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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As protests intensify in Iran over the arrest and death in custody of a 22-year-old woman, the country's top diplomat promises an investigation into what happened but downplays the demonstrations. -
In rural Wardak province, some Afghans celebrated the return of the Taliban. One year later, here's what they want from the new government. -
One year ago, the Taliban raised their white flag over Afghanistan's capital for the second time. NPR toured the country and spoke to the Taliban and residents about what has happened since. -
Once a mortal threat, the Taliban have let Afghanistan's leading news channel stand. But every day is a struggle for the journalists who still work there. -
When the Taliban reclaimed Kabul last August, the U.S.-backed government collapsed and hundreds of thousands of Afghans fled the country. Former president Hamid Karzai was not one of them. -
On the day a U.S. drone strike killed the leader of al-Qaida in Afghanistan, NPR sat down for an interview with the man in charge of the country's defense. -
Philip Connors deeply loves the forest he has watched over every summer for the past 20 years. But it was a different forest two decades ago, and will be even more changed once the flames die down. -
Foreign Minister Joseph Wu tells NPR about the threat the island faces from China, and how the U.S. is helping Taiwan's military prepare. -
NPR asked 36 people in Democratic-leaning Gwinnett County and Republican-leaning Forsyth County, Ga., what's on their minds heading into the midterms. Their answers are relevant to the entire country. -
The Russians are pulling some troops away from Ukraine's capital Kyiv. But what exactly does this mean? U.S. and Ukrainian officials suspect Moscow may just be pausing before another big offensive.
