Family Communications Keeps Rogers' Spirit Alive

Publication: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Author: Rob Owen
Date: February 28, 2003

FAMILY COMMUNICATIONS KEEPS ROGERS’ SPIRIT ALIVE

By Rob Owen
Post-Gazette TV Editor

The staff of Family Communications Inc., the company founded in 1971 by Fred Rogers, has always been fiercely protective of their boss, and that loyalty extended into his final days.

FCI public relations director David Newell said the dozen or so FCI staffers began preparing for Rogers’ death about a week ago, putting together press kits and preparing material for the company’s Web site – www.fci.org – that was posted early yesterday.

“We did as much as we could in as little time as we had,” Newell said yesterday morning, taking a break in WQED’s lobby after a spree of live television interviews, including one with Katie Couric of NBC’s “Today” show. “We wanted to get together and have materials ready as best we could. We wanted to prepare in some way for the worst.”

It was not an easy task...

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