By all accounts, the two women worked well together. While Schiller devoted her attention to reorganizing NPR’s management and successfully closing a budget gap, Weiss concentrated on building audiences for NPR’s audio programs and online news.
This WP article may be the best we’ll get in explaining the abrupt departure of Ellen Weiss from NPR. While I have waxed about the pressures facing the changing NPR system, ultimately it looks like a much more common concern brought an unfortunate end to a talented leader: human communication problems.