41 WNET Employees Call for Resignation of CEO Neal Shapiro

Neil Shapiro

More than three dozen employees at the WNET Group, the parent company of New York’s public television stations, have called for the resignation of the longtime chief executive, Neal Shapiro, saying he had not done enough to improve working conditions for employees, especially those of color, The NYTimes reports.

In an email to the staff on Friday, the Inclusion and Diversity Council, a WNET employee organization formed in 2015, said Mr. Shapiro did not have the “skills or the judgment to lead the company through this pivotal moment in history.”

The council said that 41 current WNET employees and 34 former employees have signed the letter, which was posted on the council’s website. It did not publish the names of those who had signed. (WNET has a work force of 380 people.)

Shapiro, a former president of NBC News who has led WNET since 2007, replied to the letter on Friday in an email to the staff, saying that “much of what has been written is inaccurate, misleading or out of context.”

“I understand some anonymous signatories are upset that we aren’t moving forward in the exact way they want,” he wrote. “But make no mistake. The WNET Group is spending real resources, making real changes and building a path forward with accountability, transparency and civility.”

Edgar Wachenheim III, an investment banker who has been the chairman of WNET’s board of trustees since 2017, said in a statement that Mr. Shapiro had the board’s support.

Tensions started at WNET, the parent company of New York’s Channel 13 and WLIW Channel 21, as civil rights protests were spreading across the country after the police killing of George Floyd in May. Employees questioned why the company had not issued a statement in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

On June 1, six days after Floyd’s death, Shapiro released a statement on WNET.org. “Racism is a cancer in the soul of this nation,” he wrote. “This has been an agonizing and painful week. Our hearts go out to so many, especially so for our African-American colleagues. At the same time, it is also a reminder of what drew many of us to public media — to help build a more informed country with equal justice for everyone based on understanding and mutual respect.”

In a June 9 letter, the Inclusion and Diversity Council objected to Mr. Shapiro’s likening racism to a cancer. “It is our view that this represents your profound misunderstanding of our nation’s history and its current reality,” the council wrote. “Racism is not an anomaly separate from us, rather, it is woven into the fabric of this country and, in fact, our own institution.”