Linda Wertheimer
As NPR's senior national correspondent, Linda Wertheimer travels the country and the globe for NPR News, bringing her unique insights and wealth of experience to bear on the day's top news stories.
A respected leader in media and a beloved figure to listeners who have followed her three-decade-long NPR career, Wertheimer provides clear-eyed analysis and thoughtful reporting on all NPR News programs.
Before taking the senior national correspondent post in 2002, Wertheimer spent 13 years hosting of NPR's news magazine All Things Considered. During that time, Wertheimer helped build the afternoon news program's audience to record levels. The show grew from six million listeners in 1989 to nearly 10 million listeners by spring of 2001, making it one of the top afternoon drive-time, news radio programs in the country. Wertheimer's influence on All Things Considered — and, by extension, all of public radio — has been profound.
She joined NPR at the network's inception, and served as All Things Considered's first director starting with its debut on May 3, 1971. In the more than 40 years since, she has served NPR in a variety of roles including reporter and host.
From 1974 to 1989, Wertheimer provided highly praised and award-winning coverage of national politics and Congress for NPR, serving as its congressional and then national political correspondent. Wertheimer traveled the country with major presidential candidates, covered state presidential primaries and the general elections, and regularly reported from Congress on the major events of the day — from the Watergate impeachment hearings to the Reagan Revolution to historic tax reform legislation to the Iran-Contra affair. During this period, Wertheimer covered four presidential and eight congressional elections for NPR.
In 1976, Wertheimer became the first woman to anchor network coverage of a presidential nomination convention and of election night. Over her career at NPR, she has anchored ten presidential nomination conventions and 12 election nights.
Wertheimer is the first person to broadcast live from inside the United States Senate chamber. Her 37 days of live coverage of the Senate Panama Canal Treaty debates won her a special Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University award.
In 1995, Wertheimer shared in an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton Award given to NPR for its coverage of the first 100 days of the 104th Congress, the period that followed the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress.
Wertheimer has received numerous other journalism awards, including awards from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for her anchoring of The Iran-Contra Affair: A Special Report, a series of 41 half-hour programs on the Iran-Contra congressional hearings, from American Women in Radio/TV for her story Illegal Abortion, and from the American Legion for NPR's coverage of the Panama Treaty debates.
in 1997, Wertheimer was named one of the top 50 journalists in Washington by Washingtonian magazine and in 1998 as one of America's 200 most influential women by Vanity Fair.
A graduate of Wellesley College, Wertheimer received its highest alumni honor in 1985, the Distinguished Alumna Achievement Award. Wertheimer holds honorary degrees from Colby College, Wheaton College, and Illinois Wesleyan University.
Prior to joining NPR, Wertheimer worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation in London and for WCBS Radio in New York.
Her 1995 book, Listening to America: Twenty-five Years in the Life of a Nation as Heard on National Public Radio, published by Houghton Mifflin, celebrates NPR's history.
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Father Paul Scalia, son of the late Supreme Court justice, delivered a homily at Saturday's traditional Catholic funeral mass. NPR's Ron Elving tells Linda Wertheimer about the ceremony.
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The airstrike killed at least 31 people in a hospital in the Afghan town. Gen. John Campbell briefed reporters Wednesday on the Oct. 3 bombing.
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The pope celebrated Mass before a huge crowd in Revolution Square in Havana. His visit is intended to show solidarity with Cuba's long-suffering Catholic Church.
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Doe just released A Year in the Wilderness, and recently sat down in the studio to play a few of his new songs. In between performances, he talks about the mythic qualities of the American West, as well as the differences between song lyrics and poetry.
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The Mountain Goats' early albums were recorded on a boombox and released on cassette tapes. While their production values have changed, their evocative, pocket-narrative lyrics are the same. Members of the band join Linda Wertheimer for an interview and performance.
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British musician PJ Harvey relied on basic home-recording techniques and spare instrumentation for the CD Uh Huh Her. She tells NPR's Linda Wertheimer this music is a bit autobiographical, too.
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Luciano Pavarotti's former manager, Herbert Breslin, and classical music critic Anne Midgette have written The King and I, a biography of the legendary tenor. NPR's Linda Wertheimer talks to the authors about Pavarotti's life and music.
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NPR's Linda Wertheimer marks Sunday's semi-annual changing of the clocks with Annoying Music man Jim Nayder.
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NPR's Linda Wertheimer talks with the members of Anonymous 4 — an a cappella singing group — about their latest CD: American Angels: Songs of Hope, Redemption, & Glory. Unlike their earlier albums, this album focuses on 18th century American spirituals and shape-note music.
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Jesse Malin was a punk rocker at age 12, and went on to front the group D Generation, which disbanded in 1999. But his new CD, The Fine Art of Self Destruction sounds more like Bruce Springsteen than Johnny Rotten. NPR's Linda Wertheimer talks with Malin.