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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One challenge facing John Kerry in his new role as climate envoy to President-elect Joe Biden will be to convince other governments the U.S. will abide by its commitments.
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Nurses are taking to social media, describing grim hospital scenes and imploring Americans to stay safe as hospitals reach capacity limits. "We're seeing the worst of the worst," says one nurse.
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Democrats didn't have the big wins they expected in congressional races. Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez says Democrats are working to expand the electorate for Georgia's Senate runoffs.
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But Dr. Francis Collins says it's unlikely a vaccine will be approved before late November. He also urges people to trust health experts like Anthony Fauci who "don't really have an ax to grind."
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Both the Trump and Biden campaigns are competing for voters in key swing states like Pennsylvania. But is either of the major parties trying to engage Black voters in cities like Pittsburgh?
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In an interview with NPR, Powell says it may take years before the economy has fully recovered. He says practicing social distancing and wearing masks is essential for the economy to rebound.
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Elizabeth Neumann, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, says the Trump administration is creating the conditions for domestic extremism to flourish in the U.S.
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Alisha Morris, a Kansas theater teacher, created a database of COVID-19 cases in schools. Now maintained by the National Education Association, it shares data that some schools prefer to keep quiet.
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Ashtabula County, Ohio, voted for Barack Obama in 2012, then for Donald Trump. New political leaders there hope a younger generation of voters will help decide the 2020 presidential election.
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NPR's Steve Inskeep talks with Barbara Ferrer, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, about how the county has become a hotspot.