USA Today exec to lead NPR Digital team

NPR has hired a new digital media chief: Kinsey Wilson, executive editor of USA Today and usatoday.com since 2005. He joins NPR on Oct. 20 as senior v.p. and g.m. of digital media. Wilson helped lead the merger of USA Today's newspaper and online newsrooms in 2005, the same year that he discussed the impact of technology on the news business in this Online NewsHour interview.

New Brideshead star completes Masterpiece hosting trio

Young British actor Matthew Goode, who starred as Charles Ryder in Julian Jarrold’s recent Brideshead Revisited movie in theaters, starts Oct. 5 as host of Masterpiece Contemporary, the upcoming third sub-series in the imported drama series on PBS, WGBH announced. Goode has already acted in Masterpiece presentations My Family and Other Animals and Inspector Lynley and Miss Marple mysteries. In theaters, he has acted in Woody Allen’s Match Point and Scott Frank’s The Lookout, and will play the villain in Zack Snyder’s Watchmen next March.

Sawaya leaves Pacifica, publishes regretful critique

Explaining that she “was continually thwarted to do the job I was hired to do,” Nicole Sawaya announced yesterday that she had resigned as executive director of Pacifica Radio. Sawaya, who had given the job a second chance after quitting for several months last winter, said she gave the Pacifica National Board notice Aug. 3 that she would be out of the budget by Sept. 30. In the form of a letter to the late Pacifica founder Lewis Hill, Sawaya regretted the present state of the lefty pubradio net, which she said has “dysfunctional” governance, “shoddy and opaque” business practices and a work force that includes both “dedicated and smart” broadcasters as well as those who merely protect their self interest and resist change. Sawaya writes: “Paralysis has set in, coupled with organizational drift.” Her predecessor, Greg Guma, who had similar complaints about the difficulty of managing Pacifica, reported her resignation in his blog earlier this month. The Pacifica Board hired Sawaya by unanimous vote a year ago.