FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

VISIONARY KCRW PUBLIC RADIO LEADER, RUTH SEYMOUR DIES

Santa Monica, CA… Ruth Seymour, who transformed KCRW-FM, a tiny college radio station operating out of a middle school classroom in 1977, into a local, regional, national, international public radio and Internet powerhouse by the time she retired in 2010, died at her home in Santa Monica after a long illness at the age of 88 on December 22, 2023.

Her mission at KCRW, as she told journalists and friends was, “To matter.”

Described as charismatic and controversial, the Bronx-born visionary was a politically astute intellectual who created a winning eclectic format of news, talk, music, current affairs and cultural programming. She broke the accepted rules of broadcasting by not focusing on a single demographic but intuitively tapping into and responding to the zeitgeist of a changing cultural landscape. Under her aegis, KCRW, licensed to Santa Monica College, became the West Coast flagship station for NPR (National Public Radio). She was one of the earliest adopters of online programming, streaming and podcasting, which helped the station achieve global renown.

KCRW’s President Jennifer Ferro offered her thoughts: "Ruth was singular in everyway. She had a powerful vision that never wavered. There was a spirit in Ruth that no one else has. She didn’t just save NPR or create a new format—Ruth took chances and made decisions because she knew they were right. She trusted her gut. She broke rules and pursued excellence in ways that can't easily be explained. She was a force of nature. Ruth’s legacy lives on at KCRW. She inspires us to be original, to host the smartest people, the most creative artists and to talk to our audience with the utmost respect for their intellect.”

Actor/comedian/voiceover artist Harry Shearer, whose “Le Show” aired for decades on KCRW, sums up the consensus opinion about her: “Ruth was a towering figure in public radio, embracing a breadth of subject matter and styles that, frankly, does not seem possible any more. She imagined a listener who was endlessly curious, open to a wide range of opinions and musics, and worked tirelessly to satisfy that listener. There will not be one like her again.”

NPR Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg, one of the “Founding Mothers” of NPR recollects: “Ruth was one of the great pioneers of public radio—at her station as well as in the NPR firmament. She was enormously influential in our earliest days, and remained so for decades. Never feared to express her opinion, no matter how tough it was. I always thought hard, and learned much, from her criticisms. Her taste—the people she put on the air—and her passion for radio were unmatched. My favorite mental image of Ruth was during the wars in Iraq. She put on a radiothon to raise money to send NPR correspondents to cover it (the great Anne Garrels and others). And to make her on-air pitches, she wore camouflage and combat boots! She knew it would be war to raise the funds, and she dressed for the challenge. I loved and admired her enormously, and found her to be a great teacher and inspirer.”

Among her signature achievements was the creation of “Which Way, L.A.?” with Warren Olney, which became the daily town square for Los Angeles in the aftermath of the Rodney King uprising; she also originated public radio’s first nationally distributed weekly political roundtable, “Left, Right & Center.” She led the on-air charge for stations to fundraise on behalf of the network when NPR was in crisis, and did so three times between 1983 and 1991; she was also known in Washington, DC circles as a fierce defender of public broadcasting funding and issues such as licensing and royalties for streaming.

By giving her programmers freedom of choice, the station’s signature music show “Morning Becomes Eclectic” became an influential music trendsetter, featuring frequent live in-studio and video performances by established and unknown artists, from Beck’s breakout to Coldplay’s first US radio performance. Ms. Seymour was the first to air Ira Glass’s “This American Life,” convincing other stations to carry it, and it is now an

award-winning public radio and podcast favorite. But many audience members will remember her most fondly for the 28-year run of her annual three-hour Chanukah tribute to Yiddishkeit called “Philosophers, Fiddlers & Fools.”

Ms. Seymour also brought contemporary radio drama to the airwaves with all-star series such as “Jewish Stories from the Old World to the New,” Walter Mosley’s novel, “Black Betty” based in 1960s South Central LA, as well as a 27-1/2-hour word-for-word dramatized celebrity reading of Sinclair Lewis’ Babbitt. She gave radio dramatist Joe Frank a creative home, and offered iconoclast Harry Shearer a weekly hour to do anything he wanted on “Le Show.” A Who’s Who of Hollywood actors, political leaders, the world’s top writers, philosophers and thinkers all descended the stairs to KCRW’s basement studios for prestige appearances.

There were many milestones and awards across her lengthy career, which began in1961 as Drama and Literature Director at Pacifica public radio station KPFK Los Angeles. She won awards for programs about Bertolt Brecht and Oscar Wilde and conducted interviews with thought and cultural leaders, like Andy Warhol and Anne Sexton. As the station’s program director (beginning in 1971), she produced a celebrity cast reading of selected scenes from the Nixon Watergate tapes with Harry Shearer, Rob Reiner and Christopher Guest as Nixon. After receiving and broadcasting the Patty Hearst-SLA (Symbionese Liberation Army) cassette, station manager Will Lewis refused to hand it over, and Ms. Seymour broadcast the FBI and LAPD raid to retrieve it live on air. The tape was never located; Lewis spent 16 days in a federal jail, ultimately released by Justice William Douglas on First Amendment grounds.

In 1973, Ms. Seymour moved to Santa Monica. She left KPFK in 1976 and in 1977, began building KCRW from scratch, first as a consultant, later as the long-time General Manager. Unusually for public broadcasting she served as both Program Director and GM. At both KPFK and KCRW, Ms. Seymour’s programming earned radio's top awards, including the Major Armstrong Award for excellence in creative use of the medium, the prestigious Peabody Award, numerous Corporation for Public Broadcasting honors, and several Ohio State Radio Awards. Local and national organizations recognized her accomplishments with accolades and awards, including Amnesty International's Media Spotlight Award in 1997, and honorary doctorates from two universities.

Born and raised in the South Bronx, Ms. Seymour (née Ruth Epstein) studied with Yiddish scholar Max Weinreich and later attended City College of New York, dubbed “Harvard of the proletariat.” It’s where she met and married poet Jack Hirschman and bore his name throughout much of her career. Following his academic career first to Dartmouth College and later UCLA, she established herself as a public radio pioneer in Los Angeles. In 1993, long after their divorce, she wanted her own name. She did a deep dive into her family history, discovered her paternal great-grandfather Reb Simcha of Pultysk who was a beloved rabbi, Anglicized his name to Seymour, and legally changed hers to Ruth Seymour.

First housed in a converted classroom where the station served as a training facility for returning veterans to learn the “new” FM radio technology, KCRW expanded in 1984, moving to the basement of Santa Monica College’s student activities building. She successfully advocated for passage of the 2008 municipal bond that helped build the station’s first-ever stand-alone building, now located on the campus of SMC’s Center for Media and Design, where it continues today.

Ruth Seymour is survived by her daughter, Celia Hirschman, her sister and brother-in-law Ann and Richard Zimmer and their children Jessica and Daniel, and her cousins Anita Getzler and Greg Epstein. Ruth’s son, David, preceded her in death at the age of 25 from lymphoma.

A public memorial service is being planned.