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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Saul Bellow, the award-winning author of books including Humboldt's Gift and The Adventures of Augie March, died Tuesday at his home in Brookline, Mass. He was 89.
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Classmates, clergy and community leaders are taking a new look at life in Red Lake in the aftermath of Monday's school shootings. The isolated Red Lake reservation is home to some 5,000 Chippewa, or Ojibwe, people. -
A military jury finds Army Spec. Charles Graner guilty of abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. Graner was identifed as the ringleader of a prison scandal revealed by photos and video. Hear NPR's Melissa Block and NPR's Jackie Northam.
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A bombing in the northern city of Beiji that targeted a U.S. convoy kills several Iraqis, as fighting continues in Fallujah. Hear NPR's Melissa Block and Alissa Rubin of the Los Angeles Times.
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Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 80, is hospitalized for thyroid cancer. Rehnquist underwent a tracheotomy Saturday at a Maryland hospital. The court's conservative leader is expected to return to work next week. Hear NPR's Melissa Block and NPR's Nina Totenberg.
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The United Nations agrees to look into charges of fraud in Afghanistan's presidential election. Before the investigation was announced, rivals of interim President Hamid Karzai had threatened to reject the vote. Hear NPR's Melissa Block and NPR's Philip Reeves.
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President Bush defends his decision to invade Iraq despite a U.S. weapons inspector's report that the country had no illicit weapons. His rival, Sen. John Kerry, said the president refuses "to face the truth." Hear NPR's Robert Siegel, NPR's Melissa Block and NPR's Scott Horsley.
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The chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq says Saddam Hussein posed a diminishing threat when the United States invaded. The official, Charles Duelfer, found that Saddam had the desire but not the means to make nuclear weapons. Hear NPR's Mary Louise Kelly and NPR's Melissa Block.
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Some U.S. utility companies manipulate lead tests for drinking water, according to The Washington Post. Analyzing 65 water systems, the paper found that high lead levels were concealed from regulators. Hear NPR's Melissa Block and Post reporter Carol Leonnig.
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A slew of recent security breaches in London is likely to have an impact on tourism. A reporter for a tabloid newspaper recently managed to bring fake bomb equipment onto the floor of Parliament without being checked. Earlier, a protestor dressed as Batman managed to scale Buckingham Palace. Hear NPR's Melissa Block and Matthew Tempest of the British newspaper The Guardian.
