Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty President/CEO Kevin Klose plans to leave the broadcaster March 1.
RFE/RL’s radio, Internet, television, and mobile content reach audiences in 21 countries, including Russia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus. The broadcaster is funded by Congress through the Broadcasting Board of Governors.
Klose had been RFE/RL president from 1994 to 1997. The BBG asked him to return to that role in January 2013. In his most recent tenure, Klose oversaw(in the words of a press release) the revitalization of RFE/RL’s Russian Service, Radio Svoboda and its Moscow bureau; strengthening of the company’s multimedia platforms and programming; and, most recently, the Ukrainian Service’s coverage of Kyiv’s protests.
“Having achieved what the BBG asked me to do, it’s time to move aside and take up the other part of my life,” Klose said, adding that he plans to work “as an independent person steeped in journalism in the pursuit of a wider public engagement of the importance of the work we and our colleagues in U.S. international media do.”
Klose is a tenured professor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, where he was dean of the journalism college from 2009 to 2012. He stepped away from the dean position in order to return to RFE/RL.
Before his Maryland position, Klose was president of NPR from 1998 to 2008, directed the International Broadcasting Bureau at the U.S. Information Agency from 1997 to 1998, and was an editor and reporter for The Washington Post for 25 years, including stints as Moscow bureau chief, city editor and deputy national editor.
