
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.
-
The man arrested for attacking people marching in Colorado in support of Israeli hostages said he "wanted to kill Zionist people." He faces a federal hate crime charge and attempted murder charges.
-
NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., about President Trump's budget bill, which is now in the Senate.
-
Latest on the Colorado firebomb attack on people marching in support of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, Russia-Ukraine talks end without ceasefire, South Koreans head to polls to elect new president.
-
As part of our series on the world that America made after World War II, NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with author Christopher Leonard about the rise of the U.S. defense industry post-1945.
-
President Trump has used emergency declarations to push through his agenda. Elizabeth Goitein, analyst at the Brennan Center for Justice, discusses his use of emergency powers.
-
The State Department's Historical Advisory Committee puts out unbiased accounts of events around U.S. foreign policy. Trump fired its members. NPR speaks with its former chair, James Goldgeier.
-
A second round of ceasefire talks between Ukraine and Russia ended quickly and with no ceasefire, though the two countries agreed to exchange more prisoners of war. Hear the latest updates.
-
South Koreans head to the polls on Tuesday to pick a new president. The election comes nearly two months after President Yoon was removed from office after he was impeached for declaring martial law.
-
What does Poland's presidential election result mean for the country's place in Europe and the world? NPR's Steve Inskeep asks Polish political analyst Andrzej Bobinski.
-
NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with Republican strategist and former U.S. Senate staffer Ron Bonjean about the path in the Senate for President Trump's tax and spending agenda.