NEW YORK—The WNET Group, the parent company of the PBS station Thirteen, has announced the appointment of Dana Roberson to general manager, Thirteen and production operations effective April 1, 2025.
Roberson will oversee daily operations of Thirteen and will be responsible for leading the production management, production services, and design and on-air promotions teams. She will report to Diane Masciale, vice president and general manager, WLIW21/WLIW-FM & Co-Executive in Charge, ALL ARTS.
"As former general manager of PBS NewsHour Weekend and executive producer of special projects, Dana has successfully led multiplatform production and delivery for numerous documentaries and specials," said Neal Shapiro, president and CEO of The WNET Group. "Elevating her to lead Thirteen and Production Services is a natural progression, and we're excited to have her in this new role."
From 2018 to 2022, Roberson was general manager and executive producer at PBS NewsHour Weekend. Previously, she was a producer at New York Public Radio/WNYC for the daily national news program, The Takeaway. A television news veteran, she worked at CBS News for 18 years on acclaimed programs such as 60 Minutes and CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt and with legendary newsman Dan Rather on his investigative team at AXS-TV.
Her investigative reporting earned her a Peabody Award for her breaking coverage of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq. She has covered stories from the war in Afghanistan to the earthquake in Haiti and the Dalai Lama in India. She is an Emmy Award-winning producer for News & Documentary programming and shares her passion for journalism with future generations as an adjunct professor at CUNY's Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and at Fordham University. Roberson graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in journalism and has a Master of Science degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
The WNET Group is the community-supported home of New York's Thirteen – America's flagship PBS station – WLIW, Thirteen PBSKids, WLIW World and Create; NJ PBS, New Jersey's statewide public television network; Long Island's only NPR station WLIW-FM; ALL ARTS, the arts and culture media provider; newsroom NJ Spotlight News; and FAST channel PBS Nature.
