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Whether revealing events in small-town America or overseas, or profiling notable personalities, Weekend Edition from NPR News appreciates the extraordinary details that make up every story. This two-hour morning newsmagazine covers hard news, a wide variety of newsmakers, and cultural stories with care, accuracy, and a wink of humor, courtesy of hosts Scott Simon and Liane Hansen. On Saturdays, Simon's award-winning commentaries sum up an idea or event related to the week's news. Clever, information-packed exchanges with NPR senior news analyst Daniel Schorr, sports columnist Ron Rapoport, gardening guru Ketzel Levine, entertainment critic Elvis Mitchell, and other commentators contribute to the unique feel and personality of the show. On Sundays, Weekend Edition combines the news with colorful arts and human-interest features, appealing to the curious and eclectic. With a nod to traditional Sunday habits, the program offers a fix for diehard crossword addicts-word games and brainteasers with The Puzzlemaster, a.k.a. Will Shortz, puzzle editor of The New York Times. With Hansen on the sidelines, a caller plays the latest word game on the air while listeners compete silently at home. The NPR mailbag is proof that the competition to go head-to-head with Shortz is rather…vigorous. Another trademark of Sunday's program is "Voices in the News," a montage of sound bites from the past week, poignant in its simplicity. Hansen also engages listeners in her discussions with regular contributors, including Daniel Schorr and special correspondent Juan Williams, who cover a wide range of national and international issues. Airs: weekends at 7 a.m. on KSTX and KTXI About the hosts
Scott Simon From Ground Zero in New York to ground zero in Kabul, to police stations, subway platforms, and darkened theaters, NPR's Peabody-Award-winning correspondent Scott Simon brings a well-traveled perspective to his role as host of Weekend Edition Saturday. Simon joined NPR in 1977 as chief of its Chicago bureau. Since then, he has reported from all 50 states, covered presidential campaigns and eight wars, and reported from Central America, Africa, India, the Middle East, and the Caribbean. In 2002, Simon took leave of his usual post at Weekend Edition Saturday to cover the war in Afghanistan for NPR. He has also reported from Central America on the continuing wars in that region; from Cuba on the nation's resistance to change; from Ethiopia on the country's famine and prolonged civil war; from the Middle East during the Gulf War; and from the siege of Sarajevo and the destruction of Kosovo. Simon has received numerous honors for his reporting. His work was part of the Overseas Press Club and Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards NPR earned for coverage of Sept. 11 and its aftermath. He was part of the NPR news teams that won prestigious Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards for covering the war in Kosovo as well as the Gulf War. In 1989, he won a George Foster Peabody Award for his weekly radio essays. The award commended him for his sensitivity and literary style in coverage of events including the murder of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador and the San Francisco earthquake. Simon also accepted the Presidential End Hunger Award for his series of reports on the 1987-1988 Ethiopian civil war and drought. He received a 1986 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for his coverage of racism in a South Philadelphia neighborhood, and a 1986 Silver Cindy for a report on conditions at the Immigration and Naturalization Service's detention center in Harlingen, Texas. Simon received a Major Armstrong Award in 1979 for his coverage of the American Nazi Party rally in Chicago, and a Unity Award in Media in 1978 for his political reporting on All Things Considered. He also won a 1982 Emmy for the public television documentary "The Patterson Project," which examined the effects of President Reagan's budget cuts on the lives of 12 New Jersey residents. Simon has been a frequent guest host of the CBS television program Nightwatch and CNBC's TalkBack Live. In addition to hosting Weekend Edition Saturday, Simon has appeared as an essayist and commentator on NBC's Weekend Today and NOW with Bill Moyers. He has hosted many public television programs, including “Voices of Vision,” “Life on the Internet,” “State of Mind,” “American Pie,” “Search for Common Ground,” and specials on privacy in America and democracy in the Middle East. He also narrated the documentary film "Lincoln of Illinois" for PBS. Simon participated in the Grammy Award-nominated 50th anniversary remake of The War of the Worlds (co-starring Jason Robards), and hosted public television's coverage of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. Simon has hosted the BBC series Eyewitness, which was seen in the United States on the Discovery Channel, and a BBC special on the White House press corps. Simon was also a featured co-anchor of PBS's millennium special broadcast in 2000. Simon has written for The New York Times' Book Review and Opinion sections, the Wall Street Journal opinion page, The Los Angeles Times, and Gourmet Magazine. The son of comedian Ernie Simon and actress Patricia Lyons, Simon grew up in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Montreal, Cleveland, and Washington, DC. He attended the University of Chicago and McGill University, and he has received a number of honorary degrees. Simon's book Home and Away: Memoir of a Fan was published in the spring of 2000 by Hyperion, a division of Disney. It topped the Los Angeles Times nonfiction bestseller list for several weeks, and was cited as one of the best books of the year in the Washington Post, Boston Globe, and several other publications. His second book, Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Baseball, kicked off the prestigious Wiley Turning Points series in September of 2002. Simon’s first novel, Pretty Birds, about female teenaged snipers in Sarajevo, was released in May 2005 to very strong, positive reviews. In the summer of 2000, Simon married Caroline Richard. His hobbies are Mexican cooking, ballet, book collecting, and living and dying for the Chicago Cubs (and now the French national soccer team).
Liane Hansen Before joining Weekend Edition Sunday in November 1989, Hansen hosted Performance Today, NPR's award-winning daily two-hour classical music and arts information program; and was a regular guest-host for NPR's newsmagazines as well as Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Hansen's association with Fresh Air goes back to 1976, when she was a production assistant and substitute host for the program. In the early 1980s, Hansen was the host of NPR's Weekend All Thing Considered. She came to NPR as a production assistant for All Things Considered in 1979 after contributing stories to "Voices in the Wind" and "Options in Education." Her career in public broadcasting began at WSKG in Binghamton, New York, where she co-hosted the daily newsmagazine For Your Information. In 2001, Hansen received the National News and Documentary Emmy Award for "She Says/Women in News" (narrator) directed by Barbara Ricks. Hansen was also part of NPR's coverage of Sept. 11, which received the 2001 Peabody Award. She represented Marian High School with honor in Newscasting in the Massachusetts Speech Festival and Debate Tourney (1968-9). In the mid-eighties, Hansen worked as an archivist in London, England, at the acclaimed Maybox Theatres, where other duties included babysitting Princess Margaret's coat and serving coffee to Sir Richard Attenborough. A native of Worcester, Massachusetts, Hansen received the key to the city in November of 1980. She attended the University of Hartford in Connecticut, and acted with the Worcester Childrens Theater, Entr'Actors Guild, Footlights Theater Company, and the Fenwick Theater Company at Holy Cross College where she was an assistant to the director of the Theater Division. She made $26 dollars in the professional theater as April in Company at Caesars Monticello in Framingham, Massachusetts. Hansen's voice can be heard on the Emmy-Award-winning TV documentary, "Women In News," as well as the film In Their Footsteps: Lewis and Clark, and many audio books. Her current passions are figure skating, baseball, The Food Channel, tap dancing, and (someday soon) learning how to scuba dive.  |
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