Richard D. Heffner

Richard D. Heffner was a broadcaster, historian and educator who hosted the public television program The Open Mind for more than 50 years.

Heffner also helped to establish WNET, New York City’s first public broadcasting station, and was its first general manager.

The Open Mind, a public affairs program that debuted in 1956, earned respect for its coverage of challenging and in-depth discussion with top newsmakers, including Elie Wiesel, Margaret Mead, William F. Buckley Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Gloria Steinem, Ed Koch, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Past broadcasts of the program are available online at thirteen.org/openmind/browse.

A native of New York City, Heffner earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from Columbia University, where he worked at the campus radio station. After a brief teaching stint at Sarah Lawrence University, he began a career in radio and, eventually, television. For a time, he also had his own communciations consulting firm, Richard Heffner Associates.

In addition to his work in television, Heffner achieved recogniiton as author of the 1952 book A Documentary History of the United States. He was also a professor at Rutgers University for more than four decades.

In 1974, at the request of Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America,  Heffner became chairman of the association’s Classifications and Ratings Administration, which assigned ratings — at the time, G, PG, R and X — to hundreds of films each year. He remained in the position, which held tremendous influence in the movie industry, for 20 years. During his tenure, the board was regarded as tougher on violence in films and less strict regarding sex. It also introduced two new ratings — PG-13 and NC-17.

Heffner died December 16, 2013. He was 88.