Renee Montagne
Renee Montagne, one of the best-known names in public radio, is a special correspondent and host for NPR News.
Montagne's most recent assignment was a yearlong collaboration with ProPublica reporter Nina Martin, investigating the alarming rate of maternal mortality in the U.S., as compared to other developed countries. The series, called "Lost Mothers," was recognized with more than a dozen awards in American journalism, including a Peabody Award, a George Polk Award, and Harvard's Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Journalism. The series was also named a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize.
From 2004 to 2016, Montagne co-hosted NPR's Morning Edition, the most widely heard radio news program in the United States. Her first experience as host of an NPR newsmagazine came in 1987, when she, along with Robert Siegel, were named the new hosts of All Things Considered.
After leaving All Things Considered, Montagne traveled to South Africa in early 1990, arriving to report from there on the day Nelson Mandela emerged from 27 years in prison. In 1994, she and a small team of NPR reporters were awarded an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for their coverage of South Africa's historic elections that led to Mandela becoming that country's first black president.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Montagne has made 10 extended reporting trips to Afghanistan. She has traveled to every major city, from Kabul to Kandahar, to peaceful villages, and to places where conflict raged. She has profiled Afghanistan's presidents and power brokers, but focused on the stories of Afghans at the heart of that complex country: school girls, farmers, mullahs, poll workers, midwives, and warlords. Her coverage has been honored by the Overseas Press Club, and, for stories on Afghan women in particular, by the Gracie Awards.
One of her most cherished honors dates to her days as a freelance reporter in the 1980s, when Montagne and her collaborator, the writer Thulani Davis, were awarded "First Place in Radio" by the National Association of Black Journalists for their series "Fanfare for the Warriors." It told the story of African-American musicians in the military bands from WW1 to Vietnam.
Montagne began her career in radio pretty much by accident, when she joined a band of friends, mostly poets and musicians, who were creating their own shows at a new, scrappy little San Francisco community station called KPOO. Her show was called Women's Voices.
Montagne graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Berkeley. Her career includes teaching broadcast writing at New York University's Graduate Department of Journalism (now the Carter Institute).
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The ouster of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi by the country's armed forces presents a dilemma for the Obama administration: How to respond when a democratically elected leader is ousted. The U.S. gives the Egyptian military some $1.3 billion a year.
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South Korean golfer Inbee Park, 24, has done something no athlete has done since Babe Zaharias in 1950: win the first three major women's tournaments of the year. On Sunday, she won the U.S. Women's Open in Southhampton, New York.
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The travels of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden have the U.S. in a legal and diplomatic bind. The Obama administration wants to prosecute Snowden for leaking classified information about the widespread U.S. surveillance of phone and Internet records.
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The lending rate between Chinese banks spiked dramatically on Thursday, creating a credit crunch. Renee Montagne talks to NPR Shanghai correspondent Frank Langfitt about the turbulence in China's banking system, and how authorities in Beijing are responding.
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Again this year, the Supreme Court is waiting until the very end of the term to hand down the most anticipated decisions. Why does the high court always seem to do that?
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The biggest players in the video gaming industry are attending E3. Gamers have been anticipating the unveiling of new products from Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and other companies.
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The last remaining areas of the embattled Syrian town of Qusair fell to government forces and fighters from the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah over the weekend. The main concern now is what's happening to the civilians.
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President Obama is expected to name former Justice Department official James Comey as the next director of the FBI, sources tell NPR. Comey is a Republican who has a reputation for bipartisanship and even-handedness.
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Authorities in London are investigating what British Prime Minister David Cameron says is likely a terrorist attack. On Wednesday, two suspects brutally attacked a man near a London military barracks.
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Some big questions remain unanswered in the Boston Marathon bombing case. One of them is: What did Tamerlan Tsarnaev — the older brother — do when he visited Russia last year for six months. U.S. investigators are in the Russia Republic of Dagestan trying to get answers.