10/18/2025
Susan Stamberg, one of the "founding mothers" of NPR and the first woman to anchor a national nightly news broadcast in the U.S., has died. She was 87.
"Susan's voice was not only a cornerstone of NPR — it was a cornerstone of American life," NPR’s president and CEO Katherine Maher said Thursday. "She showed that journalism could be both rigorous and deeply personal. She inspired countless journalists to believe they could explore life and truth, and lead with both authority and warmth."
In 1972, at a time when women had few opportunities in broadcast journalism, Stamberg became the trailblazing host of NPR’s afternoon program “All Things Considered.”
“NPR was a startup. So there weren't 1,000 people ahead of you in the job you were dying to get. That makes it tough for anybody, men or women, but particularly difficult for a woman,” Stamberg told PBS News Hour’s Judy Woodruff in 2021.
While NPR’s other “founding mothers” – Linda Wertheimer, Nina Totenberg and the late Cokie Roberts – spent most of their careers covering politics, Stamberg’s reporting often focused on culture. Her notable interviews included civil rights figure Rosa Parks, PBS children’s television host Fred Rogers and writer Joan Didion.
In 1987, Stamberg became the first host of “Weekend Edition Sunday,” where she launched the Sunday puzzle, a weekly on-air quiz with Will Shortz.
That same year, she introduced a national audience to mechanics Ray and Tom Magliozzi for a weekly segment about car repair. Nine months later, the brothers had their own national radio program, “Car Talk.”
Each Thanksgiving, she shared her mother-in-law's recipe for cranberry relish with NPR listeners. The recipe, taken from a 1959 New York Times clipping of Craig Claiborne's recipe for cranberry relish, includes whole raw cranberries, onion, sugar, sour cream and horseradish in a mixture that some listeners called “Pepto Bismol pink.”
“That's going to be on my obituary,” she said last month upon her retirement after more than 50 years at NPR. “It'll be the lead, you know?”
Stamberg’s honors included induction into the National Radio Hall of Fame and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
