Pam Fessler
Pam Fessler is a correspondent on NPR's National Desk, where she covers poverty, philanthropy, and voting issues.
In her reporting at NPR, Fessler does stories on homelessness, hunger, affordable housing, and income inequality. She reports on what non-profit groups, the government, and others are doing to reduce poverty and how those efforts are working. Her poverty reporting was recognized with a 2011 First Place National Headliner Award.
Fessler also covers elections and voting, including efforts to make voting more accessible, accurate, and secure. She has done countless stories on everything from the debate over state voter identification laws to Russian hacking attempts and long lines at the polls.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Fessler became NPR's first Homeland Security correspondent. For seven years, she reported on efforts to tighten security at ports, airports, and borders, and the debate over the impact on privacy and civil rights. She also reported on the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, The 9/11 Commission Report, Social Security, and the Census. Fessler was one of NPR's White House reporters during the Clinton and Bush administrations.
Before becoming a correspondent, Fessler was the acting senior editor on the Washington Desk and NPR's chief election editor. She coordinated all network coverage of the presidential, congressional, and state elections in 1996 and 1998. In her more than 25 years at NPR, Fessler has also been deputy Washington Desk editor and Midwest National Desk editor.
Earlier in her career, she was a senior writer at Congressional Quarterly magazine. Fessler worked there for 13 years as both a reporter and editor, covering tax, budget, and other news. She also worked as a budget specialist at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and was a reporter at The Record newspaper in Hackensack, New Jersey.
Fessler has a master's of public administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and a bachelor's degree from Douglass College in New Jersey.
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Ahead of a meeting in New Hampshire, the panel's co-chair, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, made questionable claims that the state allowed nonresidents to vote last year. -
FEMA says it hopes to get people out of shelters and into transitional housing, such as hotels, as quickly as possible. Then they'll try to find rentals or other housing for victims, including manufactured homes, as a last resort.
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Tens of thousands of flood victims are going to need housing. It could be months, even years, before they'll be able to return home. -
When a disaster strikes, people everywhere often are inspired to spring into action. But donating good or services rarely is a good idea, experts say, and even cash donations could be better targeted. -
Weird things started to happen as people showed up to vote in parts of North Carolina on Nov. 8. Why didn't state workers know that their elections contractor had been hit by a cyberattack? -
For all the focus in 2016 on the cyberattacks against the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, less attention was paid to what was happening in the states. -
"One has to wonder what they're worried about," President Trump said of states that haven't shared data with the commission. "There's something, there always is." -
President Trump's Advisory Commission on Election Integrity holds its first meeting Wednesday to uncover voter problems that undermine public confidence in U.S. elections. The panel has already faced criticism, especially from state election officials disturbed by the panel's request to send detailed voter registration data. The commission is looking for signs of voter fraud, which most election officials and experts say is rare.
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The panel has faced credibility problems right from the start and the concerns have only grown after it asked all 50 states to send detailed voter registration records. -
Many election experts and voter advocacy groups say matching efforts to identify inaccurate or out-of-date registrations are flawed and could lead to legitimate voters being taken off the rolls.
