Erin Day

Erin Day, Director of Journalism for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, died on January 27, 2026 in Washington, DC, four months after her cancer diagnosis. Day spent two decades at CPB, managing tens of millions of dollars in grants to national producers such as PBS News Hour, FRONTLINE, National Public Radio, American Public Media, and PRX The World, as well as local newsrooms serving Americans across the country. She guided the establishment of many significant journalism collaborations, including the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration of rural stations along the Rocky Mountains, and the Gulf States Newsroom, a partnership between WBHM in Birmingham, WWNO in New Orleans, WRKF in Baton Rouge, Mississippi Public Broadcasting, and NPR. Day helped stand up the Editorial Integrity and Leadership Initiative, which provided support and training for some of the nation's brightest newsroom leaders. She also managed grants to public television programs such as Alexander Hamilton, Latin Music USA, Looking for Lincoln, and We Shall Remain, in addition to live performance shows at the White House and the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize. Her grantees have gone on to receive Edward R. Murrow Awards, Walter Cronkite Awards for Excellence in Journalism, Emmy Awards, and other industry accolades.
Day was also an international affairs expert, previously serving as an economic sanctions advisor for the US Navy, a legislative director for US Senator Harlan Mathews, and a foreign policy analyst for the Congressional Research Service. In the 1980s, she did international work for several years in Lagos, Nigeria, where her mother was a cultural attaché at the US Embassy.
Born in Los Angeles, California, Day grew up with her younger brother Matthew in San Mateo, where her father was an aerospace engineer and her mother worked in advertising. As a teenager she moved to Devonshire, England and eventually attended Dartington Hall, where she made lifelong friends. She is survived by an aunt, cousins, her godmother and goddaughters. No public service is planned at this time. In lieu of flowers, donations honoring Day's commitment to public radio can be made to 88.5 WAMU [wamu.org] at American University.