MPR News Names Nancy Cassutt Executive Director, MPR News and Programming

Mar 3, 2016

After an extensive national search, MPR News has named Nancy Cassutt as executive director, MPR News and programming. She replaces interim news lead, Mike Reszler, who stepped in last summer when Chris Worthington, the former managing director of news, was appointed editor-in-chief of a new group at American Public Media that is focused on investigative and documentary journalism.

Cassutt has served in multiple roles in her nearly six-year tenure at Minnesota Public Radio | American Public Media, most recently as managing director, content initiatives, leading the development of a regional water and health initiative with the goal of creating impact storytelling for and with the broader community. She joined MPR in 2010 as managing director for digital services, overseeing the national digital team and working with content partners on the launch of several national programming websites. After that, she spent two years on the business side of the organization, leading American Public Media's national distribution team, which gave her extensive experience working with public radio stations across the country.

"Nancy is a tremendous news leader," said Dave Kansas, executive vice president, American Public Media Group. "Her deep experience in broadcast news, digital media, newsroom management and strong leadership within the public media industry make her the perfect person to build on the strong work of the MPR News team."

Cassutt came to MPR from a decade-long tenure at Internet Broadcasting, a digital startup company based in New York and Minneapolis that developed websites for television news stations. As senior vice president of content, she built and launched a national newsroom focused on delivering national and international news to a network of more than 100 local television news websites at a time when media were struggling to adapt to the digital content needs of 24x7 news cycle. As a first-hand witness to the digital evolution and its impact on news media, Cassutt played an integral role in helping television stations across the country change their business model from a broadcast-only to broadcast and digital operation.

"The impact of digital technology on journalism has created endless possibilities in terms of storytelling and innovation as well as interacting and connecting with audiences," said Cassutt. "I am eager to take on this new adventure and work with the top-notch journalists here at MPR."

Cassutt started her career at WDIO-TV in Duluth as a reporter. After working at several stations across the Midwest, she quickly rose to the ranks of news management, eventually leading WCCO-TV's award-winning news team.

MPR News has long been recognized as one of the foremost journalistic organizations in the Upper Midwest, reaching news consumers across all platforms. Reaching 500,000 listeners each week, the MPR News radio signal can be heard by 95 percent of Minnesotans. MPR News distributes stories daily to 35 newspapers statewide, shares news coverage with KARE 11 - Minnesota's largest television station -and has news bureaus around the state. MPR News has received numerous awards for its reporting and most recently received a George Foster Peabody Award, Alfred I. DuPont Award and RTDNA Edward R. Murrow Award for its investigative reporting.
Source: Data are copyright Nielsen Audio. Data are estimates only.