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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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. -
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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The Rev. Jesse Jackson and Josie Johnson reflect on the civil rights movement and the protests following the death of George Floyd. "We're not going to give up. We're not going to stop," Jackson says.
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Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump campaigned in Florida this week. NPR attended two rallies — one for her, one for him — that made clear just how different these candidates are.
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Four years ago, Wanda Kos voted for Barack Obama. Now, she says, she's on the fence. And her decision has taken on an added layer since 2008: Her son just joined the Army, so she'll be casting a ballot for his commander in chief.
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The biggest single issue for Florida nurse practitioner Sofia Martinez is her support of the DREAM Act. But she plans to vote for Republican Mitt Romney, who has said he would veto the measure. Her view might seem full of contradictions, but that's common among voters in Hillsborough County, as they consider complex issues.
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The biggest single issue for Florida nurse practitioner Sofia Martinez is her support of the DREAM Act. But she plans to vote for Republican Mitt Romney, who has said he would veto the measure. Her view might seem full of contradictions, but that's common among voters in Hillsborough County, as they consider complex issues.
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The Parkesdale Market, located on a key highway in the swing state of Florida, attracts more than just hungry customers. The Meeks family, which runs the farmers market, talks about their visits from presidential candidates past and what concerns them in this election year.
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The economy is the central issue in this fall's campaign. But when you talk with people in Hillsborough County, a key swing area that includes Tampa, they link the economy to other issues, including race. In the diverse county, residents see race affecting them in different ways.
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In Hillsborough County, the way people voted in 2008 — for or against President Obama — signals their perception of everything that's happened since and, usually, the way they intend to vote. In this swing county hit hard by the financial crisis, the rarest voter is a person who's changed his mind.
