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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Steve Inskeep speaks with superstar pianist Lang Lang about his new album, Piano Book, a reexamination of the classical music repertory he learned as child. -
In the French city of Toulouse, police have a suspect in Monday's killing of three Jewish schoolchildren and a rabbi.
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Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, the alleged shooter in last week's attacks on Afghan civilians, has been transferred to a military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. A complicated picture of his life — in the Army and back home near Tacoma, Wash. — is still emerging.
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Madeleine Peyroux gained fame for sounding like Billie Holliday and putting an idosyncratic touch on old standards. This time, she interprets more recent material (Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan).
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To Guy Davis, the stories behind Southern blues are as important as the familiar music that defines the genre. His new CD, Skunkmello is full of legendary tales, old and new.
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Scott Joplin was once among America's most popular songwriters. The son of a former slave, his Ragtime music swept the nation more than 100 years ago. -
Miles Davis is among the new inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For most of his career, the great jazz trumpeter played music that had very little to do with rock 'n' roll. But his influence on popular music is still being felt today.
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The guest list of Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz, in its 26th year, reads like a who's who of jazz music, from Tony Bennett, Henry Mancini and Dave Brubeck to Ray Charles and Dizzy Gillespie. And McPartland, now 87, has no plans of slowing down. -
Dr. John is more than just a legendary blues pianist. He's a genuine New Orleans character — a little swig of Bourbon Street — straight out of central casting. Dr. John, a.k.a. Mac Rebennack talks with Co-host Steve Inskeep about his new album Dis Dat or D'Udda.
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Diana Krall is known for her interpretations of old favorites from the American songbook. But her latest release, The Girl in the Other Room, includes newer songs and — for the first time — her own music. She talks about her craft with NPR's Steve Inskeep.
