There could have been lots of forced jokes about Elmo and Big Bird. Or embittered references to Juan Williams and Arab stings and hapless leadership that had left everyone in the room feeling defensive and defenseless. But when Gary Knell made his debut at a staff meeting in October as the incoming head of NPR—in the multi-platform era, “National Public Radio” had officially ceased to exist—the prevailing feeling was less of anger or skepticism than relief. Under the watchful eyes of three of NPR’s “founding mothers”—Susan Stamberg couldn’t make it, but Nina Totenberg, Cokie Roberts, and Linda Wertheimer were on hand—Knell, 57 years old, introduced himself to his beleaguered, embattled troops.

Knell (pronounced NELL), who headed Sesame Workshop for the past 12 years, managed almost immediately to fill most of the items on NPR’s lengthy punch card of qualifications. He was a longtime “NPR groupie,” able to drop names like “Melissa Block” and “Neal Conan” effortlessly. He knew his way around the digital world, and Congress, and nonprofits. Though not a journalist, he’d once had journalistic aspirations and seemed to retain journalistic sensibilities. He appeared inspiring, soothing, self-deprecating, politic, and poised, well suited to the spoiled, hypersensitive station managers who control NPR’s destiny and the funders who bankroll it. All might not have been bright after he spoke that day, but all was at least calm.

Only time will tell whether Knell, who took over NPR in December, will fare better or last longer than his last four predecessors (including two interim C.E.O.’s), who averaged about a year apiece. But given his provenance—he’d been chosen by NPR’s much-maligned board of directors, which is controlled by its 268 member stations—he seemed far more impressive than anyone in his audience had any right to expect. “He’s already done well,” said Kevin Klose, perhaps the last NPR leader who was widely respected within his own ranks—two weeks before Knell had actually begun.

Over the past few years, NPR, which to the millions of commuters and housewives and shut-ins who listen to it every day sounds like a sea of tranquility, has undergone nearly constant turbulence. In 2008, facing a bad economy exacerbated by poor management, it underwent the first layoffs in its history, lopping off about 100 heads, and cancelled two of its programs. Having barely recovered from that bloodbath, it has suffered over the past year from what one of its first leaders, Frank Mankiewicz, has called a series of S.I.W.'s—World War II–ese for “self-inflicted wounds.” In peculiarly clumsy fashion, it had fired its most conspicuous, popular black voice, Juan Williams, raising questions about its commitment to free speech in the process. Then it essentially fired the woman who had fired him. Then it fired the woman who had fired the woman who fired him, along with its chief fund-raiser. All this had been embarrassingly public and poorly explained, and from an outfit whose business is explication.

Frustration with impotent, ineffectual, absentee, and alien management at NPR first festered, then boiled over after the latest bit of bloodletting in March: when the chairman of its board, Dave Edwards of WUWM in Milwaukee, came to Washington to meet with staffers, he practically needed bodyguards. Suddenly, those folks who always sound so chipper on the air—a timbre known around NPR as “Minnesota nice”—were livid. “I don’t know if you realize it, but you’re up against some of the sharpest political minds in the country,” Peter Overby, the NPR reporter whose beat is power and money, lectured Edwards, referring to NPR’s right-wing detractors, the ones who are perpetually calling to cut off its federal dollars. “They’re using NPR as a fund-raising tool and a way to mobilize their base. This is a long battle, and it’s not going to go away. So my question is, do you and the board think you’re up to this fight?”