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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In an interview with NPR, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the top U.S. diplomat, warns of the further devastation of Ukrainian cities. -
Former Attorney General William Barr spoke with NPR about his new memoir, former President Trump's election lies and why he thinks Trump shouldn't try to return to the White House. -
A senior U.S. military official said something was detected in recent days that sharply heightened concern that an invasion is coming. -
The former president blasted Republicans who have crossed him and kept up repeated election lies in an NPR interview.
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The fiddler, singer and songwriter's new Christmas album takes a realistic measure of the season. -
In his new memoir, From Staircase to Stage, rapper Raekwon recalls watching as that relatively serene New York City neighborhood rapidly declined, succumbing to the wildfires of the crack epidemic. -
U.S. border agents are allowing some Haitian migrants into the country on a temporary basis, while others are being deported or heading back over the border to Mexico. -
Afghans are trying to reach Pakistan via the frontier near the Khyber Pass, but Pakistan is wary of more refugees. Cargo trucks are backed up for miles, waiting to deliver goods into Afghanistan. -
Said Noor was 11 in 2001, growing up in an Afghan village. He later served as a U.S. Army interpreter, moved to Texas and became a U.S. citizen. Then he had to help rescue his family from the Taliban. -
As part of NPR's 50th anniversary, we're looking back at other cultural milestones of 1971. That year The Doors released their final album L.A. Woman — and the band's lead singer Jim Morrison died.
