Bill Siemering
William H. Siemering is an American radio innovator and advocate. He was a member of the founding board of NPR and the author of its original "mission statement," the National Public Radio Purposes. As NPR's first director of programming Siemering helped shaped its flagship program All Things Considered into an influential and enduring fixture of American media. After a decades-long career in public radio, Siemering embarked on a second career of nurturing independent radio in the developing world.
Early life
William Siemering grew up in rural Wisconsin. As a student in a two-room school outside of Madison, he listened to the "Wisconsin School of the Air." These twice-a-day radio programs produced by WHA brought educators from the University of Wisconsin into isolated country schools throughout the state. Siemering would later observe: "As early as first grade, radio both educated me and spurred my imagination."Siemering's appreciation of radio increased during his high school years as he witnessed first-hand the importance of WHA's daily farm program while working summers baling hay and harvesting grain. He changed from listener to active participant when he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and worked his way through school at WHA as a board operator, announcer, and newscaster. Siemering would later remark, "WHA had become the statewide Wisconsin Educational Radio Network, and I saw how it linked the state through its programming."
Public Radio Career
WBFO
In 1963, William Siemering became the first professional general manager of WBFO, the student radio station at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He was hired by Richard Siggelkow, a former faculty member at UW, who was now the dean of students. Siggelkow protected the journalistic integrity of the station and gave the new manager total freedom to transform it. Like most college radio stations at the time, WBFO had been a student club limited to evening hours during the academic year. By the end of Siemering's eight-year tenure, however, the station had substantially expanded its hours of operations and the professionalism of its staff. Howard Arenstein, Ira Flatow, Clifford Stoll and Henry Tenenbaum are among WBFO's notable alums.WBFO's programming became increasingly experimental and innovative during the late 1960s. It broadcast live events from a major arts festival, readings by local and visiting artists, and a program where art students discussed their creative process. One of the more remarkable experiments was City Links: Buffalo, 28-hour-long live performance piece by Maryann Amacher in which she mixed ambient sounds transmitted from five city locations.
The politicization of the campus community during the Vietnam War increased the focus on the news at WBFO. This came to a head in during the student strike of March 1970. Protestors occupied the student center, police stormed the campus and tear gas was in the air. Nobody was talking to each other, but Warren Bennis, a vice president at the university, used an open mike from the station to start a dialog. Live coverage continued well into the night, during which WBFO interviewed student radicals, campus administrators, city officials and the police. "The idea," Siemering reported, "was that there is not a single truth here."
The success of the strike coverage led Siemering to create This is Radio!, a WBFO magazine show that was later co-hosted by Terry Gross and served as a model for Fresh Air. "He opened mikes, put participants on the air and talked to them," David Benders, a 33-year veteran at WBFO, recalls, "It was the first modern-day talk show—it started something new."
William Siemering's tenure at WBFO was also marked by an extraordinary outreach to Buffalo's African-American community. Shortly upon his arrival in 1963, Siemering canvassed the community and produced a radio series titled To be Negro, but the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968 prompted a different approach. After meetings during which blacks aired their grievances regarding the Media, Siemering established a satellite station in the heart of the city. Volunteers from the community—none of whom with prior experience in radio—planned and produced 28 hours of programming for WBFO that ranged from a children's program to one on avant-garde jazz, as well as community discussions ranging from school busing to drug addiction. A number of the staff went on to successful careers in commercial radio and TV.
NPR
Broadcasting in the United States was dominated by three commercial networks during most of the 20th century, but this landscape changed with the passing of The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 and the creation of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. By providing financial assistance to producers of educational programming through the CPB, the act enabled them to provide both diversity and excellence to a wider audience. Originally conceived exclusively for public television, the act also called for the creation of public radio.By this time, William Siemering had become an influential thinker on the role and potential of public radio. It wouldn't be staid like much of educational radio nor would it be superficial as was often the case for commercial radio. He argued for authenticity, depth and the thoughtful exchange of diverse perspectives and ideas. Moreover, Siemering argued for the imaginative power of sound in radio. It could be more than television without pictures.
In late 1969, Siemering joined Joe Gwathmey of KUT, Benard Mayes of KQED, Karl Schmidt of WHA and five other educational radio station managers to comprise the founding board of directors for National Public Radio. They decided that public radio needed a distinctive daily program that would attract audiences and provide the new network with a unique identity. The board assigned the task of writing the Mission and Goals statement, the National Public Radio Purposes, to William Siemering. Parts of this statement were later read to Don Quayle during his interview to become NPR's first president. When asked if he could implement it, Quayle responded, "Yes, if I can hire the man who wrote it."
As NPR's first director of programming, Siemering was entrusted with developing the distinctive daily program that would help define the fledgling organization. Informed by his experience with This is Radio! at WBFO, he wanted a flexible magazine format that would mix news, art and culture in a fashion that would be engaging, creative and conversational. It would "reflect the diversity of America and let the country hear itself." The program, All Things Considered, debuted on May 3, 1971. It opened with the quiet, conversational and unscripted voice of its first host, Robert Conley, followed by a first-person account of heroin addiction, an interview with an enterprising barber in Iowa, and a dramatic and evocative 20-minute sound montage of the massive anti-war demonstration that gripped Washington, D.C., earlier that day.
Far from formulaic, All Things Considered experienced more than its share of stumbles and missteps. The program, however, began to gel after Jack W. Mitchell assumed the day-to-day responsibilities of running the program. Its voice also developed, most notably with the addition of Susan Stamberg as co-host. After a rocky first year, All Things Considered achieved credibility and won recognition, including the Peabody Award in 1972. Nonetheless, Don Quayle, presumably dissatisfied with Siemering's personnel practices and management style, fired him that December.
Minnesota Public Radio
Bill King, the president of Minnesota Public Radio, offered William Siemering a fresh start in public radio. The network had opened KCCM, a new station based in Moorhead. Siemering was to develop the station, feed local news and features to MPR and get the station CPB-qualified. The opportunity offered him considerable autonomy in developing programs, and, because Moorhead was located on Minnesota's western border with North Dakota, it represented something of a return to his rural roots.Programming at KCCM reflected many of Siemering's ideas for public radio. Home for the Weekend was weekly program that explored everything from the American Dream and what is a caring community to the best feed for cows. Our Home Town was an extended series of sound portraits of six small towns in North Dakota. KCCM even set up a listening post at a local mall where citizens could voice their opinions on current issues and interact with public officials.
Siemering also kept true to his pattern of hiring energetic and capable people despite their lack of radio experience. Three of these hires, Marcia Alvar, Dennis Hamilton and John Ydstie, went on to have successful careers in public radio.
One of Siemering's goals at Moorhead was to contribute 52 pieces to NPR during the course of a year. He achieved that goal. He was also elected to NPR's Board as a petition candidate and participated in policy-making decisions over a ten-year period. Siemering's stint at KCCM was followed by a year as vice president for programming at MPR in St. Paul. He then moved to Philadelphia to take on a different kind of challenge.