APMG Employee Honored for Journalism Work
Posted March 22, 2019
by Michael Popham
MPR News’ Riham Feshir has been named as a recipient of the 2019 Above the Fold Awards from the University of Minnesota’s Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication Alumni Society. The award is given annually to alumni under the age of 40 who have made exceptional contributions to their fields.
In the school’s announcement, it had this to say about the Feshir’s achievements as a journalist:
She was the co-creator (along with fellow Hubbard School alum, Jon Collins) of 74 Seconds, an innovative podcast that covered the first-ever trial of a Minnesota police officer charged in an on-duty death. Her work on the podcast won national awards, including a Peabody, Livingston and Third Coast Best Documentary. Since joining MPR News in 2015, Riham has dug deep into various issues important to readers and listeners of all communities, all across the state, including mental health, racial inequity and police shootings.
This year’s other Above the Fold honorees are Elizabeth Giorgi, Kareem Rahma and Andy Thieman.
Meet an APMG Employee – Ellie McKinney
Posted January 11, 2019
Edited from an interview by Michael Popham
Ellie McKinney started with APM as the general manager of the Fitzgerald Theater. After a four-year detour to MoMA PS1 in New York, she returned to the Twin Cities and is now the manager of Live Events for MPR.
Q: Hi Ellie! Where did you grow up, and where did you go to school?
A: I was born in Minneapolis and grew up in the northeast neighborhood. I majored in Art History at Minnesota State.
I was very focused on contemporary art, because I had an incredible instructor who was passionate and lit a fire for me. That led to my first job at the Walker in Visitor Services. I worked before the building was re opened after the renovation, and was there during a particularly dynamic time – the energy after re-openingwas so exciting – new people were coming to visit and we as staff got to introduce our community to a new space and awesome art and performance.
What I loved about the Walker was, you can see the people who visit – we could see our audiences and the impact everyday, in-person. It’s a little different here, because the bulk of the work here goes out into the ether; either on air or digitally – I think that is why I still love working in events – you can see the folks who are choosing to come and share in time and space with your work product – it is still gratifying for me.
Q: Did you go directly from the Walker to general manager of the Fitz?
A: I did, and the through line was Rock the Garden. I was in charge of the Walker side of Rock the Garden, the project and event management. I was a known entity here as a result of that experience.
My first year on that project was also the Walker’s first year partnering with MPR. The Walker had done the event for a number of years, and for them it was entirely membership-focused. If they had 3500 or 6500 people show up, that’s exactly what they wanted it to be. Adding MPR amplified it, made it more of a 10,000-plus kind of event, and really amplified every element of the project.
Q: How long did you manage the Fitz, and how did you end up going to the Museum of Modern Art in New York?
A: I was at the Fitz for 2 ½ years. There had been a curator at the Walker who was working at MoMA around this time, and that’s how I came to be on their radar.
MoMA PS1 is the contemporary art outpost, and it functioned as an independent entity from the 1970s until 2002. The woman who started it wanted to retire, and the easiest way for her to keep it going was to set up stewardship under MoMA. The art world was super aware of PS1 – is has been an incubator of so many artists, providing support and studio time, and encouraging artists early in their careers, so moving over to MoMA’s stewardship was something that had to be done right. MoMA had to keep it cool and special.
PS1 is in Long Island City, not in Midtown Manhattan, and I was there about four years after MoMA acquired it. During those first years under MoMA very little had changed – Alana [the founder of PS1] was still involved, and when I got there itwas clear that we really had to get things sorted out and structured – without compromising the spirit of the place – what really made it special was that it wasn’t MoMA – that it was like the really cool kid sibling – supporting emerging art, not established art. There were only 28 full time employees at PS1 and we had 230,000 visitors a year. Those are similar visitor numbers to the Walker, but with only 28 full time employees – the Walker had between 140 and 180 full time employees. That was a crazy job. But it was also incredibly rewarding.
They had a summer program that was similar to Rock the Garden – except that it was held over 11 Saturdays in the summer. Between 4,000 and 7,000 people every Saturday, all gathered in the courtyard of the museum for this concert. Lots of New Yorkers would go, but there would also be all the regular gallery programming and activities. So I was the person who led all the front of house operations, all the staff, the relationship with the new restaurant café – a bananas amount of stuff – it was a very New York hustle kind of job – exhausting and super rewarding all at the same time.
Q: Did that experience help you when you returned here?
A: Definitely. Anything that pushes you outside your comfort zone – that challenges you to work in new ways with new inputs – that’s going to make you better. I’m usually a planner and love long lead times, that place pushed me to think differently and I still use skills from that experience regularly.
Q: What was your transition to New York and back again like?
A: A friend of mine once said, “New York is always either -6 or +12, there’s no 5”. There’s no middle. Either you’re having the best day of your life or your dog died. That’s part of the joy of living there. The way your boundaries blend in New York are so different than here.
Here, we all just move in our little cars to and from our houses, and we’re very much opting in to our social interactions with people. In New York you’re just forced to be in a space with people you’re not choosing to be in a space with.
Q: What do you like about working at APMG?
A: I like working at an organization that’s audience-oriented. That’s the through line in the arts world as well – I love supporting work that brings content to audiences, especially in real time and space – there is a special magic there for me.
Q: Do you have any hobbies?
A: I don’t really consider life and hobby as separate, necessarily. I don’t see anything you do as a dalliant space – I try to be really intentional with my time. I garden, but my garden looks like Little Shop of Horrors. It’s a Darwin Garden, where only the strong survive. I give everyone a good start, plant the seeds a healthy distance apart. It’s a totally tangled, chaotic garden. Gardening involves a lot of emotional investment at the front end – there’s so much hope and possibility in the beginning, and then anything can happen – a fungus can kill your whole cucumber harvest – heartbreaking! I love that my kid walks out there, and wants the step ladder from the garage so that he can get to the tomatoes that are just out of his reach. I love eating what I grow and love spending time outside in that space – it feels so right and so productive, but I am no master gardener.
Any special skills or abilities that would be handy in case of an emergency (e.g., a zombie apocalypse)?
A: I’d probably start organizing everybody. I can hem my own clothes. I can prepare delicious food. I could eat out of my own yard and pantry for a long time. I have a wide range of mediocre skills – a real general of a generalist.
Do you listen to any podcasts?
A: I like a lot of the first-person interview podcasts. I listen to Dear Sugar’s, I listen to TTFA – a lot of APM stuff. I also listen to 2 Dope Queens, Death Sex and Money, Janet Lansbury’s Unruffled, Invisibilia, Radiolab, You Must Remember This. Bad With Money was another good one. But I’m always culling and trying to find something new.
Meet an APMG Employee – Steve Staruch
Posted August 29, 2018
By Michael Popham
Steve Staruch’s soothing voice can be heard on the radio weekdays from 3 to 7 pm on Classical MPR. Before joining us at APM he worked at WCAL in Northfield, Minnesota, and before that WXXI in Rochester, NY. He recently became certified as a yoga instructor, and since that time has been sharing his knowledge with his colleagues, leading chair yoga classes in the Kling Public Media Center.
Q: Steve, thanks for agreeing to answer our questions! How long have you worked at APM?
A: It will be 15 years in December.
Q: What do you like best about working here?
A: What I like best is the connection I can make with the many Classical MPR listeners all over MN, the US and internationally.
Q: What first drew you to classical music?
A: Classical music was a part of my growing up. I remember my Mom playing the piano (Debussy’s Claire de Lune) on hot summer nights when I couldn’t sleep because of the heat. The music was soothing and beautiful.
Q: Many of our music hosts are trained musicians. Are you, and what instrument do you play?
A: I am a viola player….a violist. I also sing. I sang for a number of seasons with the Warland Singers. I freelance as much as I can.
Q: You’ve been hosting the “Friday Favorites” show for quite a while now. What are some of the unusual requests you’ve fielded?
A: I get a number of requests from folks who’ve seen / heard something on YouTube. I wish I could air those requests. It’s gratifying to see so many people passionate about music.
Q: You’ve started a chair yoga group at MPR that meets on a regular basis. How did that come about?
I have been interested in yoga for about 12 years. I started at the YMCA with a Fitness yoga class. My interest in the use of the body to connect more fully with alife of the spirit has grown. I completed a 230-hour yoga teacher training a few years ago. When I saw that many colleagues spend a large part of the day hunched over a computer, I thought some yoga work could help. Yoga class is breathing class. Yoga is meant to connect the physical body with the spirit and the connection is breath. Chair yoga give folks a half-hour break to relax, breath and connect with their best selves. Everybody needs that.
Q: Do you have any pets?
A: No pets. My wife grew up on a farm. The animals belonged in the barn and not in the house.
Q: Do you listen to podcasts in your spare time? If so, which ones?
A: I must admit that I appreciate silence at home. I do listen to the Great Courses series in my car. Right now I’m listening to a series of lectures on Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America.”
Q: Do you have any special skills or abilities that would come in handy during a zombie apocalypse (e.g., hotwire a car, fly a helicopter, etc)?
A: During the zombie apocalypse you’ll find me making a big pot of stew on an outdoor fire. It’ll be tasty and serve as sustenance for all who find me.
Q: What inspires you about Minnesota?
A: The beauty of the land and the spirit of those who wish to protect it is inspiring.
APMG Recruitment Team At Summer Journalism Conferences
Posted July 19, 2018
For the third year in a row, American Public Media Group has partnered with public media colleagues from across the US on a collaborative diversity recruitment endeavor called Public Media Village.
Public Media Village will be at the career fair at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists on July 18 – 21 – NAHJ) the National Association of Black Journalists Conference (on August 1-5 – NABJ) and the Asian American Journalists Association (on August 8 – 11 – AAJA). Visitors to the Public Media Village booth will learn about public media job opportunities across the US.
APMG’s recruitment team will be there! We’ll be promoting APMG Careers. If you’re on Twitter, look for #thinkpublicmedia for APMG and other public media job postings.
Bill Davis, SCPR President & CEO, Announces Plan to Step Down
Posted June 6, 2018
Categories: Next Generation RadioBill Davis, the public radio executive who oversaw the transformation of APMG’s KPCC from a small college-run station into one of Southern California’s largest news organizations, announced Tuesday he plans to step aside sometime in the next 18 months. Full story.
Minnesota Public Radio’s, Mukhtar Ibrahim, Twice Honored for Journalism Work
Posted March 30, 2018
Minnesota Public Radio News operates out of our headquarters at the Kling Public Media Center in St. Paul, MN and has long been recognized as one of the foremost journalistic organizations in the Upper Midwest, reaching news consumers across all platforms. We are fortunate to have many talented journalists working at MPR.
Recently MPR News’ Mukhtar Ibrahim has been honored twice for his extraordinary work in the field of journalism.
The Milwaukee Press Club honored Ibrahim as a 2017 Excellence in Journalism Awardee for best Multi-Story Coverage of a Single Feature Topic or Event for the series “Documenting Hate” focused on the recent increase in hate crimes across Wisconsin, and the rise of hate groups that target ethnic and religious minorities. The investigative team named by the Milwaukee Press Club included Ibrahim, Alexandra Hall, Riley Vetterkind and Coburn Dukehart.
Ibrahim has also been named a 2018 Above the Fold Award recipient by the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communications. This award honors alumni under the age of 40 who have made exceptional contributions to their fields.
Meet An APMG Employee – Jade
Posted February 28, 2018
The Current’s midday host is celebrating 10 years at APMG, and she was kind enough to answer some questions about music, career and life.
On any given weekday, Jade can be heard spinning The Current’s stacks of wax from 10am – 2pm. She comes across in person much as she does on air: she’s friendly, easygoing, and has a deep knowledge and enthusiasm for the music she plays. She’s been with APMG for 10 years, and agreed to answer a question for each year on the job. You can follow her on Twitter:
@jadeisthename
Q: Hi Jade! What did you see yourself doing with your life when you were a kid?
A: When I was a little kid I thought I would be a dancer, but I loved music and when I was in middle school and high school I always told people that I wish you could just get paid to listen to music and talk about it. So I pretty much found my childhood dream job.
Q: Tell us about the first time you opened a microphone. Where and when was this? Were you nervous?
A: I had performed in front of live audiences on mic for plays and while I was working at Camp Snoopy (started that back in 1999). But if you’re talking radio that would have been in 2003 when I was a freshman at the University of Kansas on my 2-4 am shift. And there was no nerves, I was mostly just excited.
Q: You’ve been with APMG for 10 years. How would you describe the workplace to someone considering a career here?
A: I think most people who think about a rock station expect it to be like the movies: rock star cameos, loud music, grungy couches. It’s actually more like a regular job, as Michael Ian Black once said during a brief tour: “This is less rock and more spreadsheets and sadness.” He was joking of course, but we take radio pretty darn serious and probably geek out on the technical and minutia more than people expect. That being said, there are still rock star cameos.
Q: What are some of the career goals you haven’t reached yet?
A: I’d love to write a rock book, but like I said, I’ve always wanted to listen to music and get paid to talk about it. Seems to be going pretty well so far.
Q: Tell us about your pets, if any: what kinds, and how many?
A: Zero pets. I’m a little allergic.
Q: If you could spend a week anywhere in the world, where would you choose?
A: I’ve spent many months in Scotland, but I would go back in a heartbeat.
Q: What was the first music you ever paid for? Was it a CD, LP, cassette?
A: An Ace of Base CD is the first thing I remember paying for. I used to record onto cassette songs that I liked on the radio, probably the most rebellious thing of my youth.
Q: If you could invite two famous people – living or dead – to a dinner party, who would you choose?
A: This would probably change tomorrow, but today I would love Kurt Vonnegut and Mr. Rogers.
Q: Do you have any unusual skills or abilities that would come in handy in a zombie apocalypse? (e.g., able to fly a helicopter, hotwire a car, pick locks, etc)?
A: I have no useful skills for the apocalypse. I was talking about this with my boyfriend recently since he’s picked up woodworking, and we’ve decided I need to take some foraging lessons, just in case.
Q: What inspires you most about Minnesota?
A: The excitement for growth and change. On the side I have an event planning company and we’ve been collaborating on a project the past few years to create a more welcoming Minnesota. The conversations that I’ve had with new Minnesotans and the people who have volunteered to be part of the welcoming committee have shown me that there are things that need to be changed and worked on, but there are so many people in Minnesota will to do the hard work to listen and grow and make the time, space and put in the energy to keep working towards a better home for all of us.
Meet an APMG Employee – Josh Holt
Posted January 30, 2018
Josh Holt, end user support, IT Department has just celebrated five years with APMG, so we asked him some questions about working here.
Q: Congratulations on five years at APMG, Josh! What do you like most about working here?
A: Thanks, I was honestly shocked to see I’ve been here 5 years. There are a lot of things I enjoy about working here, but it is probably the people. Everyone is friendly, patient, smart, and excellent at what they do. It gives me a genuine belief that everyone is happy to be at APMG, and they’re fully engaged in their job.
Q: You started out in Member and Audience Services. What was that like?
A: Starting out in Member and Audience Services was one of the best things to happen in my career here. I got a great broad overview of the departments and how they interact, because I had to be knowledgeable about whatever the listener would want to know about. That nature of not knowing what the person on the other end of the line might want also prepared me really well for my shift into IT .
Q: What do you wish someone had told you before you started working in end user computing
A: That I would never ever know everything there was to know about end user computing and technology, and to be comfortable with that.
Q: It’s not unusual to see you leaving or coming back from a run with colleagues. Are you marathoner?
A: I’ve run a marathon and a couple of half marathons as well as a lot of 10 miles and 10ks. 10k is my absolute favorite distance as you can focus a lot on speed rather than conservation of energy.
Q: You’ve gained a reputation as the building’s animal wrangler. How did that happen?
A: My very first day here as a temp there were a couple of mice in the stairwell by the front desk. No one else wanted to go near them, much less touch them. I put some gloves on and scooped them into a little cup and took them up to the wildlife rehab center. This resulted in me getting direct emails anytime there was an animal inside or around the building. This led to me helping a sparrow, two pigeons, and eventually a Canada goose. Though that’s a story for another time.
Q: Aw come on, tell us about the goose.
A: Gus the Goose was found outside the loading dock on a fateful MPR day. He spent most of the morning running away from me and hissing. While doing his best to get hit by traffic on 7 Street and Minnesota Street. Eventually we were able to capture him in a soft blanket and put him in the front seat of my Volvo — in a large cardboard box that looked like it would do the trick.
I was driving him up to the wildlife rehab center, and I had just merged onto Hwy 36. I heard a small ripping sound and looked over to see what looked like a scene from an all goose rendition of The Shining. Gus the Goose had managed to use his beak to break through a small tear in the box, and was now looking up at me with just his head and wing poking out from a now mostly ripped apart box. He then burst forth into my lap while I was still driving on the highway. I managed to wrangle him out of my face, and force him back in the demolished box (at this point the Star Trek fight theme was definitely playing in my head), and tie the box front back up with the blanket we’d use to catch him in the first place. I think the employees at the rehab center must’ve been very confused with me as I showed up looking like I’d been through some kind of horror movie with an undulating, box that had obviously seen better days.
Q: What happened to the goose?
A: I can’t recall what happened after that, but I hope Gus is now more comfortable and hopefully a continent or two away from me.
APMG Employees Community Giving
Posted December 22, 2017
A lot of APMG employees pitched in to make their communities better in 2017. We’re proud that charitable work is part of our culture – in fact, every year our workers get paid time off for volunteer activities.
Some of our folks choose to do additional work at the end of the year as well. For example, MPR’s Warm Clothing Drive raised 131 new items of clothing for kids in need. About 300 kids received warm winter clothes (coats, scarves, gloves and mittens) in early December at Fairview Park and Recreation Center in Minneapolis. The event was sponsored by the Hawthorne Neighborhood Council.
APMG employees Kassira Absar and Kate
Moos, and a lot of winter coats.
The Marketplace staff also got into the spirit of things with the “Marketplace Cares” initiative. In early December the New York Bureau kicked things off by donating and wrapping gifts for New York Cares. Our staff in LA made more than 150 lunches that were delivered to My Friend’s Place and the Downtown Women’s Center. They also sorted donated clothing at My Friend’s Place which assists homeless youth in Los Angeles. They’ve also been helping to prepare hygiene kits for selected charities and sorting food donations at the LA Food BankThanks to everyone at APMG who did extra for their communities this year!
APMG’s Managing Partner for Business
Posted November 13, 2017
Planning, Danielle Stellner, Accepts “First Decade” Award
Photo: Eamon Coyne
Danielle Stellner, APMG’s managing partner for business planning, was recently honored with the First Decade Award from her alma mater, Augsburg University in Minneapolis.
According to Augsburg’s own site, the First Decade award is….
….presented to Augsburg graduates of the past 10 years who have made significant progress in their professional achievements and contributions to the community, and in so doing exemplify the mission of the University: to prepare future leaders in service to the world.
Danielle Stellner graduated from Augsburg in 2007 and is an inspiration to just about everybody she meets, someone who benefited from encouragement and mentorship early in her career, and who has never forgotten to do the same for others. She went on to earn an MBA from the Carlson School of Management. She serves on the board of the Friendship Academy of the Arts, a blue-ribbon school that serves predominantly African American students; co-chairs the Augsburg
Women Engaged (AWE) group; and former Secretary of the board of Isuroon , an organization committed to self-sufficiency of Somali women and their families.
Every Community Has a Story to Tell
Posted August 28, 2017
MPR reporter Emma Sapong tells stories that often get missed in the never-ending scramble for daily news.
by Michael Popham
“Radio news isn’t anything I ever imagined doing,” Emma Sapong says. “It was the furthest thing from my mind.”
She grins and shakes her head as she says this, seemingly amazed at the path she’s taken. A lot of twists and turns brought her to APMG – as well as some arm-twisting from an MPR editor, the late Toni Randolph.
Sapong was the youngest of eight children. Her parents are Liberian, and she was born while her father was in the U.S. attending university in Brooklyn. After he graduated, the family moved back to Liberia. She was one year old at the time, and they lived overseas until she was seven.
The family returned to Brooklyn, where they stayed until she was 17. She went to college at the University of Toledo, and found herself torn between her two big interests: cultural anthropology and journalism. She wound up choosing the latter for a very simple reason.
“On campus, I discovered all these fascinating lectures and clubs and cultural events surrounding students of color,” she says. “There’s nothing surprising about that, because the student enrollment was 30 percent people of color. But the student newspaper, the Collegian, never seemed to cover them. One day I gathered up the courage to go into the Collegian office, and told the features editor that I wanted to do some reporting, but admitted that I didn’t have any experience. She suggested an Irish Dance event that was coming up, but I said I wanted to cover what was going on in the Black Student Union, the Latino Student Union, and all these other student organizations. She said that was fine; they had never had anyone to cover those groups before.”
After graduation, she spent a year at the Sandusky Register before moving on to the Buffalo News. It was there that she found a mentor in Margaret Sullivan, and honed her skills at feature writing.
“Margaret Sullivan had suggested that I try my hand at business writing,” she says. “She explained that it’s a specialized skill, and as the internet continued to eat away at newspaper revenue, people with business writing skills will continue to be in demand. But writing business stories just seemed incredibly boring to me.”
After a stint in feature writing she found herself assigned to the business desk anyway. Once again, she found a way to focus on communities that are often overlooked in predominantly white papers.
A story on Bangladeshi immigrants revitalizing a previously blighted stretch of Buffalo’s east side reflected Sapong’s commitment to tell the stories of communities of color. But too often, she felt, her editor wasn’t interested in the stories she was pitching. Eventually she considered relocating to the Twin Cities, where a lot of her family members lived.
In early 2015 she was ready to launch her job search and began searching online for Twin Cities National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) members to network with. Randolph, a Buffalo native who had done reporting in Liberia, seemed perfect. And Randolph was receptive and eager to bring Sapong to the Twin Cities and MPR.
“I asked her if she had any contacts over at the Star Tribune or Pioneer Press. She said she did, but then asked me if I’d consider working at Minnesota Public Radio.”
“I knew of NPR, but wasn’t familiar with MPR. And I was a print journalist. I was comfortable hiding behind a byline. And I tended to see radio and TV — especially TV – as lacking depth in reporting.”
But Toni Randolph was nothing if not persistent. She invited Sapong to MPR during the NABJ convention in Minneapolis that summer, trying to convince her that radio was a place where she could do important work. She kept in touch, consistently sending MPR job openings emails to Sapong.
Almost a year later, Sapong came over to MPR, and she has been learning the craft of radio production ever since.“It’s a big change for me,” she says.
“When you’re a print reporter, you just write the story — other people worry about the layout and the placement of photos. In radio, you write a script and then build the equivalent of the layout yourself – you have to make the whole audio landscape that surrounds the story.
“At first I didn’t think it was a medium I could work in,” she says. “I still don’t feel I’m quite there yet.” But Randolph had believed in her work. That, she says, gave her confidence. And it still does.
Here are some of Emma Sapong’s favorite MPR stories:
Many congregations, one roof: Aging churches rent space to growing ones
Roots of tension: race, hair, competition and black beauty stores
Racial harmony in Minnesota? Take a seat at this barbershop
Kittley, bitter balls and potato greens: African customers find taste of home in farmers markets
Minn. minority firms call program meant to help them maddening, broken
Black history museum a revelation for St. Paul cops, young men