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Susan Stamberg, a revered "founding mother" of National Public Radio and the first woman to host a national news programme, has passed away at the age of 87.
NPR confirmed her death on Thursday, though a cause was not disclosed. Stamberg was instrumental in the early days of NPR, joining the network in the early 1970s as it began establishing itself across the United States. Throughout her distinguished career, she conducted thousands of interviews, engaging with a diverse array of individuals from prominent political figures and artists to less public personalities such as White House chefs and behind-the-scenes Hollywood professionals.
In an oral history interview with Oregon station KLCC in January, Stamberg reflected on her pioneering role. She noted that when she became the host of All Things Considered in 1972, there were no women in broadcast for her to look to as a model.
“The only ones on were men, and the only thing I knew to do was imitate them,” she said.
She lowered her voice to sound authoritative. After a few days, Bill Siemering, the program manager, told her to be herself.
“And that was new too in its day, because everybody else, the women, were trained actors, and so they came with a very careful accents and very careful delivery. They weren’t relaxed and natural,” she said. “So we made a new sound with radio as well, with NPR.”
NPR's obituary for Stamberg quoted her colleague Jack Mitchell saying she had an “obvious New York accent.”
All Things Considered only had five reporters to draw on while they filled their 90-minute program, creating a daily challenge.
She told KLCC that she coined the term “founding mother” to refer to herself and three other women who helped launch the NPR: Cokie Roberts, Nina Totenberg and Linda Wertheimer.
“I got tired of hearing about Founding Fathers, and I knew we were not that, so we were obviously Founding Mothers, and I was going to put that on the map,” she said.
Stamberg hosted All Things Considered for 14 years. She went on to host Weekend Edition Sunday, where she started the Sunday puzzle feature with Will Shortz.
Shortz, who continues to serve as the program's puzzle master and who is now the crossword editor of the New York Times, explained that Stamberg wanted the show to be the radio equivalent of a Sunday newspaper that provided news, culture, sports and a puzzle.
She later became a cultural correspondent for Morning Edition and Weekend Edition Saturday. She retired in September.
In 1979, she hosted a two-hour radio call-in program with then-President Jimmy Carter from the Oval Office. She managed the listeners who called in to speak with him. The questions were not screened beforehand. It was the second time Carter had a call-in program after the first with Walter Cronkite.
Stamberg was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame, which said she was known for her “conversational style, intelligence, and knack for finding an interesting story.” She interviewed Nancy Reagan, Annie Liebowitz, Rosa Parks and James Baldwin among thousands of others.
She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2020.
Stamberg was born Susan Levitt in Newark, New Jersey, in 1938 but grew up in Manhattan. She met her husband, Louis Stamberg, while working in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
She is survived by her son, Josh Stamberg, and her granddaughters, Vivian and Lena.
English (US) ·