Susan Stamberg
Nationally renowned broadcast journalist Susan Stamberg is a special correspondent for NPR.
Stamberg is the first woman to anchor a national nightly news program, and has won every major award in broadcasting. She has been inducted into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame and the Radio Hall of Fame. An NPR "founding mother," Stamberg has been on staff since the network began in 1971.
Beginning in 1972, Stamberg served as co-host of NPR's award-winning newsmagazine All Things Considered for 14 years. She then hosted Weekend Edition Sunday, and now reports on cultural issues for Morning Edition and Weekend Edition Saturday.
One of the most popular broadcasters in public radio, Stamberg is well known for her conversational style, intelligence, and knack for finding an interesting story. Her interviewing has been called "fresh," "friendly, down-to-earth," and (by novelist E.L. Doctorow) "the closest thing to an enlightened humanist on the radio." Her thousands of interviews include conversations with Laura Bush, Billy Crystal, Rosa Parks, Dave Brubeck, and Luciano Pavarotti.
Prior to joining NPR, she served as producer, program director, and general manager of NPR Member Station WAMU-FM/Washington, DC. Stamberg is the author of two books, and co-editor of a third. Talk: NPR's Susan Stamberg Considers All Things, chronicles her two decades with NPR. Her first book, Every Night at Five: Susan Stamberg's All Things Considered Book, was published in 1982 by Pantheon. Stamberg also co-edited The Wedding Cake in the Middle of the Road, published in 1992 by W. W. Norton. That collection grew out of a series of stories Stamberg commissioned for Weekend Edition Sunday.
In addition to her Hall of Fame inductions, other recognitions include the Armstrong and duPont Awards, the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The Ohio State University's Golden Anniversary Director's Award, and the Distinguished Broadcaster Award from the American Women in Radio and Television.
A native of New York City, Stamberg earned a bachelor's degree from Barnard College, and has been awarded numerous honorary degrees including a Doctor of Humane Letters from Dartmouth College. She is a Fellow of Silliman College, Yale University, and has served on the boards of the PEN/Faulkner Fiction Award Foundation and the National Arts Journalism Program based at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Stamberg has hosted a number of series on PBS, moderated three Fred Rogers television specials for adults, served as commentator, guest or co-host on various commercial TV programs, and appeared as a narrator in performance with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra. Her voice appeared on Broadway in the Wendy Wasserstein play An American Daughter.
Her late husband Louis Stamberg had his career with the State Department's agency for international development. Her son, Josh Stamberg, an actor, appears in various television series, films, and plays.
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Susan Stamberg gathers recommendations from booksellers Rona Brinlee, Lucia Silva and Daniel Goldin. Their selections for summertime reading include books about small-town America, a polygamist father in over his head, and a postmistress in New England during World War II.
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After the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, the U.S. government relocated 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry from their homes on the West Coast to desolate inland areas of the U.S. The Art of Gaman is a new exhibit that showcases works of art created by internees during this dark chapter of U.S. history.
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She's played many a mom, but her real trademark is playing strong, gutsy women on screen. In an upcoming one-woman stage show, she takes on one of the gutsiest: former Texas Gov. Ann Richards. Susan Stamberg sits down for a conversation with the actress, who says Richards "has captured my imagination."
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In the 1930s and '40s, band singers were mostly blond, sophisticated and attractive. Ella Fitzgerald was awkward, gawky and even a bit chubby by comparison — but could she sing.
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In June, the Songwriters Hall of Fame will induct the man who wrote the theme for M*A*S*H. At 84, composer and arranger Johnny Mandel has an Oscar and multiple Grammys, as well as credit for arranging Barbra Streisand's latest album.
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Gone are the days when actors brought their own lunches to the set in brown paper bags. It's a full-time job feeding the hundreds — sometimes thousands — of men and women working each day on major films. Susan Stamberg spends a day with craft service — the crew responsible for the snacks that keep moviemakers going during long days of filming. -
Correspondent Susan Stamberg gathers recommendations for the season's best books from booksellers Rona Brinlee, Daniel Goldin and Lucia Silva. Their selections include comics about philosophy, novels about building families, and a box set that dives into the process of writing.
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Former Broadway producer Rocco Landesman is about to embark on a journey that will take him way off-Broadway: Peoria, Ill. is his first stop on "Art Works," a six-month tour of arts organizations around the country.
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Fine French cuisine doesn't have to mean waiters in tuxedos ferrying trays of oysters or silver-domed serving dishes. Chef Christian Constant is leading a mini-revolution in Paris; he's opened four small, lively restaurants that are comfortable, welcoming — and delicieux.
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Once exiled for 12 years, the Uruguayan author now spends his days at his hometown cafe, writing about themes that have preoccupied him for a lifetime. His latest book, Mirrors, is an unofficial — and unconventional — history of the past 5,000 years.
