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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There's been a firefight at the northern gate at the airport in the Afghan capital Kabul. President Biden insists evacuations are picking up speed. New COVID-19 cases hit a high on Friday.
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A federal trial involving disgraced singer R. Kelly has begun in a Brooklyn courtroom. The charges against Kelly include sexual exploitation of a child, bribery, kidnapping and racketeering.
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The Taliban are back in power in Afghanistan. What does it mean for the Afghan people? In the 90s, when last they ruled, it was a brutal, utterly ruthless regime that terrorized its people.
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The Taliban try to convince the world they've changed. For thousands trying to get out of Afghanistan, the focus is on the airport. Opening statements will begin in the criminal trial of R. Kelly.
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The United States inadvertently took on a mission to democratize Afghanistan and instead undermined democracy at home, as unpopular wars tend to do.
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The athlete from Belarus who fled to Poland after a dispute with her coaches at the Tokyo Olympics has been explaining why she decided not to return home.
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Florida's school districts consider whether to require masks. The latest data on a recovering job market is released Friday. A sprinter from Belarus, who fled the Olympics, is now in Poland.
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A new report from New York's attorney general alleges that Gov. Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women and violated federal and state laws.
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Florida leads the nation in COVID-19 infections and has seen a seven-fold increase of cases in the past six weeks. Hospitals say they're seeing more young people than before, some with severe cases.
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The latest coronavirus surge is ratcheting up fears about the toll, and intensifying pressure to get more people vaccinated, wearing masks and perhaps start offering booster shots.