Robert Siegel
Prior to his retirement, Robert Siegel was the senior host of NPR's award-winning evening newsmagazine All Things Considered. With 40 years of experience working in radio news, Siegel hosted the country's most-listened-to, afternoon-drive-time news radio program and reported on stories and happenings all over the globe, and reported from a variety of locations across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia. He signed off in his final broadcast of All Things Considered on January 5, 2018.
In 2010, Siegel was recognized by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism with the John Chancellor Award. Siegel has been honored with three Silver Batons from Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University, first in 1984 for All Things Considered's coverage of peace movements in East and West Germany. He shared in NPR's 1996 Silver Baton Award for "The Changing of the Guard: The Republican Revolution," for coverage of the first 100 days of the 104th Congress. He was part of the NPR team that won a Silver Baton for the network's coverage of the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan Province, China.
Other awards Siegel has earned include a 1997 American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award for the two-part documentary, "Murder, Punishment, and Parole in Alabama" and the National Mental Health Association's 1991 Mental Health Award for his interviews conducted on the streets of New York in an All Things Considered story, "The Mentally Ill Homeless."
Siegel joined NPR in December 1976 as a newscaster and became an editor the following year. In 1979, Siegel became NPR's first staffer based overseas when he was chosen to open NPR's London bureau, where he worked as senior editor until 1983. After London, Siegel served for four years as director of the News and Information Department, overseeing production of NPR's newsmagazines All Things Considered and Morning Edition, as well as special events and other news programming. During his tenure, NPR launched its popular Saturday and Sunday newsmagazine Weekend Edition. He became host of All Things Considered in 1987.
Before coming to NPR, Siegel worked for WRVR Radio in New York City as a reporter, host and news director. He was part of the WRVR team honored with an Armstrong Award for the series, "Rockefeller's Drug Law." Prior to WRVR, he was morning news reporter and telephone talk show host for WGLI Radio in Babylon, New York.
A graduate of New York's Stuyvesant High School and Columbia University, Siegel began his career in radio at Columbia's radio station, WKCR-FM. As a student he anchored coverage of the 1968 Columbia demonstrations and contributed to the work that earned the station an award from the Writers Guild of America East.
Siegel was the editor of The NPR Interviews 1994, The NPR Interviews 1995 and The NPR Interviews 1996, compilations of NPR's most popular radio conversations from each year.
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The smaller-than-normal crowds at Mardi Gras this week symbolize the lingering impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans' economy. The city's hotels are struggling to recover, but a shortage of workers is hampering their comeback. -
Residents of Honeysuckle Lane in New Orleans gather for a town meeting. They talk about their experiences during the past six months and their hopes for the future as they strive to restore their community.
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With hurricane season three months away, worries surface about whether the levees and floodwalls of New Orleans will be ready to hold back another storm. Col. Louis Setliff with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers talks to Robert Siegel about the responsibility of keeping the city safe from another flood.
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Professor William Labov, a University of Pennsylvania linguist and author of the new book Atlas of North American English Phonetics, Phonology and Sound Change, says there is a shift of vowel sounds in the inland northern cities. He calls it the "northern city shift."
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Dr. Stuart F. Seides, associate director of cardiology at the Washington Hospital Center, discusses the potential cardiac care of Harry Whittington, the attorney who was accidentally shot Saturday by Vice President Dick Cheney. Whittington suffered a minor heart attack Tuesday.
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David Festa, the director of Oceans Programs at the nonprofit organization, Environmental Defense, talks with Robert Siegel about the conservation work of Peter Benchley, the author of Jaws. Benchley died Saturday at age 65.
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Sen. Sam Brownback, a social conservative who played a key role in recent Supreme Court nomination battles, doesn't deny being interested in running for president. But the Kansas Republican says it's too early to talk about 2008 yet. -
E.J. Dionne, a Washington Post columnist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and David Brooks, columnist for The New York Times, discuss this week's State of the Union address, GOP leadership elections in the House, budget cuts and the warrant-less wiretapping program.
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After 150 years, the era of the telegram came to a quiet end last week. Romanticized in film and song, the hand-delivered paper messages were made useless by telephones and e-mail.
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Four and a half months after Hurricane Katrina, many New Orleanians who were flooded out of their homes still face an uncertain future. No where is that more true than on Honeysuckle Lane, where residents eager to return await key decisions by federal and local bureaucracies. -
In part two of All Things Considered's look at abortion today, we look at a New Hampshire abortion notification law case before the Supreme Court and public opinion. Then, we take a broader look at other abortion-related cases that might come before the high court in the future.
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All Things Considered takes a broad look at abortion in the United States. We hear from historic recordings of three Supreme Court arguments, get a statistical picture of the practice today and take a look at abortion in Mississippi, which has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country.
