For a pub­lic radio lover, hav­ing a Princetern­ship at New York Pub­lic Radio (NYPR) was like vis­it­ing heaven. NYPR is the pub­lic radio sta­tion that serves the metro New York area and con­sists of WNYC AM and FM (pub­lic radio news sta­tions), WQXR (a clas­si­cal music sta­tion), and WNJN (a set of NJ pub­lic radio sta­tions that were recently bought by NYPR).

Ivan Zim­mer­man ‘80, Gen­eral Coun­sel for WNYC, started the day off by giv­ing me a tour of all three floors of the station’s head­quar­ters, from the cubi­cles to the radio archives. Know­ing that I was inter­ested in jour­nal­ism, Ivan brought me into one of the record­ing stu­dios, where I heard a famil­iar voice read­ing the news. It was Sote­rios John­son record­ing “Morn­ing Edi­tion”! It was so sur­real hear­ing a voice I have lis­tened to nearly every morn­ing embod­ied in a real per­son. Later, I even got to see Brian Lehrer host his show and watch as the pro­duc­ers per­formed all the behind– the-scenes magic, like screen­ing callers.

Ivan also brought me to a news depart­ment meet­ing, where dif­fer­ent edi­tors, pro­duc­ers, and radio jour­nal­ists updated each other on the sto­ries that they were work­ing on and brain­stormed ideas for the upcom­ing weekend.

The major­ity of the day, how­ever, was focused on the legal issues that NYPR faces. As Ivan is one of only two coun­sels for NYPR, he has to han­dle a diverse range of legal matters.

Ivan Zim­mer­man and Ellis

More than 50% of his work is deal­ing with con­tracts, Ivan told me. For exam­ple, in the after­noon, he had to read over a con­tract that dealt with main­te­nance work at the NYPR head­quar­ters. Janna Freed, the other coun­sel, had to rewrite part of a con­tract that dealt with prop­erty rights of an artist who was going to per­form on WNYC.

Another part of his job is related to under­writ­ing. Under­writ­ing, in the con­text of pub­lic radio, is the spon­sor­ship of the radio sta­tion, and in exchange the sta­tion will men­tion that busi­ness or orga­ni­za­tion on the air in its pro­gram­ming. The tricky thing about under­writ­ing is to make sure acknowl­edge­ments don’t veer on adver­tis­ing, which can threaten not only NYPR’s tax-exempt sta­tus but can cause the Fed­eral Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mis­sion (FCC) to revoke the station’s licenses. Ivan’s respon­si­bil­ity is to make sure NYPR’s under­writ­ers don’t unin­ten­tion­ally make “WNYC is spon­sored by X com­pany” sound like “WNYC thinks you should buy X company’s products.”

Finally Ivan’s daily work included many other responsibilities. For instance, Ivan advised one jour­nal­ist about the ethics and legal­i­ties of inter­view­ing patients at a hos­pi­tal. Ear­lier in the day, he had to resolve a dis­pute with another com­pany that was going to pro­duce a music show using a name that NYPR had already trademarked.

For some­one who squirms at the thought of pub­lic speak­ing and would be a hor­ri­ble trial lawyer, I was delighted to learn that as a gen­eral coun­sel, one could delve into the intri­ca­cies of law with­out deal­ing with all the argu­ing and stress of lit­i­ga­tion. (In fact, when NYPR goes to court, they hire an out­side firm to rep­re­sent them.) The work is also very flexible—Ivan said he comes to work any­time from 9 am-10 am most days and leaves from 5 pm-9 pm. But what I like best, and what has made being a gen­eral coun­sel at NYPR one of my dream jobs, is the envi­ron­ment. The funky fur­ni­ture and col­or­ful, open office space reflect the cre­ative work pro­duced in the NYPR head­quar­ters. And unlike a large law firm, at NYPR one can walk up two flights of stairs and sud­denly be immersed in the fast-paced, excit­ing envi­ron­ment of the “Morn­ing Edi­tion” pro­duc­tion stu­dio or lis­ten to an inspir­ing per­for­mance by a Chi­nese opera singer in the “Sound­check” studio.

If you like win­ning high-profile cases and work­ing at a pres­ti­gious firm, per­haps being a coun­sel for a media out­let isn’t for you. But if you like solv­ing com­pli­cated prob­lems and giv­ing advice to oth­ers in a cre­ative envi­ron­ment, being a coun­sel may be your dream job, too.

P.S. Another thing that made this Princetern­ship so fun was Ivan. He is really chill, super nice, and dis­pels all lawyer stereotypes!