Susan Stamberg, first woman to host a national news program, dies at age
87
[October 17, 2025]
By AUDREY McAVOY
Susan Stamberg, a “founding mother” of National Public Radio and the
first female broadcaster to host a national news program, has died. She
was 87.
Stamberg died Thursday, NPR reported. It did not provide a cause of
death.
Stamberg joined NPR in the early 1970s when it was getting off the
ground as a network of radio stations across the country. During her
career, she interviewed thousands of people, from prominent politicians
and artists to the less well-known like White House chefs and people who
work behind the scenes in Hollywood.
She explained in an oral history interview with Oregon station KLCC in
January that she didn't have women in broadcast to model herself after
when she became the host of “All Things Considered” in 1972.
“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.
[to top of second column]
|
National Public Radio broadcast journalist Susan Stamberg
holds up a replica of her new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
following a ceremony, in Los Angeles, March 3, 2020. Stamberg, a
‘founding mother’ of NPR and the first female broadcaster to host a
national news program, died Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025. She was 87. (AP
Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)
 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.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
