Steve Inskeep Steve Inskeep is a host of NPR's Morning Edition and Up First.
Steve Inskeep, photographed for NPR, 13 May 2019, in Washington DC.
Stories By

Steve Inskeep

Mike Morgan/NPR
Steve Inskeep, photographed for NPR, 13 May 2019, in Washington DC.
Mike Morgan/NPR

Steve Inskeep

Host, Morning Edition and Up First

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.

Story Archive

Examining Israel's response to the ICC's application for arrest warrants

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1252683038/1252878620" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Trump's hush money trial in New York could wrap up this week

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1252623047/1252623048" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

ICC prosecutor says Israel's Netanyahu is responsible for crimes including starvation

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1252623110/1252623111" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Morning news brief

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1252623026/1252627667" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Scarlett Johansson demands answers about the voice for ChatGPT's personal assistant

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1252623068/1252623069" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

ICC seeks arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas leaders

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1252424199/1252445622" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

London High Court grants Julian Assange the right to appeal extradition to the U.S.

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1252412309/1252450328" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

The criminal trial of former President Trump is nearing an end in New York

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1252397350/1252397351" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Biden reaches out to Black Americans. He'll give commencement address at Morehouse

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1252012727/1252012728" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Troubled plane-maker Boeing holds its annual shareholders meeting on Friday

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1252012811/1252012812" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

The result of a union election at Mercedes-Benz in Alabama is about to be revealed

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1252012783/1252012784" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript