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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"Every day, you can see an increase in the Taliban's presence," an Afghan who worked with the U.S. tells NPR. "What am I going to do after September? ... Am I going to even be alive by December?" -
The president is facing calls from some in his party to exert more influence on Israel, but the former Mideast envoy says Hamas rocket fire is "what's guiding him probably more than anything else." -
Stanley Martin wants to rethink Rochester police — a radical new plan to abolish the police gradually. Others also talk about "reimagining" police, though they mean the same word very differently. -
Dr. Sumit Ray, critical care chief at a New Delhi hospital, is on the front lines of India's growing COVID-19 crisis. "As a system in different parts of the country, we have collapsed," he says. -
Boehner was the Republican speaker of the House during much of the Obama presidency. His new memoir recounts his time leading House Republicans — even if that meant doing things he personally opposed. -
Iranian authorities first imprisoned Emad Shargi, a U.S. citizen, in 2018. Shargi, a businessman, was released from prison, then rearrested in 2020. His family hopes that speaking out may help him. -
Iran and the U.S. are holding indirect talks on restarting the 2015 nuclear deal. Robert Malley, the Biden administration special envoy to Iran, says a deal would be in the interest of all Americans. -
Colorado gunman faces ten murder charges. After that shooting, Biden urged immediate action from the Senate on gun bills. Education Department releases data on remote learning and school reopenings.
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Ten people were killed when a gunman opened fire at a Colorado supermarket. Questions are raised about AstraZeneca's vaccine data. Biden team's next legislative push would boost infrastructure.
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Bishop Reginald T. Jackson and Supervisor Christy Jackson say church-led voting goes back to the Jim Crow era.
