One listener in particular is responsible for the new mood: Joan B. Kroc, the widow of Ray A. Kroc, the man who built the McDonald's chain. Just before her death in 2003, she arranged to leave NPR a gift of about $230 million. That was bigger than anyone at NPR could ever have imagined — so big that the interest alone has paid for most of those new jobs. Since the gift was announced, in November 2003, nothing at NPR has been quite the same.
