WAMU editorial director Alicia Montgomery will leave the DC-area public radio station and will join NPR as senior supervising editor/producer of Morning Edition. NPR made the announcement Tuesday evening. Montgomery came to WAMU last year from NPR, where she was senior supervising producer the network’s Code Switch project and was also part of the network’s sourcing diversity project, which aimed to change the mix of people heard on NPR.
At WAMU, Montgomery contributed to the station’s gains in African-American and Hispanic listenership. ““It’s important for our audience to understand that there is not one opinion from people east of the river any more than there is one opinion for everybody who’s in Tenleytown,” the DC-area native told Washingtonian earlier this year.
WAMU staffers found out late Tuesday afternoon about the change. “It is with conflicting emotions that I share the news,” chief content officer Andi McDaniel told staffers in an email. Montgomery, she wrote, “helped us cultivate critical new voices and audiences, and launched successful new outreach efforts in Prince Georges County.” Noting the change will “no doubt be disruptive to our newsroom and beyond,” she said that the station will move senior managing editor Jeffrey Katz into Montgomery’s role while WAMU looks for a replacement.
Montgomery will stay with WAMU through October.
Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.
