Robert Ferrante, a broadcast executive who oversaw the overhaul and growth of National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” during the 1990s, bolstering its news operation and enlisting producer Ira Glass and humorist David Sedaris for commentary and features, died in Cambridge, Mass.

In a journalism career that spanned more than five decades, Mr. Ferrante reported live from Dallas when nightclub owner Jack Ruby killed presumed presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963; directed TV coverage of the riots outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago; and helped create innovative public affairs programs in the 1970s for Boston’s public television station, WGBH.