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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Female bodies sprawl across canvases in a retrospective of work by pop artist Tom Wesselmann, now on view at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. If the images make you blush, that's just part of a long artistic tradition. -
The Hays Collection, born of two Tennessee millionaires' love for French art, has come back to its home country: The pieces are currently on display at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. NPR's Susan Stamberg speaks to the American lenders and the French borrowers about why these works inspire such passion. -
Both Elsa Schiaparelli and Audrey Morgen Volk loved clothing. They were also strict, impatient and volatile. In her memoir, Patricia Volk describes how an iconoclastic, Italian fashion designer and a loving, perfectionist mother helped her move into adulthood. -
In his memoir The Friedkin Connection, the legendary director of films like The Exorcist and The French Connection recounts his journey from a poor Chicago neighborhood to the apex of Hollywood success. -
The ongoing violence and tumult in Syria's largest city belie a richer, more prosperous past. One small object — a finely woven hat — offers evidence of life in a thriving cultural hub. -
For 15 minutes each week, Phyllis Jeanne Creore spoke and sang to the servicemen and their loved ones in her NBC radio broadcast. Now 96 years old, the beloved "Canteen Girl" shares her memories — and some personal wartime letters, too. -
When he was just 10 years old, Shankar began performing in Europe and the US with his family's Indian dance troupe. But at age 18, Shankar gave up all the glitter to study with a guru who taught him the sitar. He became a master, and introduced the West to his country's music. -
Not sure what to read? NPR's Susan Stamberg asked three booksellers to share their top five picks for the books you shouldn't miss — tales of con artists, grade-school spies, refugees and ranchers. -
For three decades, the Smithsonian Institution has been collecting work by African-American artists, work that is now on display at the American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. The exhibition offers a wide-ranging and colorful view of African-American life.
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Hanoi, Hue, Danang and Saigon, were city names that were stamped on the American psyche a half-century ago, when the U.S. waged war in Vietnam. The once war-torn, Southeast Asian nation has made great strides to leave its troubled past behind.
