Steve Inskeep
Steve Inskeep is a host of NPR's Morning Edition, as well as NPR's morning news podcast Up First.
Known for interviews with presidents and Congressional leaders, Inskeep has a passion for stories of the less famous: Pennsylvania truck drivers, Kentucky coal miners, U.S.-Mexico border detainees, Yemeni refugees, California firefighters, American soldiers.
Since joining Morning Edition in 2004, Inskeep has hosted the program from New Orleans, Detroit, San Francisco, Cairo, and Beijing; investigated Iraqi police in Baghdad; and received a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for "The Price of African Oil," on conflict in Nigeria. He has taken listeners on a 2,428-mile journey along the U.S.-Mexico border, and 2,700 miles across North Africa. He is a repeat visitor to Iran and has covered wars in Syria and Yemen.
Inskeep says Morning Edition works to "slow down the news," making sense of fast-moving events. A prime example came during the 2008 Presidential campaign, when Inskeep and NPR's Michele Norris conducted "The York Project," groundbreaking conversations about race, which received an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for excellence.
Inskeep was hired by NPR in 1996. His first full-time assignment was the 1996 presidential primary in New Hampshire. He went on to cover the Pentagon, the Senate, and the 2000 presidential campaign of George W. Bush. After the Sept. 11 attacks, he covered the war in Afghanistan, turmoil in Pakistan, and the war in Iraq. In 2003, he received a National Headliner Award for investigating a military raid gone wrong in Afghanistan. He has twice been part of NPR News teams awarded the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for coverage of Iraq.
On days of bad news, Inskeep is inspired by the Langston Hughes book, Laughing to Keep From Crying. Of hosting Morning Edition during the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession, he told Nuvo magazine when "the whole world seemed to be falling apart, it was especially important for me ... to be amused, even if I had to be cynically amused, about the things that were going wrong. Laughter is a sign that you're not defeated."
Inskeep is the author of Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi, a 2011 book on one of the world's great megacities. He is also author of Jacksonland, a history of President Andrew Jackson's long-running conflict with John Ross, a Cherokee chief who resisted the removal of Indians from the eastern United States in the 1830s.
He has been a guest on numerous TV programs including ABC's This Week, NBC's Meet the Press, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports, CNN's Inside Politics and the PBS Newshour. He has written for publications including The New York Times, Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic.
A native of Carmel, Indiana, Inskeep is a graduate of Morehead State University in Kentucky.
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The U.S. is in another COVID surge, due to the omicron variant. Holiday travelers find hundreds of flights are canceled. South Africa begins a week of mourning for the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
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President Biden addresses the Omicron variant in a speech Tuesday. Some health officials say Biden has fallen short on COVID testing. The Pentagon is updating its policies on extremism in its ranks.
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Two consecutive years of escalating gun violence and homicides leave big cities and small towns reeling as they search for ways to regain control of a problem with many causes.
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The fiddler, singer and songwriter's new Christmas album takes a realistic measure of the season.
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First projections of the variant's impact find a range of possibilities, from just a relatively small acceleration of the current trajectory to a big new wave that could rival last winter's surge.
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How bad could the pandemic get this winter because of the omicron variant? One of President Biden's key agenda items is stalled. The FDA relaxes restrictions on access to abortion pill by mail.
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The FDA is relaxing controversial restrictions on a heavily regulated medication used to induce abortions, easing access to the drug at a time when abortion rights are being restricted nationwide.
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A federal judge has overturned the $4.5 billion settlement between Purdue Pharma, which makes OxyContin, and the Sackler family, that would have protected the family from litigation of their own.
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In three weeks, the latest coronavirus variant has spread to at least 36 U.S. states. Colleges are among the institutions taking steps to avoid new outbreaks.
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The Fed is moving toward raising interest rates next year. The latest coronavirus variant is proving to be highly transmissible. We examine the impact of Kentucky's tornadoes on children.
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A D.C. official is suing two extremist groups for the attack on the U.S. Capitol. The U.S. marks another sobering pandemic milestone. President Biden heads to Kentucky to survey tornado damage.
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Pfizer's analysis shows that the drug is good at keeping people at high risk of COVID-19 from getting worse. The pill is called Paxlovid.