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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Guest host Susan Stamberg talks with NPR's Cokie Roberts for Morning Edition's weekly political chat.
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Guest host Susan Stamberg speaks with Marianne Bertrand, co-author of an experiment testing employer discrimination. The study used first and last names perceived to sound like an African-American name or a Caucasian name on resumes with similar education and skills. The researchers found that the names perceived to be Caucasian were 50-percent more likely to be called back.
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Starting Dec. 16, Morning Edition premieres its first original radio play, "I'd Rather Eat Pants." The five-act play, starring Edward Asner and Anne Meara, is a comic tale of an elderly couple's cross-country trek on a young slacker's motorcycle. They're in search of fame, fortune and a whole lot more. NPR's Bob Edwards and Susan Stamberg have cameo roles.
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Choosing a holiday gift can be a challenge and selecting an appropriate gift book can be especially difficult. NPR's Susan Stamberg talks with independent bookstore owners and gets their suggestions for adult and children's titles this holiday season.
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NPR's Susan Stamberg continues her Tuesday series on peace by talking to Yoko Ono about her lifelong efforts to promote peace. As a little girl during World War Two, Ono spent time in Tokyo bomb shelters during Allied air raids. Today, she continues the peace activism that she and her late husband, John Lennon, were involved in during his lifetime. This year, Ono started a new prize called the Lennon-Oko Grant for Peace an award for artists who live in areas where there's conflict.
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NPR Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg begins a month-long series on peace. In the part one of the series, people from around the country are asked about where they go to find their own personal peace in these trying times.
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As a brew, coffee has been around for centuries. In this country, taking a break to drink it happened a bit more recently. NPR Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg traces the history of the coffee break, as part of the Present at the Creation series.
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Every Thanksgiving season, Susan Stamberg shares her classic family recipe for cranberry relish. This year, some NPR fans share their own relish rituals, reviews and serving suggestions.
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NPR Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg talks with Jeff West, director of the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas. The museum is in the former Texas School Book Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President Kennedy in 1963. West talks about the museum's purpose, and about a mysterious white x that's periodically painted on the road where Kennedy was shot.
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In January 1940, Irving Berlin, the most popular songwriter in America, raced into his office and asked his musical secretary to take down a new song. NPR's Susan Stamberg reports on the history of "White Christmas," a song Berlin said was the best he — or anyone — ever wrote.