NPR's Top News Exec Is OUT

Michael Oreskes

NPR's senior vice president for news, Michael Oreskes, has resigned following allegations of sexual harassment from several women.

The accounts of two women, first published by The Washington Post, describe Oreskes unexpectedly kissing them during meetings in the late 1990s, while he was Washington bureau chief for The New York Times. An NPR employee has also come forward publicly about harassment that allegedly occurred during a business meeting-turned-dinner in 2015.

"This morning I asked Mike Oreskes for his resignation because of inappropriate behavior," NPR CEO Jarl Mohn wrote in an email to NPR staff on Wednesday. "I have received his resignation, effective immediately."

In a statement, Oreskes said, "I am deeply sorry to the people I hurt. My behavior was wrong and inexcusable, and I accept full responsibility."

According to NPR, questions are being raised in the newsroom about when management became aware of some of the allegations against Oreskes and why firmer action wasn't taken prior to the release of the Post's report.

Oreskes was investigated and formally rebuked after he was accused of harassment by an employee at NPR two years ago.

Initial reports suggested that NPR learned about the two allegations in the Post article in mid-October.

In an interview Wednesday with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly, as dozens of mainly female employees of NPR looked on, Mohn stated that one of the women who spoke with the Post first contacted NPR in 2016 about her allegations. Mohn defended his decision not to take firmer action at the time.

"The important distinction here is first, that did not happen at NPR, it was not an NPR employee. It was at The New York Times and it occurred 20 years ago," Mohn said. "Had that happened at NPR we would have had a very different reaction to it."

Mohn said Wednesday that Vice President of News Programming and Operations Chris Turpin has taken on interim leadership of NPR's newsroom.