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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Two members of the Pop Culture Happy Hour team talk to NPR's Steve Inskeep about what they're excited to see on the big and small screens this summer.
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Morning Edition caught up with NPR’s John Ruwitch, who has covered China for decades. Here’s our conversation. -
The court declared the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives exceeded its authority when it banned the devices in 2018.
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The billionaire philanthropist tells Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep his new TerraPower nuclear plant is safer than traditional builds. He's putting his own money behind the project. -
Oklahoma's highest court rejected a reparations lawsuit brought by Viola Fletcher and Lessie Benningfield Randle, who lived through the racist attack over 100 years ago.
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NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to businessman and talk radio show host John Catsimatidis, CEO of Red Apple Group, about support for presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump among business leaders.
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A Whistleblower told ProPublica that Microsoft chose profit over security and left the U.S. government vulnerable to a Russian hack.
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NPR's Steve Inskeep asks filmmaker Lauren Windsor about her secret recordings of John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
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The U.S. men's team plays India in the T20 World Cup in suburban New York City. India advancing in the tournament is normal, but for the U.S. team it's unexpected. It has already beat Pakistan.
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Alex Jones agrees to liquidate his assets to pay Sandy Hook families. The new Washington Post publisher has tried to kill stories about him. There is more carbon dioxide than ever in the atmosphere.
