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.
-
Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman — the second in command at the State Department — reflects on U.S.-China relations as she gets ready to retire.
-
Niger's military has announced a coup. A judge put a plea deal in the Hunter Biden case on hold. New York City took in more than 90,000 migrants and asylum-seekers in the last year.
-
Paris officials would have stopped you from swimming in the Seine because they said it was too dirty. In 2025, folks will be able to swim at three places, due to a $1.6 billion restoration project.
-
A mural in Washington, D.C. depicts Americans wrongfully detained abroad and fades with time to represent passing days. Neda Sharghi's brother Emad imprisoned in Iran is one of those faces.
-
The Biden administration is seeking to require insurance companies to beef up coverage of mental health services. NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with White House adviser Neera Tanden.
-
The Federal Reserve is expected to raise its benchmark lending rate to the highest level in 22 years after a year of successive hikes aimed at fighting inflation.
-
President Biden's dog, a German Shepherd named Commander, has been biting Secret Service agents. It's their second canine who has done this. The White House says he'll get more training.
-
A federal judge has blocked the Biden administration's new rules for asylum-seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border. But the judge also put his ruling on hold, giving the administration a chance to appeal.
-
President Biden has endorsed plans he says will get insurance to pay for mental health care more often.
-
The Fed is expected to raise interest rate again. The Biden administration wants insurance companies to expand mental health coverage. The U.S. plays the Netherlands in the Women's World Cup.