National Public Radio President Kevin Klose to Visit Tri-Cities and Yakima

PULLMAN, Wash. — Kevin Klose, the president and chief executive officer of National Public Radio, will discuss “The Role of Public Radio in Today’s World” at Battelle Auditorium in Richland on April 27 and at the Yakima Valley Museum in Yakima on April 28. Both presentations will begin at 7:30 PM. The appearances are free and open to the public and sponsored by Northwest Public Radio, the public radio service of Washington State University.

A former editor and national and foreign correspondent with The Washington Post, Klose is an award-winning author and international broadcasting executive. Prior to joining NPR in December 1998, he served successively as director of U.S. International Broadcasting, overseeing the U.S. government’s global radio and television news services (1997-98); and president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), broadcasting to Central Europe and the former Soviet Union (1994-97). Klose first joined RFE/RL in 1992 as Director of Radio Liberty, broadcasting to the former Soviet Union in its national languages.

Prior to that time, Klose was an editor and reporter at The Washington Post for 25 years. His various positions at the newspaper included city editor (1974-76); Moscow bureau chief (1977-1981); Midwest correspondent (1983-1987); and deputy national editor (1987-1990).

Klose earned a bachelor of arts degree, cum laude, at Harvard.  A former Woodrow Wilson National Fellow, he serves on the board of Independent Sector in Washington, DC. He is the author of “Russia and the Russians: Inside the Closed Society,” winner of the Overseas Press Club’s Cornelius Ryan Award; and co-author of four other books.

National Public Radio is America‘s premier non-profit news and cultural radio programming service, with more than 770 stations, reaching more than 23 million listeners each week. NPR’s Morning Edition is the most listened to morning radio program in the country with 13.2 million listeners.

Note to Editors:

News conferences featuring Kevin Klose are scheduled for 2:30 p.m. April 27, Bookwalter Winery, 894 Tulip Lane, Richland and at 11:15 a.m April 28 at the Yakima Convention Center in Yakima.