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.
-
NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with journalist and author Jon Lee Anderson about his new book, "To Lose a War." The book collects Anderson's writing from Afghanistan over a near-quarter-century span.
-
NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with journalist and author Jon Lee Anderson about his new book, "To Lose a War." The book collects Anderson's writing from Afghanistan over a near-quarter-century span.
-
NPR's Steve Inskeep asks former president of Ireland, Mary Robinson, who now works with human rights group The Elders, about her upcoming visit to Egypt's border with Gaza.
-
Steve Inskeep speaks with author and conservative commentator Max Boot about the changing world order.
-
Israel announces plan to take over Gaza City, the political battle over redrawing congressional maps continues to escalate, Trump wants a new U.S. census to exclude people living in the country without legal status.
-
NPR's Steve Inskeep talks with John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, about efforts to remap congressional districts, and what President Trump's proposed new census could mean.
-
President Trump has tried to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. In the latest example, the Department of Justice hired a former Jan. 6 defendant who urged rioters to "kill" police.
-
Israel's Security Cabinet approved a proposal early Friday for the military to expand the war in Gaza and take control of Gaza City, one of the last areas of the territory not yet under full military occupation.
-
NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with Aaron David Miller, a former State Department Middle East analyst and negotiator, about the risks that come with Israel's decision to further occupy Gaza.
-
Dozens of Texas Democratic lawmakers remain scattered across the country. This, as U.S. Senator John Cornyn requests that the FBI steps in to help locate them.