Jay Kernis: “It is Time to Document the Remarkable Work by the Founders and Builders of Public Radio”

The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 was not the start of educational, non-commercial broadcasting in the United States. Radio broadcasting started at the University of Wisconsin in 1917, an experimental signal offering agricultural and educational programming.

A farmer in Wisconsin would walk through the fields and broadly cast seeds into the air. The term “broadcasting” came from the fields of Wisconsin.

The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 was a starting point for major growth and innovation through the creation of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the act into law, he said, “We in America have an appetite for excellence, too. While we work every day to produce new goods and to create new wealth, we want most of all to enrich man’s spirit. That is the purpose of this act.”

The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 was solely devoted to television. Some called it the “Public Television Act.” So, the story goes, Sen. Robert Griffin of Michigan suggested the name change, and at the last minute, “Radio” was added via the use of Scotch Tape. Public Radio was an afterthought.

More than fifty years later, public radio is a major force in American journalism and an essential part of American life. It is a remarkable fact that millions of listeners pay for something they can get for free, that they sit in cars waiting for a story to end, that they feel an emotional bond with stations, programs, correspondents and hosts.

Problem is: the original creators of today’s public radio, at the local and national level, are aging or have already passed.

This is why The Public Radio Oral History Project is so important to those who teach public broadcasting at colleges and universities, to historians, to future generations of public radio producers and managers, and to caring and curious audiences.

It is time to seriously and formally separate the wonderful anecdotes from the actual history, and document the remarkable work of the people who experimented with courage and vision, and built something great.

I don’t dare put myself in that group, but as the founding producer of Morning Edition and Weekend Edition, and as a former NPR SVP for Programming, I would love to know that my memories might be preserved in some way. Maybe in some of the footnotes.

The ¼ inch tapes have decayed. Too many of the original memos were boxed, stored and lost. Memories are fading.

It is time to collect and save these stories before it’s too late.

It is a history worth saving.

ABOUT JAY KERNIS

For nearly fifty years, Jay Kernis has been a television and radio producer, and a broadcast executive. At the age of 17, he began as an intern at WRVR-FM, the public radio station of the Riverside Church in New York City. He graduated with a BS in Journalism from the University of Maryland, where he was program director of college radio station WMUC, and was hired at National Public Radio in Washington, DC.

During his 14 years at NPR, Kernis was the founding producer of Morning Edition and Weekend Edition Saturday and Sunday. He then transitioned to TV. At CBS News, he was a producer on CBS This Morning, Eye-To-Eye with Connie Chung, and for five years, 60 Minutes, working with Lesley Stahl and Mike Wallace. He returned to NPR for another seven years, serving as Senior Vice President for Programming.

He then became managing editor of CNN, a producer at NBC on Rock Center with Brian Williams, and then came back to CBS, where he is currently a producer on Sunday Morning. He has won a Peabody Award, a DuPont-Columbia Award, and a number of Emmy Awards, among others.

Kernis is married to former Nickelodeon executive Gwen Billings. They live in NYC and have two sons, who live in hipper Brooklyn.