Mary Louise Kelly
Mary Louise Kelly is a co-host of All Things Considered, NPR's award-winning afternoon newsmagazine.
Previously, she spent a decade as national security correspondent for NPR News, and she's kept that focus in her role as anchor. That's meant taking All Things Considered to Russia, North Korea, and beyond (including live coverage from Helsinki, for the infamous Trump-Putin summit). Her past reporting has tracked the CIA and other spy agencies, terrorism, wars, and rising nuclear powers. Kelly's assignments have found her deep in interviews at the Khyber Pass, at mosques in Hamburg, and in grimy Belfast bars.
Kelly first launched NPR's intelligence beat in 2004. After one particularly tough trip to Baghdad — so tough she wrote an essay about it for Newsweek — she decided to try trading the spy beat for spy fiction. Her debut espionage novel, Anonymous Sources, was published by Simon and Schuster in 2013. It's a tale of journalists, spies, and Pakistan's nuclear security. Her second novel, The Bullet, followed in 2015.
Kelly's writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, Washingtonian, The Atlantic, and other publications. She has lectured at Harvard and Stanford, and taught a course on national security and journalism at Georgetown University. In addition to her NPR work, Kelly serves as a contributing editor at The Atlantic, moderating newsmaker interviews at forums from Aspen to Abu Dhabi.
A Georgia native, Kelly's first job was pounding the streets as a political reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In 1996, she made the leap to broadcasting, joining the team that launched BBC/Public Radio International's The World. The following year, Kelly moved to London to work as a producer for CNN and as a senior producer, host, and reporter for the BBC World Service.
Kelly graduated from Harvard University in 1993 with degrees in government, French language, and literature. Two years later, she completed a master's degree in European studies at Cambridge University in England.
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NPR recently changed how reporters talk about immigration on air and in pieces for the website. Tony Cavin, NPR's Managing Editor of Standards and Practices, talks us through some of this guidance.
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What happens when wild fires reach the city? NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with fire historian Steve Pyne about the ways in which the fire threat is changing.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Meta Oversight Board co-chair Michael McConnell about the announcement this week that it's getting rid of fact checking in the United States.
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In an exit interview with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly, CIA Director William Burns says he still thinks "there's a chance" for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. -
As he prepares to leave his post, CIA Director Bill Burns speaks with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about the transition to a new Trump administration as well as priorities for the U.S. intel apparatus.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Raul Stolk, the managing director of Caracas Chronicles, which covers Venezuelan politics. Friday will see President Maduro sworn in despite disputed results.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks to outgoing CIA Director Bill Burns about the handling of Russia, the Mideast, and security threats during his tenure, plus what lies ahead for the intel community.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Emma Knight about debut novel, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus, which takes on the subjects of motherhood, female friendship and first love.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Wall Street Journal reporter Alison Sider. The Department of Transportation has fined JetBlue for "chronically delayed" flight performance.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Amy Nordrum of the MIT Technology Review about the magazine's list of breakthrough technologies for 2025.
