Former Iowa Public Television director Dan Miller has died after a long illness. A statement from IPTV says Miller died this week at the age of 66.
Miller worked at IPTV for 37 years, serving in various production and leadership roles before becoming executive director and general manager in 2002. He retired in 2013.
On this edition of River to River, host Ben Kieffer talks with retired IPTV host Dean Borg about Miller's life and career.
Borg says Miller was a leader not just for IPTV, but for the entire nation's PBS system.
"His legacy is integrity," says Borg. "There was no compromising with editorial integrity with Dan Miller. He vigorously defended the independence of Iowa Public Television. [...] He also vigorously enforced editorial integrity among those people who were on the air."
In 2016, the Public Broadcasting Service honored Miller with the inaugural Daniel K Miller PBS Station Leadership Award. The award celebrates excellence in leadership at local stations.
Other conversations on today's show include: IPR correspondent Joyce Russell on the Iowa Senate GOP's tax cut proposal; IPR and Harvest Public Media reporter Amy Mayer on Bill Northey’s confirmation to USDA; Iowa State University researchers Shawn Dorius and Carolyn Lawrence-Dill on the impact of Russian news sites publishing anti-GMO click-bait articles; Des Moines Register reporter Linh Ta talks about her reporting on copy-cat school violence threats in the wake of the Parkland shooting; and Iowa columnist at the Des Moines Register, Kyle Munson, talks about his takeaways from the news that U.S. News & World Report ranked Iowa No. 1 in the country in its Best States rankings.