Melissa Block
As special correspondent and guest host of NPR's news programs, Melissa Block brings her signature combination of warmth and incisive reporting. Her work over the decades has earned her journalism's highest honors, and has made her one of NPR's most familiar and beloved voices.
As co-host of All Things Considered from 2003 to 2015, Block's reporting took her everywhere from the Mississippi Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to the heart of Rio de Janeiro; from rural Mozambique to the farthest reaches of Alaska.
Her riveting reporting from Sichuan, China, during and after the massive earthquake in 2008 brought the tragedy home to millions of listeners around the world. At the moment the earthquake hit, Block had the presence of mind to record a gripping, real-time narration of the seismic upheaval she was witnessing. Her long-form story about a desperate couple searching in the rubble for their toddler son was singled out by judges who awarded NPR's earthquake coverage the top honors in broadcast journalism: the George Foster Peabody Award, duPont-Columbia Award, Edward R. Murrow Award, National Headliner Award, and the Society of Professional Journalists' Sigma Delta Chi Award.
Now, as special correspondent, Block continues to engage both the heart and the mind with her reporting on issues from gun violence to adult illiteracy to opioid addiction.
In 2017, she traveled the country for the series "Our Land," visiting a wide range of communities to explore how our identity is shaped by where we live. For that series, she paddled along the Mississippi River, went in search of salmon off the Alaska coast, and accompanied an immigrant family as they became U.S. citizens. Her story about the legacy of the Chinese community in the Mississippi Delta earned her a James Beard Award in 2018.
Block is the recipient of the 2019 Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism, awarded by the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University, as well as the 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Fulbright Association.
Block began her career at NPR in 1985 as an editorial assistant for All Things Considered, and rose through the ranks to become the program's senior producer.
She was a reporter and correspondent in New York from 1994 to 2002, a period punctuated by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Her reporting after those attacks helped earn NPR a George Foster Peabody Award. Block's reporting on rape as a weapon of war in Kosovo was cited by the Overseas Press Club of America in awarding NPR the Lowell Thomas Award in 1999.
Block is a 1983 graduate of Harvard University and spent the following year on a Fulbright fellowship in Geneva, Switzerland. She lives in Washington, DC, with her husband — writer Stefan Fatsis — and their daughter.
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The Dixie Chicks are back after a three-year break with a new album, Taking the Long Way. It's the band's first release after it experienced a furious backlash in 2003 after an anti-Bush comment by lead singer Natalie Maines.
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Memories, and how to capture them, are a tricky proposition, says The New Yorker's Roger Angell. He talks about the art of writing, what he learned from his stepfather, E.B. White, and his new memoir, Let Me Finish.
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Bruce Springsteen reinterprets the songbook of American folk legend Pete Seeger on his album We Shall Overcome. He talks about Seeger's music and the importance of an adventurous audience.
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Ted Kooser, the nation's poet laureate, has been traveling around the country talking to librarians, school children and other groups about poetry. One of his stops was in Kansas City, Mo., where he led a workshop with some of Hallmark's greeting card writers.
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Daniel Bernard Roumain doesn't fit the image of a classical musician. The Haitian-American violinist and composer, who sports a silver nose ring and dreadlocks, was inspired by jazz, rock and hip-hop. He dubs his style "dred violin."
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As we reach the end of the year, U.S. poet laureate Ted Kooser joins host Melissa Block to read a reflection — in prose — on welcoming in a new year, from his book Local Wonders.
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For many music fans, it has been hard to hear the dramatic stories coming out of New Orleans and not consider the city's rich culture. The city is steeped in music, a heritage that folklorist Nick Spitzer, who evacuated the day before Katrina hit, continues to celebrate on the air.
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Nashville singer/songwriter Jeff Black travels long hours to perform in clubs around the country. But he's also trying to broaden his audience with a weekly podcast that he hosts.
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Architect Daniel Liebeskind's design for the new structure undergoes a facelift to include more safety precautions. Melissa Block talks with Paul Goldberger, architecture critic for The New Yorker.
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Millions of people listen to J. Ralph's music, yet he's far from a household name. The 29-year-old musician's dreamy, hypnotic compositions have become seemingly ubiquitous in commercials, appearing in ads for Volkswagen, Nike and others. Now they are collected on a new CD.