Benton Foundation Announces Departure of President Gloria Tristani

On December 28, 2006, Charles Benton, Chairman and CEO of the Benton Foundation, announced that the current president, Gloria Tristani, has decided to leave the foundation and return to the practice of law.

“We appreciate the very real contributions that Gloria Tristani has made during her tenure,” Benton said. “As with the Benton Foundation, Gloria Tristani, a former FCC Commissioner, has made distinctive contributions to the public interest over many years. We wish her continued success and look forward to opportunities to work together toward common goals in the future.”

“The Benton Foundation’s leadership for the public interest remains crucial,” Tristani said, “in ensuring that the public will benefit from the emerging digital communications environment as access, equity, and diversity are under siege by increasing media concentration and commercialization.”

Under Tristani’s leadership, the Benton Foundation with senior staff members and consultants including Jim Kohlenberger, Karen Menichelli, and Kevin Taglang has grown as a:

• prominent voice in informing policy makers and the public on media policy issues including public interest obligations, children’s television programming, and media ownership issues;
• sponsor of research that will aid policymakers to make better and more informed decisions about the effects of media concentration on the voices and choices that consumers have access to, and the opportunities that can arise if we are able to make broadband as universal as the telephone is today;
• advocate for a strong public interest agenda and policies at the Federal Communications Commission through such venues as the FCC’s Consumer Advisory Committee;
• collaborator with other public interest groups, research organizations and advocacy groups towards a strong public interest agenda; and
• educator of other funders on the critical importance of communications issues.

Also during Tristani’s tenure, the Foundation celebrated the 10th anniversary of its widely-acclaimed daily Communication Headlines service and the 2nd anniversary of its free legislative tracking service, which helps policymakers, academics, journalists, and nonprofit leaders keep pace with the rapidly changing communications policy landscape.

Charles Benton expressed confidence that the foundation will continue to grow in these areas as it searches for a successor. “While we will miss Gloria’s leadership, we approach the New Year with a renewed sense of opportunity and possibilities. New technologies are quickly transforming the way we work, live, and learn; a new Congress will have different priorities for advancing a consumer-focused communications policy agenda, and the issues upon which the Foundation has and will continue to focus are moving to the forefront of public policy debate. The Foundation will continue its work to advance a set of emerging new opportunities that can help unleash consumer choices, expand media voices, jumpstart broadband opportunity, and help to extend the benefits of communications to every corner of America.”