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.
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Congress rolls back $9 billion in public media funding and foreign aid, Trump threatens to sue Wall Street Journal over article about Epstein ties, Trump diagnosed with common circulatory condition.
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A new HBO two-part documentary chronicles the life and work of one of America's most successful singer/songwriters, Billy Joel.
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NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with Austan Goolsbee, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, about the health of the U.S. economy.
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House Republicans delivered a major victory to President Trump early Friday, passing Trump's rescissions bill that claws back $9 billion in funds already approved for public media and foreign aid.
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President Trump has been diagnosed with a relatively common medical condition called chronic venous insufficiency that is affecting the veins in his legs, according to the White House.
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CBS has announced that it plans to cancel Stephen Colbert's late night TV show next year, citing financial reasons. But at least two U.S. senators have questioned whether politics played a role.
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NPR's Steve Inskeep and Michel Martin speak with David Isay, founder and president of StoryCorps, about the Senate vote to cut funding for public broadcasting.
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Former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Loretta Mester says it's important that the Fed stays independent and that fiscal politics should not interfere with monetary policy makers and their decisions. -
Israel launched airstrikes Wednesday on Syria's capital of Damascus, saying it targeted the Syrian military headquarters and near the presidential palace in response to attacks on the Druze minority. This segment originally aired July 16, 2025.
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Senate approves cuts to funding for public media and foreign aid programs, President Trump attacks Fed Chair Powell over interest rates, UN Security Council to meet over unfolding Israel-Syria crisis.
