Melissa Block
As special correspondent and guest host of NPR's news programs, Melissa Block brings her signature combination of warmth and incisive reporting. Her work over the decades has earned her journalism's highest honors, and has made her one of NPR's most familiar and beloved voices.
As co-host of All Things Considered from 2003 to 2015, Block's reporting took her everywhere from the Mississippi Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to the heart of Rio de Janeiro; from rural Mozambique to the farthest reaches of Alaska.
Her riveting reporting from Sichuan, China, during and after the massive earthquake in 2008 brought the tragedy home to millions of listeners around the world. At the moment the earthquake hit, Block had the presence of mind to record a gripping, real-time narration of the seismic upheaval she was witnessing. Her long-form story about a desperate couple searching in the rubble for their toddler son was singled out by judges who awarded NPR's earthquake coverage the top honors in broadcast journalism: the George Foster Peabody Award, duPont-Columbia Award, Edward R. Murrow Award, National Headliner Award, and the Society of Professional Journalists' Sigma Delta Chi Award.
Now, as special correspondent, Block continues to engage both the heart and the mind with her reporting on issues from gun violence to adult illiteracy to opioid addiction.
In 2017, she traveled the country for the series "Our Land," visiting a wide range of communities to explore how our identity is shaped by where we live. For that series, she paddled along the Mississippi River, went in search of salmon off the Alaska coast, and accompanied an immigrant family as they became U.S. citizens. Her story about the legacy of the Chinese community in the Mississippi Delta earned her a James Beard Award in 2018.
Block is the recipient of the 2019 Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism, awarded by the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University, as well as the 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Fulbright Association.
Block began her career at NPR in 1985 as an editorial assistant for All Things Considered, and rose through the ranks to become the program's senior producer.
She was a reporter and correspondent in New York from 1994 to 2002, a period punctuated by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Her reporting after those attacks helped earn NPR a George Foster Peabody Award. Block's reporting on rape as a weapon of war in Kosovo was cited by the Overseas Press Club of America in awarding NPR the Lowell Thomas Award in 1999.
Block is a 1983 graduate of Harvard University and spent the following year on a Fulbright fellowship in Geneva, Switzerland. She lives in Washington, DC, with her husband — writer Stefan Fatsis — and their daughter.
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Hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims are fleeing the holy city of Karbala amid clashes between rival Shiite factions that have left at least 24 dead and dozens wounded. The fighting broke out late Monday.
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This week, U.S. intelligence agencies produced a new assessment of the violence in Iraq and the chances for political reconciliation there. The last National Intelligence Estimate in February said the security situation in Iraq was dire and getting worse. The latest report says it could "continue to improve modestly."
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The new head of the U.N. World Food Program is visiting Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and millions have been displaced by fighting between African rebels and Arab militias known as janjaweed, which are backed by government troops. -
Next month, the United States will enter its fifth year of war in Iraq. The conflict has had a deep impact on communities across the country — and perhaps nowhere more than Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, home to two active military divisions. -
Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller testifies that Lewis "Scooter" Libby first discussed an undercover CIA agent with her weeks before his stated recollection. Libby is the former vice presidential aide accused of lying to FBI agents and a grand jury about the CIA leak.
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In testimony Monday, former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that former White House aide Lewis Libby spoke of CIA operative Valerie Plame before the date that Libby had told investigators. Libby is accused of perjury in the outing of Plame, the wife of a prominent war critic.
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United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says the international body faces many challenges, but that he anticipates progress in Sudan and North Korea. He shares his thoughts on these conflicts, Iran and Iraq.
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A Marine Corps squad leader and seven other Marines are charged in the deaths of 24 civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha last year. It's the most serious U.S. criminal case involving civilian deaths in the Iraq war.
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The bill laying out how to handle terrorism detainees has undergone several changes since it was first introduced last week. Now that the legislation appears to be in its final form, Melissa Block talks with NPR's Ari Shapiro about what the bill says and what its implications would be.
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Richard Armitage says he never said the United States would bomb Pakistan if the country didn't help in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida, as Pakistan President Musharraf told CBS' 60 Minutes.
