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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Rock & Roll Hall of Famer John Mellencamp returns with his first album of original songs in five years, Strictly a One-Eyed Jack. -
Senate Democrats plow ahead with a showdown over the filibuster and voting rights. Details emerge about the hostage taking at a Texas synagogue. Efforts continue to revive the Iran nuclear deal.
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Coronavirus cases are still at pandemic highs with more than 800,000 new cases reported daily. But there are signs this surge may begin to abate soon, and some places may already be past their peak.
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On this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a conversation about how the city thought there would be riots during the March on Washington. Story originally aired on Aug. 28, 2008 on Morning Edition.
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The FBI has identified the British man it says took hostages at a Texas synagogue. The pace of omicron infections may be subsiding. Britain's prime minister is fighting for his political life.
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The federal government has charged Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers, and 10 others with seditious conspiracy in the most serious case to emerge from its probe into the Capitol attack.
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Supreme Court delivers two key decisions on vaccine rules. The Oath Keepers leader is charged with conspiracy in the Jan. 6 riot. Australia's revokes tennis star Novak Djokovic's visa again.
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Researchers say signs are emerging that the omicron surge may have begun to peak in some parts of the country, and could peak nationally quickly. Others are more cautious.
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The U.S. hits another COVID record. NATO officials meet with a Russian delegation to try to prevent another invasion of Ukraine. Pressed on election lies, ex-President Trump cuts NPR interview short.
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In the U.S., more people are hospitalized for COVID-19 than at any other point in the pandemic. The omicron variant has slammed ERs, but doctors say this surge feels different than earlier ones.
