginsburg and his father talking about poetry. So and so again, we're illustrating the variety of things within that 90 minutes.
Bull: Now, you anticipated back then - in 1971- that you could have a fourth of material coming from NPR member stations. What exactly happened there?
Siemering: Yes, I thought that we would have the country here itself using the stations as a source of content as well as distribution. As they say, some of the stations were small with only —you could get by with a staff of three full time people to be CPB qualified-- so a lot of them didn't have the wherewithal to produce anything for us. They didn't have a news staff as I was - experienced, that was starting in WHA and as we developed it in Buffalo, so there wasn't much in sometimes this material that came in wasn't really airable (laughs) I'm sorry.
Because it lacked that kind of professionalism that you need. So that never materialized as...and when I was in Philadelphia later, we were a frequent contributor to the NPR news programs because we had such a good staff.
Bull: It takes I think, some time and some training to get reporters at some conversations up to speed in regarding what the NPR tends to sound like and I know that it's still a recurring thing decades later for what they call "bigfooting" when an NPR member station finds out NPR has sent out a reporter or correspondent to their backyard to cover a story. And there's always a little, I think friction sometimes that happens, because there's a difference of debate as to who's more appropriate to cover stories like that, so I don't think that's gonna go away. It’s still interesting to know back then it was still a debate too.
Siemering: Yes, this was a very important point that you raise Brian, because I believed that the reporting would be much better coming from people that lived there and not sending somebody parachuting in. So I think as stations developed their own news staff that that shouldn't have happened to have somebody come from Washington to report. But you say from your experience that was still happening, right?
Bull: That's still a point of contention sometimes when an NPR member station news director/reporter finds out that there's someone there. I think the lines of communication are fairly good between NPR and member stations about sometimes there still is a surprise or even if it's announced, I think maybe some confusion and even resentment. That they feel that someone did not trust the local reporter to cover a story. So yeah, I think that'll be an ongoing discussion as long as (laughs) public radio reporting goes on.
Siemering: Yes, there's always a tension between the national and the local. I think we tried to minimize that as best we could. I think it's interesting to hear that it's still there.
Bull: Now Bill, I'm gonna share some names of people that you feel deserve a little more credit for shaping All Things Considered sound and formats. And please tell me as I read off the names of what you feel that they have contributed and should be recognized for. The first one is Jack Mitchell.
Siemering: Jack Mitchell was actually the very first employee of NPR even before there was a president. So it happened that he had had some fellowship I think overseas and he came back and his experience was at WHA in Wisconsin.
We knew each other and he was the first real producer of All Things Considered, and he deserves a lot of credit a lot more than I have for getting it going. He was really a very good producer. And after he left and many years later, he wrote a history of NPR which is very interesting.
Bull: I met him a few years back when I was still working at Wisconsin Public Radio. I was there between 2004 and 2011. And he even had an office, I believe, on a floor or two below the main (Aha!) offices of Wisconsin Public Radio, and so he was a recurring presence, and I think that people were still taking note of his contributions,
Siemering: Right, right.
Bull: Another name is Cleve Matthews. What can you tell me about Cleve?
Siemering: Cleve came from the New York Times’ Washington bureau. And we didn't have the depth of journalistic prowess or whatever want to frame it. So I wanted to make sure again, that the journalism was first rate. That was number one, and Cleve had that he was a very good manager. He was very respectful to people, and he came from print but that didn’t bother me at all because he wasn’t a producer was not that that would make any difference. But he knew the journalism so Cleve was really the mainstay for the journalistic part of the operation. He was well regarded. He was very empathetic and good at mentoring people. And those were qualities that were very essential for that time.
Bull: So it sounds like he was a good manager and mentor, but also someone who brought a lot of journalistic integrity to the table.
Siemering: Yes. Right.
Bull: The third name l have here is one we've mentioned earlier, but I’d like to hear you elaborate a little bit more on her contribution. And that is Susan Stamberg.
Siemering: Yes. and as I mentioned, she became the first woman to host a national news program in March 1972. She was a wonderful producer. At first she didn't want to work full-time because she had a son at home, so she didn’t want to be away that much. It was a full-time job. But then as things worked out and he grew, she felt she could do full time work. But she, as I say, add both the ability to be able to do news or serious news events kind of thing. As well as the features. She loves features more. She's still doing the features. And she's in her early 80s (laughs.)
Bull: Yeah, she's a dynamo.
Siemering: But she really had wonderful rapport with the listeners. I think when she might have been ill they somebody brought in her noodle soup or something (laughs).
And this is something that it's interesting to talk about Brian is what are the qualities of a host? Not every reporter makes a good host. It's kind of a difficult thing to define. But you know what, when you hear it (laughs), they have a presence, an air presence. They're in charge without being seen. And we have more in common. We have more in common with print than we do with television. I think television is "Look at me!" In radio. It's I don't want to be seen!"
Bull: We got - "I have the face made for radio," I think is the recurring joke.
Siemering: Well, that's, ah... not fair. But, and...that was Cleve. He didn't have a problem, because he was dealing with the journalism part. You know, I hired a number of different people from print. It's an easy, it's an easy transition. Now I see there's some somebody's proposing PBS and NPR merge. And I think anyone that works at a joint licensee would never have proposed that. Sorry.
Bull:That is interesting. I worked with Susan Stamberg as an intern way (Oh wow) back in the 90s. And we went to I believe a Picasso exhibit (uh huh). And I was really amazed by how quickly she just invested her energy and focus on these exhibits. She just rattled off questions and just really exhibited a strong curiosity and passion for what she was reporting on to that moment. And I would hear the feature on NPR I believe about a week or two later, and I was just really amazed at how she approached the topic that was so vast and broad in some respects, but really kind of gave it her very special very intimate touch and really make it engaging for listeners. And for me, it's always been challenging to do things that deal with the visual arts and trying to convey it to a radio audience.
Siemering: Yeah.
Bull: So again, I'm just really impressed with just how she continues to do that to this day.
Siemering: Yes. And how was it working with her?
Bull: It was fun. (Mmmmhhm) It was professional. I was the learner but she took time to explain why she did things the way that she did. I don't remember specifics, because (laughs) it was quite a while back in my history, but I just remember believing that I was just really, in the presence of a giant, someone who just really knew her craft and worked flawlessly.
Siemering: Yeah, it's wonderful to see that isn't it? It's like seeing a great tennis player or something. I dunno! (Yeah) Just to see the mastery they have. But she's somebody I always use as an example of having that on-air presence. That is, as I say, a little hard to define. But you know what, what it is when you hear it. It's not just reading a script, and sometimes reporters try hosting or they run them in for some reason, and it's just kind of flat in a way. She had that - you'd mentioned the curiosity, and it's in her voice somehow her curiosity, I think (She had a warmth too). Yes, that's right. That's another good quality. There was a warmth to her and the empathy.
Bull:Now for all that you did and helping NPR and programs like All Things Considered get off the ground Bill, you were fired in December of 1972. How did that affect you?
Siemering: Well, it was pretty devastating (laughs) And a little like the fire burned across my chest or something, you know, on there was some ashes there, black ashes, but you asked maybe how that happened. (laughs)
Bull: I was gonna ask you, do you know why you were fired? Or do you have at least a base understanding of what happened?
Siemering: There will be several reasons I guess, and Jack Mitchell writes about this in writing about the history of NPR. The other directors came from television, and Don Quayle, the president also, as it was a television person. He also had worked in radio, and so they were expecting something like as on a commercial station. Or something. I think some of the stations also, they thought, “Well, now we've got our own network. We can be with the big guys, and sound like the big guys.” That was one factor.
But then, in the history that Jack wrote, he said that my colleagues as directors had disdain for me when they saw who I was hiring because I was hiring some people that didn't have broadcast experience. Well, I’d proven - I didn't prove it, it was made apparent to me that, you know, I could hire the people in the Black community to do radio, and they did fine. It's not complicated to do radio. Maybe you can teach about how to use a tape recorder and microphone in an hour or so. That's not what it takes. I was looking for people that had empathy, that had curiosity. And had something to say and could say it well. So that was one thing that was kind of alienating, I guess, and made me a little suspicious.
Bull: You didn't quite fit the mold that they were expecting.
Siemering: That's right. And in all fairness, I probably wasn't doing what they were expecting me to do. And along about March of that year, Don Quayle too, me aside and said, “Here are some concerns I have about your work.” And I said, “Well, thank you and I'll work on the and just let me know if you know how it's going. Give me some feedback. So l'm not surprised.” But then on December 10th in 1972, it was a Sunday. He called me into the office and said, “Well, it's time for you to go” and I thought, hmm.
I said, “I thought I addressed all your concerns.” He said, “Yes, you did. But it's too late.”
Bull: Too late.
Siemering: So as I mentioned before, I was really stunned by this. And so anyway, that's the best I can do in terms of explaining why that happened.
Bull: Maybe what they call "creative differences" in shorthand today, I think.
Siemering: Well, or management might have been management more than creative. I wasn't doing what they expected. And I realized, as time went on, I was kind of isolated. And reading the histories I realized I hadn't been included in some meetings that I should have been! (laughs)
Bull: Oh wow.
Siemering: l have to own up that I wasn't managing as effectively as I should have been, or as they expected.
Bull: I will say that in my experience and talking to a lot of the early innovators and movers and shakers of the public radio industry, including some l've already talked to for the Public Radio Oral History Project, Bill, is that getting fired or let go is actually kind of a recurring theme for a lot of the most innovative and dynamic people in this industry. So if it helps at all, you're in pretty good company.
Siemering: Okay! (laughs) Then it was kind of unusual, and of course, it was very public. So I thought my career was pretty much over. I felt a lot of shame.
Bull: There tends to be that feeling of finality, regret, and shame, as you mentioned, when something like this happens. Did you say earlier once that you kind of compared it to sort of a Siberian exile?
Siemering: Well, I went out, Bill Kling at Minnesota Public Radio, said "We've got a new station starting up in Moorhead, Minnesota. Why don't you go out there and get it qualified and you can put your feet up and think?" (laughs) So I took him up on that offer.
Bull: What was your new job?
Siemering: My new job? Well, I should explain this, it is a network of a number of public radio stations. And you ride the network pretty much. So you're not producing a full schedule at all. So you have the freedom to do. Well, I was the manager but also I did reporting and production.
Bull: And how long was this from when you were fired from NPR? That you started at KCCM and Moorehead?
Siemering: I was fired in December and I think I started there around March.
Bull: That's a pretty good rebound.
Siemering: Yeah.
Bull: So I understand that you also made hires there in Moorhead, can you tell me about one who started off as an auto mechanic?
Siemering: (laughs) Yeah, Marcia Alvar, she's working in a cooperative garage.
And she had had a little experience doing some programming for the blind or something. But anyway, she was very bright, wonderful sense of humor. So I hired her. And again, it didn't make any difference that she didn't have a lot of experience because as I say, the wonderful thing about radio is you can learn it quickly if you are a bright person, so...
Bull: Can you remember a few of the things that you and Marcia did there?
Siemering: Yes. At least started a program called Home for the Weekend on Saturdays. And it was a wonderful exploration of leisure time. We worked with a family talking about the parents separately and the children separately. That was fun. You talk about the American dream or things like that. So it was really a fun program to produce.
Bull: Now like Susan Stamberg before her Marcia Alvar encountered hostility by some because she was a woman. Was it unusual for you to see chauvinism in the public broadcasting industry there in the 1970s?
Siemering: Well, it was a little surprising. I didn't find it so much within the public radio community, although there were some that thought that women lacked the authority to do hard news. It was okay for them to do soft features. But hard news was best left to the men.
Bull: Interesting. That's a very dated perspective.
Siemering: Yes. I wouldn't say that was prevalent or widespread. Some had little misgivings perhaps just because they hadn’t heard it before. You know, Marcia had good air presence and was a very good producer. She went on by the way to be program director in Buffalo and then in Alaska, and then Washington State, and then she became executive director of the Public Radio Program Directors. So she went on to have an amazing career.
Bull: A very storied career and one that definitely took her places. (yes) It seems that every other person I meet in public radio has spent time in Alaska (laughs) There’s a draw there. You also hired - and worked with - Dennis Hamilton and John Ydstie, after they graduated fresh out of college. Do you recall what they did for KCCM?
Siemering: Yes. Well this was located - KCCM was located on the campus of Concordia College -Moorhead. Hence the call letters KCCM. And one of the deals that Bill Kling had worked out with the college was that we would broadcast the “Chapel Program” every day. (laughs) Which we did. And the Chapel Program would sometimes have interesting guests. visitors, could be writers and stuff. But it was about a half hour program. So it wasn’t an exciting program. But if you didn't have much experience it was a good one to do because it was fairly simple, but you kind of learned the basics doing that.
And then John Ydstie, he and I worked on a series called “Our Hometown.” It was sound portraits of five or six small towns in North Dakota and it was founded by the North Dakota Humanities Commission.
So John would go out and record during the week and he’d come back with what he had and we would listen to it together and I'd say, "Now you see here, here it’s the grandfather clocks, I mean it’s really nice to keep that in without talking over it,” Just to let us sink that in when you’re talking to an older lady, you know?" And so on. He did a remarkable job with that series, and it was a wonderful experience for him, as well as me. And Dennis went on to become a vice president of Minnesota Public Radio, and he did more news stories.
Brian, you mentioned earlier about the relationship with sending material into the network. So I had set a goal when I went there that we would have 52 pieces on some NPR vehicle in a year. And we did it. I thought if you could do it from Moorhead, Minnesota, Fargo-Moorhead you could do it anywhere."
Bull: (laughs) Kinda like the old, "If it could play in Peoria, it could play anywhere,". Almost. That's a weekly goal, it sounds like.
Siemering: Well, it didn't work. You know, for example, they did have a series on rural life or something. So we had we had stuff we could easily do that way. And we would talk to writers, up at Grand Fork, the University of North Dakota had a Writer's Festival in the spring. And we would record Truman Capote or whoever. So we had interesting material and then there was other conventional news, if you will, we could generate. So there were a number of vehicles at NPR that we could supply pieces to.
Bull: You know, the other thing that you bring up too is you're talking about feeding stories and materials from a portion of the country that is sometimes referred to as "flyover country." Some people have complained in the past that mass media in general tends to focus a lot on the west or the East Coast (right) Or there's a lack of focus sometimes on what's happening in the heartland of America. It sounds like Moorhead would kind of fit that bill too.
Siemering: Yes. And you mentioned Siberia. After I was forced out of NPR and Fargo in North Dakota is a little like Siberia. Its totally flat as a table and the winters are serious.
Bull: Oh yes (laughs) | went to college and lived for a while in Minnesota and the Dakotas and there's nothing quite like it, except maybe Siberia.
Siemering: Yes, you know, you'd go sometimes a week in the winter and it wouldn't get above zero. "Your high today will be five below." You've probably experienced that.
Bull: Yes. I remember there would be like a three week stretch usually in February where the -20, -30 windchill would be an almost daily occurrence.
Siemering: Yes, too serious winter.
Bull: And like on any college campus. There's always that one guy who walked around in shorts still (laughs.) You went on Bill, to work for Philadelphia station WUHY which later became known WHYY which is where you're at right now, obviously. Do you remember what some of the challenges were that the station face back then?
Siemering: Yes, as a joint licensee, it was not supported very well. And it had what we call a patchwork program schedule. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, so that a listener wouldn't be able to listen for a long time they might go from a program on feminism to a book reading or something. Anyway, that was one thing when I came here, there was a larger audience in Ames, lowa for public radio than there was in Philadelphia. It had a weekly cumulative audience of 61,000.
I really liked the challenge of it. And I thought, if I can make this work (laughs), I will have accomplished something in a way. I had said this before, but in a way I wanted to prove that I could be a good manager after my experience at NPR. At that time, CPB had what they called major market grants. There was a million dollars over a five-year period to help stations just like Philadelphia, joint licensees - I think nearly all of them - that were suffering from a lack of resources. So I was able to hire a good new staff, I was able to pay Danny Miller as -he had been an intern at Fresh Air- And he is now the executive producer of Fresh Air. So he's been with that program for 45 years.
Bull: I'm guessing he likes the job.
Siemering: Yes. And as I say I had a first-rate new staff. And so with the programming improved, we smoothed out the programming schedule. When I came here, I knew I was going to make a lot of changes. So I wanted the listeners to know that I wasn't being capricious or arbitrary, and I'd explain exactly why I was making changes. Because again, radio is easy to understand. and I both believed in transparency.
So for example, we took off a feminism program called Learning to Fly. And I explained that Terry covered those same topics very well. And so we didn't need to duplicate it with that program, which wasn't very well produced. So it was that kind of thing. And I continued that dialogue with listeners as long as I was manager, because I learned a lot they can get the audience feedback and so on. So I really valued that opportunity.
I frequently did it on Fresh Air. I really appreciated that opportunity. The manager that followed me called it "Meet the Manager" which has a whole different tone to what that is all about. (laughs) You know, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the conversations.
Bull: Bill, do you recall when you started at WHYY?
Siemering: It was 1976 l believe.
Bull: 1976. And then you have the opportunity to of course meet Danny Miller and I assume maybe see the formation of Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and Liane Hansen, who I also knew from NPR. Do you remember how it felt to see or I guess hear the first national daily roll-out of Fresh Air? In 1987?
Siemering: Yeah. Let me give you a little background on how that happened. I knew Terry was an excellent interviewer. Guests would walk by my office and "You know, that was that's the best interview I've ever had." And I'd be. "Mmhmm."
And there were at that time some stations were agitating for ATC to start at 4 rather than 5. As it had originally. And yet the staff at NPR said “It’s hard enough to file stories at 5 o’clock, 4 o’clock would be even harder.” At least some staff were saying that. I thought well, “How about we run an hour of Fresh Air there: It’s like the arts section of the newspaper kind of, it’s a lead-in to All Things Considered.
So I proposed that, and we designed it so that the features were longer in the first half hour of Fresh Air. And then they were the same length as features on All Things Considered. So you could jump from one to the other, if you will. It would fold in nicely. It would be a segue rather than a hard join. And they went for it. (laughs)
So that's how it came about. And to make it even smoother, we'd have a cross promo. We'd have maybe around 50 minutes into the program. She talked to Robert Siegel, who's the host of All Things Considered. Terry would say. "So what do you have on tonight, Robert?", and he’d give a promo of features they were working on. It was really a smooth segue that way.
Bull 54:08 That's some good programming right there, and promotion work. (Yeah.) Can you share a little bit about some of your other experiences outside WHYY that may include helping get Soundprint produced in Baltimore?
Siemering: Yes. So Soundprint. Well, I was I was forced out of WHYY also (laughs) | seem like a total failure! I cannot keep a job. I wasn't so good at managing up I guess. Anyway, that's still a mystery to me, but we won't go into that.
So for personal reasons. I wanted to stay in the area. So Dave Cray was starting a documentary series at WJHU, part of Johns Hopkins University. So they were looking for an executive producer and he asked me to consider that and I did and so it's a bit of a strain on my family to be commuting that way, but it was the only job I could find in radio that would work for a while.
So you know, I've believed in the importance of documentaries and getting out of the studio and away from just hard news. So it was kind of fun to start Soundprint and work with stations and trying to sell it to them and, and work with producers to do that. And they really enjoyed the opportunity to have a place of placement on the NPR schedule for their work.
Bull: That had to have been very rewarding for you to see that level of exposure and interest. (Yes.) One thing I'd like to shift to now is some of your international work, Bill. I understand that you did some projects in Africa. I like to have your share, please what you think the role of radio was there?
Siemering: Well, fortunately, radio is the most important medium in Africa. 80% of the people listen to radio, get their information that way. I had been working with the Open Society Foundation in eastern Europe and so on and I went over on some kind of visitors thing to meet with some people that were-- this was in 1993 now-- people who were interested in community radio and also interested in reforming the state broadcasting, SABC, before the elections in ‘94, so that there would be a good representation of all views on the state broadcasting
So I met with both groups. Then when the Open Society Foundation set up an office there, I said "If community radio is one of your priorities. let me know and they said "actually, it is." It was so much so that the licensing authority the first year only granted licenses to community stations. because they thought that would serve the best interests of democracy.
So l established guidelines for the foundation to support the stations and to provide money for them to get launched, you know? So I brought some folks interested in community radio over to the United States to go to a conference with the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. One time we were in New Mexico I think it was and we went out to a Native American reservation for example, and this is kind of familiar to us of people being in one place like this one ethnic group.
Anyway, we provided a lot of different training sessions there. Overall, there are probably 30 stations that got launched by the foundation. I would like to do a survey on how are those doing, how many survived and so on, but I know that some still are very active. It's so important because they can broadcast in local languages. Sometimes they'll be broadcasting in three different languages. And it's often the most trusted source of information, because of people they know.
And it's established this type of credibility that I talked about, for NPR really. I know one station in Mozambique, Radio Dondo, and if they had trouble with the police, they would go to the station to have work it out, there was trouble with a nurse clinic or something. So they felt that was the person to help them out.
There was a station near Cape Town, a large area, and it was one of the very first kind of almost pirate stations. A doctor started it so that he could broadcast health information. It was only on once a day or so, he'd slide the transmitter from underneath the examining table, and they would go on the air. Later it came to do more significant programming on a regular schedule. But I asked the manager "What do you consider your success?" And he said, “We got wind of a potential school strike and we brought people together. and solved the problem before there was a strike." It had nothing to do with broadcast it had everything to do with trust and credibility.
Bull: Fascinating.
Siemering: There was another station in Rwanda that had broadcast forty live debates, and because stations there were involved in the genocide, at one time in their history. That was a powerful misuse of the radio but, so they will get wind of a problem and they would organize the debate about it, or a program.
So l asked him what his success was, and I thought he would talk about those. He said, “When a farmer calls us from the field and says, ‘How do I tum this cassava leaves into fertilizer?’ We're helping one person improve his livelihood. And I consider that success.” Just really interesting ways of looking at this, you know?
Bull: It does sound interesting and it is a way to reach out across vast distances to help people who need information, or need to have their voice out there.
Siemering: Yes. There was another station there in Rwanda and they had what they called eyewitness monitor. And they would report into the home office news from their neighborhoods, from their areas. And this way, the news department would be able to tap into all these different areas. And then on Saturdays, all these eyewitness monitors will get together and have a program about what was going on in their area.
I've suggested this to folks here at WHYY (laughs), as a way of learning about what's going on in North Philadelphia with its predominantly black community, to get story ideas and be engaged with that community. They haven't taken me up on that, but there were a number of things that I learned in Africa that could have application here.
So I would come back inspired, even though they were some of the poorest areas. I was inspired by their dedication and the effect that it has in the community, the impact.
Bull: No, it sounds like it's a very important source of information out there and a way to connect communities.
I'm turning our attention right now back to the mainland. Today, Bill, there's a lot of deliberate misinformation and disinformation out there waged by pundits and partisans with cable TV news, and now social media adding a lot to the fray. How do you think public radio measures up in this very loud and often hostile environment?
Siemering: I think it's a shining star because it does present the news in an understandable way and in a nonpartisan way, and it is accurate. That's the theme that's been running through this conversation, I guess. For people to find it is important, they have to know it's there and that it speaks to them, and they can hear their voices.
When I wrote the mission statement or the purposes about, it would speak with many voices and many dialects, it also inferred that the staff inclusive in the programming and in the staffs. would be diverse. And it's taken a long time for some stations to get there. But I think now, there has been a real concerted effort to be more diverse and so I think that's an important step. It's maybe taken over 50 years for some stations to get there, but I think there's a remarkable inclusion now.
Bull: And still a work in progress because I do know that there are some users out there that are still tackling the diversity issue and inclusiveness but it does go a long ways, I think for attracting diverse audiences to see or hear a member of their community behind a microphone or in front of a camera.
Siemering: Yes. And you know how it is at an editorial meeting, if there's somebody from a different way, the noise, talked about cultural differences or if there was -- you know, the first time a woman sitting at the meetings, the discussion is different. The perspective is different. And the opportunities for including a different part of the community are there.
Bull: So let's go ahead Bill and go into the final questions that we're asking our participants in the Public Radio Oral History Project, and the first one is about retention. Public radio keeps losing talented people. What do you think can be done to retain them?
Siemering: Well, they should be having interviews when they leave right? To find out why they're leaving. Sometimes it is salary. I'm not in the field myself right now. So I can't know from the inside but I also have heard that sometimes it may be a management issue where they don't give people enough room or opportunity to do creativity or creative programming. I would hope that it would be a serious effort to survey stations and ask them to have - what do you call those? Outgoing interviews, you know, to find out why they leave.
Bull: At what moment Bill, were you proudest to be working in public radio?
Siemering: I don't know if it's a moment. It's when I see staff that I've hired go on to do remarkable work. I think one of my talents has been to hire good people, and then manage as I would like to be managed. So I feel in a way that my contribution has been to be kind of like, recruiter for an orchestra because it's the staff that makes the music and they're the ones that create the wonderful programming.
And I feel that I've been given too much credit for, for what l've done for public radio, because it's really the people that I've hired that have done the work and the programming. I like to see how Fresh Air grew, for example, at one time, it was like the third most listen to public radio program is still in the top 10 or 20 of podcasts now.
Bull: Still very influential too. A lot of public radio producers, editors, reporters, managers, have opportunities to really explore different ideas and projects. Tell us plays about an idea that you didn't pursue, but now wish you had.
Siemering: Well, in my work, I was developing radio partners. I had wanted to work in China. And I pursued that a little bit but it didn't happen. So that's one that I wish, that... it's not public radio here. I think I was able to achieve most of the things that I wanted to.
Bull: If I'm doing the math correctly, Bill, you are 89 now?
Siemering: 88, I'll be 89 in October.
Bull: Wow. All right. Well, happy pre-birthday then. Sounds like you've certainly contributed a lot. (Thank you.) Do you have any final comments or thoughts to share with me before we let you go, Bill?
Siemering: Well, I think we're living in the age of audio, with podcasts, with most venerable print publications. As the New York Times and The New Yorker doing radio work. The New Yorker editor doing the “New Yorker Radio Hour” is amazing. Considering the prestige of that magazine as one of the very best in print. And the now millions of podcasts. And many of those have been spinoffs of people that worked in public radio.
I think podcasts give people an opportunity for a different kind of radio, more creative, more intimate in a way than they can on a regular broadcast. So that's another wonderful venue for oral expression.
Bull This concludes my interview with Bill Siemering for the Public Radio Oral History Project, recorded this 19th day of May 2023. Bill Siemering, thank you so much for your time. I really enjoyed this.
Siemering: Thank you, Brian. It's been a pleasure working with you.
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