Susan Stamberg
Nationally renowned broadcast journalist Susan Stamberg is a special correspondent for NPR.
Stamberg is the first woman to anchor a national nightly news program, and has won every major award in broadcasting. She has been inducted into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame and the Radio Hall of Fame. An NPR "founding mother," Stamberg has been on staff since the network began in 1971.
Beginning in 1972, Stamberg served as co-host of NPR's award-winning newsmagazine All Things Considered for 14 years. She then hosted Weekend Edition Sunday, and now reports on cultural issues for Morning Edition and Weekend Edition Saturday.
One of the most popular broadcasters in public radio, Stamberg is well known for her conversational style, intelligence, and knack for finding an interesting story. Her interviewing has been called "fresh," "friendly, down-to-earth," and (by novelist E.L. Doctorow) "the closest thing to an enlightened humanist on the radio." Her thousands of interviews include conversations with Laura Bush, Billy Crystal, Rosa Parks, Dave Brubeck, and Luciano Pavarotti.
Prior to joining NPR, she served as producer, program director, and general manager of NPR Member Station WAMU-FM/Washington, DC. Stamberg is the author of two books, and co-editor of a third. Talk: NPR's Susan Stamberg Considers All Things, chronicles her two decades with NPR. Her first book, Every Night at Five: Susan Stamberg's All Things Considered Book, was published in 1982 by Pantheon. Stamberg also co-edited The Wedding Cake in the Middle of the Road, published in 1992 by W. W. Norton. That collection grew out of a series of stories Stamberg commissioned for Weekend Edition Sunday.
In addition to her Hall of Fame inductions, other recognitions include the Armstrong and duPont Awards, the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The Ohio State University's Golden Anniversary Director's Award, and the Distinguished Broadcaster Award from the American Women in Radio and Television.
A native of New York City, Stamberg earned a bachelor's degree from Barnard College, and has been awarded numerous honorary degrees including a Doctor of Humane Letters from Dartmouth College. She is a Fellow of Silliman College, Yale University, and has served on the boards of the PEN/Faulkner Fiction Award Foundation and the National Arts Journalism Program based at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Stamberg has hosted a number of series on PBS, moderated three Fred Rogers television specials for adults, served as commentator, guest or co-host on various commercial TV programs, and appeared as a narrator in performance with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra. Her voice appeared on Broadway in the Wendy Wasserstein play An American Daughter.
Her late husband Louis Stamberg had his career with the State Department's agency for international development. Her son, Josh Stamberg, an actor, appears in various television series, films, and plays.
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An exhibition in Los Angeles features some 200 works of news-inspired art, dating back to the 1960s. Many of the images are disturbing; "Art is more than a pretty picture," says curator Arpad Kovacs. -
All Things Considered announces the winners in the revived listener contest called "Commercials for Nicer Living Project." It's a reprise of an early item on this program, in which we asked listeners to tell us some of the things that make life just a little bit better — things that money can't buy. We chose our favorites and produced them as radio commercials.
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"Sight isn't the only pathway to understand art," says Carol Wilson of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. There, specially trained docents lead tours using sound, description — and even touch. -
Hollywood insiders mourn the death of 101-year-old Charles Aidikoff, who ran one of the most popular small, private screening rooms in Los Angeles.
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The Smithsonian show finds links between a 15th-century Ming dynasty dish and a 20th-century Rothko painting. Curator Jan Stuart says, "You almost weep with beauty of red." -
Henri Matisse and Richard Diebenkorn never met in real life, but a new exhibit feels like a conversation between the two artists. Across decades and continents, Matisse influenced Deibenkorn's work.
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It's tradition: Every year, Susan Stamberg sneaks her mother-in-law's cranberry relish recipe onto the air. To be honest, we've given her a hard time about it, and now she's seeking redemption. -
Turner appears in a new production of The Year of Magical Thinking, based on Didion's 2005 memoir. In one year, Didion's daughter fell into a coma and her husband of 40 years had a fatal heart attack. -
The nearly 80-year-old artist has written a book called A History of Pictures. It's chock-full of art he has loved looking at and includes one painter he credits with inventing Hollywood lighting. -
A wealthy American living in Paris, Brooks had the freedom to paint whatever and however she wanted. In a subtle but powerful palette, she depicted androgynous women and melancholy nudes.
