He was a member of the founding board of NPR and the author of its original "mission statement," the National Public Radio Purposes.

"[1] These twice-a-day radio programs produced by WHA brought educators from the University of Wisconsin into isolated country schools throughout the state.

"[3][4] Siemering's appreciation of radio increased during his high school years as he witnessed first-hand the importance of WHA's daily farm program while working summers baling hay and harvesting grain.

[1][3] He changed from listener to active participant when he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and worked his way through school at WHA as a board operator, announcer, and newscaster.

"[1][5] In 1963, William Siemering became the first professional general manager of WBFO, the student radio station at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo.

Live coverage continued well into the night, during which WBFO interviewed student radicals, campus administrators, city officials and the police.

"[1][3][6][7] The success of the strike coverage led Siemering to create This is Radio!, a WBFO magazine show that was later co-hosted by Terry Gross and served as a model for Fresh Air.

Shortly upon his arrival in 1963, Siemering canvassed the community and produced a radio series titled To be Negro, but the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968 prompted a different approach.

After meetings during which blacks aired their grievances regarding the Media, Siemering established a satellite station in the heart of the city.

[7][6] They decided that public radio needed a distinctive daily program that would attract audiences and provide the new network with a unique identity.

The board assigned the task of writing the Mission and Goals statement, the National Public Radio Purposes, to William Siemering.

at WBFO, he wanted a flexible magazine format that would mix news, art and culture in a fashion that would be engaging, creative and conversational.

It opened with the quiet, conversational and unscripted voice of its first host, Robert Conley, followed by a first-person account of heroin addiction, an interview with an enterprising barber in Iowa, and a dramatic and evocative 20-minute sound montage of the massive anti-war demonstration that gripped Washington, D.C., earlier that day.

The opportunity offered him considerable autonomy in developing programs, and, because Moorhead was located on Minnesota's western border with North Dakota, it represented something of a return to his rural roots.

KCCM even set up a listening post at a local mall where citizens could voice their opinions on current issues and interact with public officials.

He helped develop a successful local show, Fresh Air, hosted by Terry Gross, into the third most listened program on NPR and created Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coanne.

Money was tight during this period so this funding provided key support for him to do further work in developing community radio for emerging democracies.

[16] Siemering continued his collaboration with the Open Society Institute through 2003 with projects in several eastern European countries, Mongolia, Mozambique as well as South Africa.

These include clarity of purpose, open relationships with stakeholders, a reputation for journalistic integrity and independence, ongoing evaluation of programming, and a sense of ownership by the community[17][18] The other theme was the unrealized potential of radio itself.

Despite the fact that it has extraordinary reach in impoverished and marginalized regions with high illiteracy,[19] radio was often overlooked by donors and development organizations.

In the latter, DRP partnered with Search for Common Ground and others to help develop independent media in a country devastated by a 10-year civil war.

In turn, the Independent Radio Network played a major role in an exceptionally transparent and peaceful national election in 2007.

[20] Recent efforts include projects on best practices for agriculture in response to climate change in Cameroon, Cape Verde, Rwanda and Zambia, and on youth and reproductive health in Malawi.

[12]Because radio is so flexible and personal, it will be here, as long as we continue to make it essential ... Our raw materials are ideas, culture, community, news and interesting people.

[3]In one of the histories that's been written about NPR, they said that my colleagues on the executive level had 'disdain' for me when they saw who I had been hiring, because I thought that anyone could learn radio because I had worked in the ghetto and with students.

The total service should be trustworthy, enhance intellectual development, expand knowledge, deepen aural esthetic enjoyment, increase the pleasure of living in a pluralistic society and result in a service to listeners which makes them more responsive, informed human beings and intelligent responsible citizens of their communities and the world.

It would not substitute superficial blandness for genuine diversity of regions, values, and cultural and ethnic minorities which comprise American society; it would speak with many voices and many dialects.

National Public Radio will not regard its audience as a 'market' or in terms of its disposable income, but as curious, complex individuals who are looking for some understanding, meaning and joy in the human experience.

He attacked exactly those areas of conflict from which most managers fled – race, class, the division between rich and poor, powerful and weak.We are the products of seeds of thinking and action planted by Mr. Siemering.

The dream job came with the astounding privilege of learning from Terry Gross, Danny Miller, Dave Davies, Tia O'Brien, Carol Anne Clark Kelly, and Nick Peters.