Pam Fessler
Pam Fessler is a correspondent on NPR's National Desk, where she covers poverty, philanthropy, and voting issues.
In her reporting at NPR, Fessler does stories on homelessness, hunger, affordable housing, and income inequality. She reports on what non-profit groups, the government, and others are doing to reduce poverty and how those efforts are working. Her poverty reporting was recognized with a 2011 First Place National Headliner Award.
Fessler also covers elections and voting, including efforts to make voting more accessible, accurate, and secure. She has done countless stories on everything from the debate over state voter identification laws to Russian hacking attempts and long lines at the polls.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Fessler became NPR's first Homeland Security correspondent. For seven years, she reported on efforts to tighten security at ports, airports, and borders, and the debate over the impact on privacy and civil rights. She also reported on the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, The 9/11 Commission Report, Social Security, and the Census. Fessler was one of NPR's White House reporters during the Clinton and Bush administrations.
Before becoming a correspondent, Fessler was the acting senior editor on the Washington Desk and NPR's chief election editor. She coordinated all network coverage of the presidential, congressional, and state elections in 1996 and 1998. In her more than 25 years at NPR, Fessler has also been deputy Washington Desk editor and Midwest National Desk editor.
Earlier in her career, she was a senior writer at Congressional Quarterly magazine. Fessler worked there for 13 years as both a reporter and editor, covering tax, budget, and other news. She also worked as a budget specialist at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and was a reporter at The Record newspaper in Hackensack, New Jersey.
Fessler has a master's of public administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and a bachelor's degree from Douglass College in New Jersey.
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"If you're in the business of saying, 'Poverty is a problem, we want to overcome poverty, we want to help people to not live in poverty,' you've got to know what you're talking about." -
The Obama administration's Social Innovation Fund has spent millions to help scores of nonprofits develop innovative solutions to pressing social problems. While participating groups say they're helping thousands of people, it's not yet clear what the government is getting for its money. -
The number of poor people living in America's suburbs now surpasses those in cities or rural areas. Long focused on the urban poor, social service agencies are now trying to respond to the basic needs of a much more far-flung population. -
Immediately after the Boston Marathon bombing, local officials set up the One Fund Boston to collect and distribute donations to help the victims. The fund was set up by Mayor Thomas Menino and Gov. Deval Patrick to help coordinate aid, and to avoid some of the acrimony over donations that has followed past tragedies.
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As this year's tax deadline approaches, hundreds of thousands of low-income Americans are relying on free services to help with returns. The services are an alternative to schemes that often prey on people who need quick cash.
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If you're homeless, you can be on your feet for hours, forced to sleep in the frigid cold, or seriously ill with no place to go. But increasingly, the nation's homeless population is aging — more than half of single homeless adults are 47 or older. Linwood Hearne, 64, and his wife have been homeless for four years, sleeping near Interstate 83 in Baltimore. -
In his inaugural address, President Obama envisioned a nation where even "the poorest child knows she has the same chance to succeed as anyone else." But a new report finds that 44 percent of Americans do not have the savings to cover basic expenses for three months if they lose their income. -
After a crisis, not all of the help that's given is necessary: People send stuffed animals when they should be sending diapers. New ways of managing donations are now getting the appropriate help. -
President Obama, in his victory speech, noted that the hours voters had to wait in line are something "we have to fix." One solution: Spend more on equipment and poll workers. But that would be tough in this fiscal climate. Another is to expand early voting. But states such as Ohio have had their early-voting laws challenged in court. -
Melissa Block talks with Pam Fessler about voting issues that arose on Tuesday.
