Debbie Hiott had led KUT, Austin\u2019s NPR station, as the general manager since 2019. In her time there, she brought internal cultural changes, connected the business and content sides of the station and pushed a focus on local, community journalism, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really worked on creating a more inclusive culture,\u201d Hiott said. \u201cA culture where people could be heard and could have ideas from all corners of the organization.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hiott expanded the size of KUT\u2019s newsroom. She helped create The Texas Newsroom, a collaboration with journalism and radio organizations around the state. While leading KUTX, the music station, she said she encouraged the team to \u201cloosen the reins,\u201d follow less of a formula for the music they played and diversify in music genre by letting staff explore their interests more.<\/p>\n
On June 15, the University fired Hiott. Anita Vangelisti, interim dean of the Moody College of Communication, sent an email to KUT staff that day announcing Hiott\u2019s dismissal. According to her termination notice, University officials told Hiott she was fired due to planning issues with the news organization\u2019s inaugural festival in May.<\/p>\n
Hiott\u2019s career started out at the Austin American-Statesman, where she began as a reporter in 1992 and eventually became the Statesman\u2019s main editor in 2011, according to her LinkedIn. She also served on NPR\u2019s board of directors from November 2024 up to the date of her firing.<\/p>\n
Hiott said previous friendships she made as a reporter with the Statesman helped her later in her role as an editor, as staffers felt comfortable discussing any disagreements with her.<\/p>\n
From this, she said she learned the importance of relying on others, even in higher positions. Hiott said she took this knowledge to KUT and KUTX. There, she told her staff that they should educate her about radio, music and balancing different forms of journalism.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest thing I want people to know is that these weren\u2019t all things that I did; these were things that we did together,\u201d Hiott said. \u201cEverybody was willing to embrace the right ideas and get on board with the right direction, and it\u2019s because they care so much about what goes on there. It\u2019s very hard to leave that.\u201d<\/p>\n
KUT Arts Editor Stephanie Federico described Hiott\u2019s leadership as \u201crefreshing.\u201d Hiott listened to her employees\u2019 grievances and feelings without complaint and helped work toward solutions with them, Federico said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople really rallied around her,\u201d Federico said. \u201c(Hiott\u2019s) tough \u2014 she was super respected as both a journalist and a leader. She was a role model to a lot of folks \u2026 kind of a no-bullshit type of person. She would come down into the newsroom and just talk to you like a human, and people just really respected her.\u201d<\/p>\n
One day after she was fired, Hiott was replaced by Gerald Johnson, the current interim general manager of KUT Public Media. Johnson previously served as the Moody College of Communication\u2019s executive director for innovation and partnerships. Additionally, he served as director of Texas Student Media, The Daily Texan\u2019s parent organization, from 2014 to 2023. He also spent 16 years working at the Houston Chronicle in advertising.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know they\u2019re in good hands right now with (Johnson), but I want whoever follows him to recognize that these people know a ton,\u201d Hiott said. \u201cWhat they don\u2019t need from their leadership is someone who\u2019s picking over everything they do and trying to micromanage them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hiott said she protected her staff from \u201creputationally false information.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI want them to remember me as someone who would go to bat for them,\u201d Hiott said. \u201cI also want them to remember me as someone who had very high expectations for the work that they did. I still have those high expectations that they\u2019ll continue to do great work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hiott emphasized that none of the funding for KUT comes directly from UT. The University owns KUT\u2019s license to operate and KUT employees are employed by the University, according to the station\u2019s website.<\/p>\n
Although Hiott was fired, she still wants people to show support and continue donating to KUT.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of discussion in the community right now, on social media and everything, about people threatening to pull their support from KUT over this, and I really don\u2019t want people to do that,\u201d Hiott said. \u201cI\u2019m really urging people to continue to support the stations, because they\u2019re going to continue to do great work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Debbie Hiott had led KUT, Austin\u2019s NPR station, as the general manager since 2019. In her time there,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-356624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}