James B. Russell (January 30, 1946 – September 13, 2022) was an American journalist, producer, and executive who created national programs for all three public radio networks:

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...

Public Radio International Public Radio International (PRI) was an American public radio organization. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, PRI provided programming to over 850 public radio stations in the United States. PRI was one of the main providers of programm ...

and

American Public Media American Public Media (APM) is an American company that produces and distributes public radio programs in the United States, the second largest company of its type after NPR. Its non-profit parent, American Public Media Group, also owns and oper ...

, as well as for

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

. Russell worked for more than thirty years in commercial radio, print, public radio, and television. Programs he helped create include ''

Marketplace A marketplace or market place is a location where people regularly gather for the purchase and sale of provisions, livestock, and other goods. In different parts of the world, a marketplace may be described as a '' souk'' (from the Arabic), ' ...

'',"Jim Bio,"
Program Doctor website. Accessed Oct. 25, 2015. ''

Weekend America ''Weekend America'' was a weekly public radio program dealing with news, popular culture, the arts and more. The program was produced for American Public Media and hosted by John Moe in Saint Paul, Minnesota. ''Weekend America'' launched Saturd ...

'', and public TV's ''

Newton's Apple ''Newton's Apple'' is an American educational television program produced and developed by KTCA of Minneapolis–Saint Paul, and distributed to PBS stations in the United States that ran from October 15, 1983, to January 3, 1998, with reruns con ...

'', ''NightTimes'', ''Electronicle'' and ''America After Vietnam''. He also helped develop NPR's ''

Morning Edition ''Morning Edition'' is an American radio news program produced and distributed by NPR. It airs weekday mornings (Monday through Friday) and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 5:00 to 9:00 AM ...

'' and ''

All Things Considered ''All Things Considered'' (''ATC'') is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United ...

'', and PRI's ''

The World In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

''. Russell was a 1973–1974 NEH Journalism Fellow at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

."Past Fellows: 1973-1974,"
Knight-Wallace Fellows at Michigan website. Accessed Oct. 26, 2015.

Personal life

As a result of having a

US Foreign Service The United States Foreign Service is the primary personnel system used by the diplomatic service of the United States federal government, under the aegis of the United States Department of State. It consists of over 13,000 professionals carry ...

employee as a parent, grew up in Pakistan, Greece and Italy until age 16, which he credited with giving him "the ability to look at the world and my own country through others’ eyes.” Russell began working for

commercial radio Commercial broadcasting (also called private broadcasting) is the broadcasting of television programs and radio programming by privately owned corporate media, as opposed to state sponsorship. It was the United States′ first model of radio (an ...

stations in the Washington, D.C. market as a college student, including one of the earliest stations dedicated entirely to news; there, he delivered live coverage of major events including the Poor People's March on Washington, a protest against the Vietnam War in front of

the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...

, and the

1968 Washington, D.C., riots The Washington, D.C., riots of 1968 were a four-day period of violent civil unrest and rioting following the assassination of leading African American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., on April 4, 1968. Part of the broader Ki ...

following the

assassination of Martin Luther King Martin Luther King Jr., an African-American clergyman and civil rights leader, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he died at ...

. In his final years, Russell was the president of his consulting company, Jim Russell Productions—The Program Doctor. He died on September 13, 2022, after suffering a fall and spending several days in the

intensive care unit 220px, Intensive care unit An intensive care unit (ICU), also known as an intensive therapy unit or intensive treatment unit (ITU) or critical care unit (CCU), is a special department of a hospital or health care facility that provides intensiv ...

followed by

hospice Hospice care is a type of health care that focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's pain and symptoms and attending to their emotional and spiritual needs at the end of life. Hospice care prioritizes comfort and quality of life by ...

References

External links

* 1946 births 2022 deaths American male journalists American radio producers American University School of Communication alumni NPR personalities University of Michigan fellows 20th-century American journalists People from Hartford, Connecticut {{US-radio-bio-stub