sorry about the ugly formatting but the person who posted this to alt.obituaries uses Google Groups, and that system does horrible things.
Sending it here because I suspect a bunch of people knew of her.
Newsgroups: alt.obituaries Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2023 16:28:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: Ruth Seymour, 88, KCRW Founder and Public Radio Pioneer From: Topic Cop <beaver_fe...@live.com>
from an email I received: Remembering Ruth Seymour, KCRW Founder and Public Radio Pioneer KCRW founder Ruth Seymour died on Friday, Dec. 22, 2023 at the age of 88. My first paid role at KCRW was as Ruth=E2=80=99s assistant. Soon after, Rut= h elevated me to Assistant General Manager and I worked closely with her fo= r over 16 years. There wasn=E2=80=99t a decision, thought, or argument that= she didn=E2=80=99t share with me. She didn=E2=80=99t realize it at the tim= e but she gave me a front-row seat into the work of a true original. It=E2=80=99s difficult to quantify how much of a pioneer Ruth Seymour was i= n her life. Expressed through the platform of KCRW, Ruth made an enormous i= mpact on Los Angeles through her singular drive for KCRW to =E2=80=9Cbe imp= ortant.=E2=80=9D She did nothing conventionally and nothing she created was a reaction to an= ything. She created KCRW by the sheer force of her intellect and interest. = It was not her interest to gain the most listeners, nor to win any awards, = which she didn=E2=80=99t care about, but to be an intellectual force for ar= ts, culture, and smart ideas. She wanted to start the conversation, not jus= t contribute to it. Friend to poets like Allen Ginsberg and artists like Leonard Cohen, Ruth wa= s always true to art. She had the highest intellectual standards which is w= hy KCRW aired 10-hour radio dramas like Babbitt and Ulysses. She created Je= wish Short Stories From Eastern Europe and Beyond in two audio collections = that featured contemporary actors reading the work of Jewish authors like S= holem Aleichem, Philip Roth, and Isaac Bashevis Singer. KCRW sold more of t= hose collections than anything else in our history. Ruth embodied the concept of being =E2=80=9Cculturally Jewish.=E2=80=9D She= was not religious, but her devotion to Yiddishkeit could be heard every Ha= nnukah for 28 years with a three-hour radio program she hosted called Philo= sophers, Fiddlers and Fools. She called it the =E2=80=9C2nd Avenue Hit Para= de=E2=80=9D which included the songs she heard growing up amongst Russian a= nd Polish immigrants in her neighborhood in the Bronx.=20 She said it best, =E2=80=9CI wanted to do this program as an act of love an= d respect, an homage to a culture and its people=E2=80=94my people=E2=80=94= to their indomitable spirit, their irrepressible humor and inventiveness, t= heir capacity for wonder, endurance and faith.=E2=80=9D In fact, she said everything best. Never one to prepare for a speech or for= a live radio interview, yet able to ask the right question and turn the po= ignant phrase, it was clear that Ruth was at an intellectual level above so= many. No one could beat Ruth at an argument.=20 She described her family this way: =E2=80=9CMy parents had come from differ= ent parts of Eastern Europe, before they were 20. They met at New York's Ne= w School for Social Research, which offered college-level courses to new im= migrants. They read American literature and history; they went to lectures = and concerts. They attended school at night; by day they worked with their = hands. They were part of a dynamic working class. Their friends engaged in = lively political debates around our kitchen table.=E2=80=9D=20 This argumentative discourse of her youth compelled her to never be silence= d and never back down. Outspoken and fearless women leaders were rare in th= e =E2=80=9860s, and =E2=80=9870s =E2=80=94 in fact, women couldn=E2=80=99t = get credit cards apart from their husbands until 1974 =E2=80=94 which is wh= y her accomplishments are so remarkable. =20 When she came to KCRW in 1977, she found herself building the station in a = junior high classroom right off the playground. After the passing of Prop 1= 3, the landmark California proposition that limited property taxes, KCRW wa= s forced to find its own funding. She held KCRW=E2=80=99s first fund drives= and made a deal with the City of Santa Monica to broadcast its City Counci= l meetings in exchange for a grant. Soon after, our crafty broadcast engine= er found a way to extend our signal past Robertson Blvd. Now KCRW could be = heard across Los Angeles. Those actions saved the station financially and a= llowed it to grow and thrive. There were no equals to KCRW in the public radio system. Her on-air schedul= e consisted of news from NPR followed by three hours of contemporary music = (not classical, jazz, or folk like most public stations). She=E2=80=99d go = to a newsstand every day and read articles from the New York Times, word fo= r word, on the air at noon because Angelenos couldn=E2=80=99t easily get th= at paper. She discovered people who matched her intellect at dinners or par= ties and gave them on air shows on journalism, literature, film, art, theat= er, travel, dance, or music.=20 She knew how to build a brand. In fact, she chose every t-shirt design. The= y were almost always close replicas of Picasso, Matisse, or Russian futuris= t posters.=20 Los Angeles had a reputation at that time for being the land of hippies and= frivolous entertainment. KCRW was the beacon for all things smart, importa= nt, and rigorous. If you had ideas that pushed the discourse of Los Angeles= or the country, you would end up on KCRW. KCRW and NPR grew up together and Ruth knew that public radio stations were= the owners of the national organization. She was a champion of journalism = and NPR. When NPR nearly went bankrupt in 1983, Ruth rallied other public r= adio stations to raise funds to save the network. She was fiercely outspoken in the public radio system and while never on th= e board of NPR, had outsized influence on its direction and programming cho= ices. She is famously known for being the first station outside of Chicago = to take Ira Glass=E2=80=99 This American Life, after urging him to change h= is original name of the show to something more appealing.=20 The attribute I admired the most about Ruth was her inability to let others= create doubt in herself. She operated as if she didn=E2=80=99t care what a= nyone else thought and her decisions and ideas were pure because of it. She= would identify a program=E2=80=99s faults almost instantly and cancel or c= hange it with speed. She always knew she was right. And that kind of courag= e only comes from a leader who knows she knows. Her impact lives on at KCRW. Her vision to create Morning Becomes Eclectic = to reflect contemporary, eclectic, and new music has made KCRW=E2=80=99s DJ= s sought after by labels, artists, and music supervisors looking to feature= the sound of today. She created Good Food which remains a force in the foo= d world and lives in new spaces like a wildly successful pie contest. Most = powerfully, this eclectic radio format continues to feed the complete cultu= ral life of an interested person =E2=80=94 news of the day, debates of idea= s, art, artists, food, literature, and film.=20 Jennifer-Ferro Jennifer Ferro KCRW President
