Charney New PRPD Chair

PRPD is happy to announce that Michigan Radio PD  Tamar Charney has been elected chair of its Board of Directors.  She succeeds Todd Mundt of Louisville Public Media (formerly of NPR Digital Services) who had reached his term limit.   She will assume leadership of the board at its annual retreat in Chicago later this month.  Tamar has been a member of the PRPD board since 2010.

“Tamar has distinguished herself as a savvy, intelligent and energetic advocate for  audiences in public radio content across platforms” said Arthur Cohen, PRPD president.  “With her insight, analytical skills and directness, she is an ideal leader as we address the exciting opportunities of the new media landscape.  And the fact that she is the youngest member of the PRPD board is an affirmation of our commitment to embracing new ideas while intelligently applying the deep knowledge in the programming community.”

Charney grew up in Nashville, Tennessee listening to WPLN and the now defunct college station WRVU. As a kid she routinely looked for ways to go to the library where WLPN had its studios or the student union where WRVU was to watch the DJ’s.

She joined Michigan Radio in 1997 as a newscaster and shortly thereafter started the award-winning Arts and Humanities Radio Project.  She was the founding producer of the magazine program Stateside and the Jack Lessenberry Show.  In 2007 Charney produced the Murrow Award winning  documentary Ashes to Hope: Overcoming the Detroit Riots which also won a Clarion, a PRNDI and numerous regional and state awards.  She also produced the 2008 documentary Foreclosing on the American Dream, which won a Clarion Award and numerous state awards, and the 2009 documentary Facing the Mortgage Crisis.

Before joining Michigan Radio, Charney was Assistant Program Director at WDET Detroit, a music announcer and producer at WEMU Ypsilanti, and did voice-over and freelance work including documentary production for NPR's Jazz Profiles.

Tamar earned her master’s degree in telecommunications from Michigan State University, and a bachelor’s in psychology from the University of Michigan.