NPR's Susan Stamberg interviewed on Ohio University Public Television
Contact: Olivea Oldham, WOUB Public Information Coordinator, (740) 593-4944 or Olivea_Oldham@woub.pbs.org; Mark Brewer, Director of Television Programming, (740) 593-4920
ATHENS, Ohio (March 19, 2001) -- Ohio University Public Television adds local flare to the community with the television series intouch which airs on WOUB/WOUC-TV Thursday evenings at 8:00. Intouch does exactly what it says. It keeps viewers "in touch" with the region, the arts, the university, and the Telecommunications Center.
On Thursday, March 29, intouch features the First Lady of National Public Radio (NPR), Susan Stamberg. Doug Partusch, the Center's director of Development and Communications, speaks with Stamberg about her career with NPR and her life behind the microphone.
Susan Stamberg is a nationally renowned broadcast journalist, and special correspondent. She is the first woman to anchor a national nightly news program, and has won every major award in broadcasting. In 1994 she was inducted into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame and, in 1996, the Radio Hall of Fame. Beginning in 1972, Stamberg served as co-host of NPR's award-winning newsmagazine All Things Considered for 14 years. She then hosted "Weekend Edition Sunday," NPR's morning newsmagazine, from its premiere in January 1987 through October 1989, and now serves as guest host of NPR's "Morning Edition," "Weekend Edition Saturday," and "Weekly Edition," in addition to reporting on cultural issues for all the NPR programs.
One of the most popular broadcasters in public radio, Stamberg is well known for her conversational style, intelligence, and knack for finding an interesting story. Her interviewing has been called "fresh," "friendly, down-to-earth," and (by novelist E.L. Doctorow) "the closest thing to an enlightened humanist on the radio." Her thousands of interviews include conversations with Nancy Reagan, Annie Liebowitz, Rosa Parks, Dave Brubeck, and James Baldwin. Stamberg is one of the pioneers of National Public Radio, on staff since the network began in 1971.
Prior to joining NPR, she served as producer, program director, and general manager of NPR member station WAMU-FM/Washington, D.C. Stamberg is the author of two books, and co-editor of a third. TALK: NPR's Susan Stamberg Considers All Things, chronicles her two decades with NPR. It was published by Turtle Bay Press/Random House in 1993, and in paperback by Perigee/G.P. Putnam's in 1994. Her first book, Every Night at Five: Susan Stamberg's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED Book, was published in 1982 by Pantheon. Stamberg also co-edited The Wedding Cake in the Middle of the Road, published in 1992 by W. W. Norton. That collection grew out of a series of stories Stamberg commissioned for Weekend Edition Sunday. Wedding Cake has been translated into Japanese.
In addition to her Hall of Fame inductions, other recognition includes the Armstrong and Dupont Awards, the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The Ohio State University's Golden Anniversary Director's Award, and the Distinguished Broadcaster Award from the American Women in Radio and Television. She also received a Jefferson Fellowship for Journalism from the East-West Center in Hawaii. A native of New York City, Stamberg earned a bachelor's degree from Barnard College, and has been awarded numerous honorary degrees including a Doctor of Humane Letters from Dartmouth College. She is a Fellow of Silliman College, Yale University, and serves on the boards of the PEN/Faulkner Fiction Award Foundation and Northwestern University's Medill School National Arts Journalism program.
Stamberg has hosted a number of series on PBS, moderated three Fred Rogers television specials for adults, served as commentator, guest or co-host on various commercial TV programs, appeared as a narrator in performance with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra, and her voice appeared on Broadway in the Wendy Wasserstein play An American Daughter.
She is married to Louis C. Stamberg, recently retired from the Department of State's Agency for International Development in Washington. They have one son, Joshua, an actor.
The Ohio University Telecommunications Center, a unit of the College of Communication, operates two television stations—WOUB-TV/Channel 20 in Athens and WOUC-TV/Channel 44 in Cambridge--one cable channel, and six radio stations—WOUB-1340 AM, WOUB-91.3 FM, WOUC-89.1 FM, WOUH-91.9 FM, WOUL-89.1 FM and WOUZ-90.1 FM. The Center, a trusted community resource, uses the power of noncommercial television, radio and other media, such as the World Wide Web, to enrich the lives of children and adults in southeastern Ohio and western West Virginia through quality programs and educational services that inform, enlighten, inspire and entertain.
