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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NPR's Steve Inskeep attends the China Development Forum in Beijing, an annual gathering of global business leaders where rising economic tensions with the U.S. are on display this year.
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China's economy is growing, but consumer spending is down. The government is attempting to jumpstart the country's numbers by reassuring private entrepreneurs that they have its support.
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Israel is considering a full-scale ground invasion of Gaza, Ukraine holds ceasefire talks with the U.S., Beijing's China Development Forum displays tensions with the U.S.
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NPR's Leila Fadel and Steve Inskeep speak about his upcoming reporting trip to China and why it is important now.
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NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with author Clay Risen about his new book, "Red Scare," which tells the story of McCarthyism based in part on newly declassified sources.
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NPR's Steve Inskeep asks author Emma Donoghue about her new historical thriller that centers on the French railway disaster of 1895.
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How will the first quarter of this century be remembered? In this episode of a multi-part series, we explore how file-sharing and streaming totally transformed the music industry.
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Democrats face a dilemma. Should they help pass a GOP spending bill or allow the government to shut down? NPR speaks with Faiz Shakir, senior adviser to U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont.
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Senate to vote on GOP spending bill as government shutdown deadline looms, Trump to give speech at DOJ about law and order, judges order federal agencies to reinstate thousands of fired workers.
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During the COVID pandemic, NPR's Morning Edition commissioned pieces by musicians from various genres. Five years later, we listen back on the project.