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) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

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 programmi ...

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 o ...

, as well as for

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

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

Marketplace A marketplace, market place, or just market, 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 ...

'',"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 Saint Paul (often abbreviated S ...

'', 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 c ...

'', ''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 a ...

'' 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 The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique, while others talk of a "plu ...

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

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

."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 carryi ...

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, for example. It was the United States' first model ...

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, in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The building was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As ...

, and the 1968 Washington, D.C., riots following the

assassination of Martin Luther King Martin Luther King Jr., an American civil rights activist, 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 was pronounced dead at 7:05& ...

. 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 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 intensive care medicine. An inten ...

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 b ...

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