As a kid, LaFontaine Oliver wanted to be an actor. Instead, a scholarship offer from the University of Miami helped steer him into a career in radio.
Currently the president and general manager of WYPR, the principal National Public Radio (NPR) station in Baltimore, Oliver was recently appointed president and chief executive officer of New York Public Radio. He will begin his new position in January 2023 and is eager to start.
“I’ve had the privilege to work with some special organizations throughout my career,” Oliver said. “Still, I cannot think of a more exciting opportunity than to join the talented team at New York Public Radio and be aligned with an organization that is not only a leader in public media but is also charting its own course in the larger media ecosystem nationally.”
Oliver’s newest role is the latest in a career that has its roots in a childhood love of performing. His father—“a bit of a Renaissance man”—wrote and staged productions for churches around Washington, D.C., where the family lived, and where Oliver had his first stage experience.
“I took acting lessons and eventually started landing roles in professional productions. For a good part of my childhood, I was a working actor,” he noted. Oliver performed in theaters all over his home city, including such renowned venues as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Folger Shakespeare Theatre.
Oliver’s career highlight as a child actor was performing with the original Broadway cast of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” one of a series of plays by August Wilson that chronicles the Black experience in 20th-century America. “I got the opportunity when they made their first stop [after] Broadway at the Arena Stage in Washington,” he said. “So, I thought I would go off and be an actor.”
In high school, Oliver decided that pursuing a full-time acting career was financially risky. He resolved to get a university degree, the first in his immediate family to do so. “That was one of the things that motivated me,” he said. “I really wanted to go to college and complete an undergraduate degree. Neither my mother nor father nor grandparents had that opportunity.”
The University of Miami was among the colleges on Oliver’s application list. He was accepted but decided to go to Rutgers University in New Jersey, which he thought would be his most affordable option. “I went to pick out my dorm room and take my placement exams; and when I got back, there was a scholarship and financial aid package in the mail from the University of Miami,” Oliver said. “All of a sudden, it was the most affordable school on my list, and my father said, ‘Guess where you are going.’ ”
One of Oliver’s first moves was volunteering at WVUM, the University’s student-run radio station. “My dad worked in radio, so I kind of had the radio bug. Maybe not quite as early as the performance bug, but it was there,” he said. He pursued a business degree at the University, but he knew he wanted to work in broadcasting. And WVUM quickly became his primary extracurricular occupation.
He started with a standard late-night shift on the air. Eventually, Oliver landed a specialty show in the series “Retro Lunch,” where he showcased retro R&B, funk, and soul. He also gained the highly coveted job hosting “The Hip-Hop Shop,” the longest-running local hip-hop radio show in Miami.
At the end of his sophomore year, Oliver ran for the position to be the station’s general manager. For the next two years, he oversaw all station operations and carried a full course load.
“I was running a radio station where we were responsible for everything that any other FCC-licensed broadcaster must worry about,” Oliver said. “We had serious compliance [requirements], we were reporting our music spins to the most credible music trade publications, we were doing Hurricane sports, we were doing everything broadcasters do professionally. It was the real deal.”
Life was a real balancing act for Oliver with his duties at WVUM, another part-time job off-campus, an internship his senior year at a commercial station, and his coursework. The latter included core business classes and electives in communications, the lessons from which he put into practice every day at WVUM.
“I remember it was difficult but just a ton of fun. I learned so much,” Oliver said. “WVUM had wonderful new offices and studios in the [Whitten University Center]. I had an office there and kept a certain number of office hours each day. If I was not in class, you would find me in the offices of WVUM.”
After graduating, Oliver worked in commercial and satellite radio for several years before starting an M.B.A. degree. At the same time, he made the professional transition to public radio, running a small station licensed to Morgan State University while he completed his master’s degree program. He then took over as general manager of WMFE, Orlando’s leading NPR affiliate.
During what he calls “six wonderful years” in Central Florida, Oliver expanded local news coverage, worked to connect the station to underserved communities, and championed civil discourse. He joined NPR’s board of directors in 2016 and WYPR in 2019. In 2020, he began his tenure as NPR’s board chair.
Oliver is passionate about the importance of public radio in telling the stories of diverse communities in ways that, as he put it, respects listeners’ intelligence. As he explained, public radio endeavors to “give facts, but also provide a context and lens of relevance [that enable] our audience to figure out what it means for them, and not add to the noise and distortion” of the contemporary media landscape.
According to Oliver, the value of public radio lies in the fact that stations are locally governed and embedded in the communities they serve. “People can reach out and touch us. They can call us up—they can get to us,” he said. “There’s a trust that many of our organizations and stations have built up in communities across the country,” he added.
“There are 250-something member organizations across the country that contribute content and [weave] together our story of a family of communities. We operate in a space where it’s part news and journalism and part storytelling. It’s figuring out creative ways to serve local audiences,” he continued.
“I feel very fortunate to wake up every day and do something I love,” Oliver emphasized. “It’s tough work sometimes, but I think the best part is seeing and hearing directly from the community how important our work is to them in their daily lives. I love that opportunity to connect with the community in an authentic way, and it is reaffirming when you hear from people of all sorts of backgrounds and perspectives that what you do is important and valuable.”
