Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
Vermont Public Radio has hired two new co-hosts to succeed Jane Lindholm at “Vermont Edition,” the flagship midday public affairs program.
Connor Cyrus and Mikaela Lefrak will start sometime this summer, the station announced Thursday.
Cyrus is now with WJAR, the NBC affiliate in Providence, Rhode Island, and reported for several New England television stations prior to that, including Vermont’s WCAX.
Lefrak is a reporter and host at WAMU, the NPR member station for the Washington, D.C. region, and hosts the podcast “What’s With Washington.” Before WAMU, Lefrak produced politics and culture podcasts for The New Republic and worked at PRI’s “The World” and WGBH, the big public radio station in Boston. She has won two regional Murrow Awards and Public Media Journalists Association awards for her work.
The station had planned to hire one senior producer and host to replace Lindholm, said Lydia Brown, managing producer of “Vermont Edition,” but decided to change course after both Cyrus and Lefrak “rose to the top” for their complementary backgrounds in TV and radio.
Particularly as the radio station moves forward with its merger with Vermont PBS, Brown said, there is a desire to “meet listeners where they are,” and potentially expand the show’s presence on social media and other mediums.
“I think we could really draw on both the unique experiences that Mikaela and Connor bring to do that really effectively,” said Brown, who led the hiring process.
VPR has been making a concerted effort to diversify its ranks and coverage. Cyrus is the first Black person to permanently host Vermont Edition.
Both of the new “Vermont Edition” hosts attended college in Vermont. Lefrak is a Middlebury College graduate, and Cyrus is an alumnus of Lyndon State College.
Lindholm, who has led “Vermont Edition” since 2007, announced last year that she would step down from her role to focus full-time on “But Why: A Podcast for Curious Kids,” which she launched in 2016. Lindholm’s final show as host will be March 25, but she will likely continue contributing to “Vermont Edition” during the show’s interim period in the spring and early summer.
It’s possible that “Vermont Edition” will go on hiatus or offer stripped-down programming between Lindholm’s departure and Cyrus and Lefrak’s arrivals, Brown said. But the station is committed to airing the governor’s Covid-19 press briefings as before and to continue a once-weekly health update. Lindholm will likely participate.
Lindholm said she was eager to pass along the baton and “super excited” about the new hosts.
“I think they’re both really strong news and feature reporters. I think they both have really winning and warm and wonderful personalities that are going to draw Vermonters in. And I think they balance and complement each other nicely,” she said.
Clarification: Citing a VPR employee, an earlier version of this story stated that Cyrus is believed to be the first-ever full-time newsroom staffer at the station who’s Black, Indigenous or a person of color. Owens, the VPR spokesperson, later said that the station had not yet verified whether that is the case.
