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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The pipeline's fate looms large in Washington. But for people living in Keystone XL's proposed path, the project will alter livelihoods and legacies — for better or worse, depending on whom you ask.
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Scott Farm in Vermont grows 100 apple varieties, some of them dating back to the 1700s. These apples may not look as pretty as the Red Delicious, but what they lack in looks they make up for in taste. -
An injured leg can cause so much pain that some wounded veterans consider amputation. A brace invented at an Army medical center in Texas is getting them up and running again. -
Melissa Block talks with Lolis Eric Elie, a writer and editor behind the HBO series Treme about a new cookbook written in the voices of the show's characters. Elie says it reflects both old New Orleans traditions and more recent influences. -
The retired NASA astronaut, who has written the new book Gabby: A Story Of Courage and Hope, goes into detail about his wife Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' recovery since she was shot in the head on Jan. 8. His constant refrain is that she's "improving all of the time." -
Film critic Roger Ebert is famous for arguing about movies on TV with Gene Siskel. Now that cancer surgeries have left him without the ability to speak, Ebert has found a new voice online. Melissa Block visits him at his Chicago home to talk about his memoir, Life Itself. -
Sally Mann, considered one of the most influential photographers of her time, has recently focused her work on her husband of 40 years, Larry. About 15 years ago, Larry was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy. Mann photographed him in a project called "Proud Flesh." "He's really brave," she says. -
When Paul Greenberg started fishing as a kid in the '70s, he didn't have to think twice about dwindling wild fish populations. That was before the world nearly doubled its fish consumption. Four Fish is Greenberg's investigation into the future of the last wild food.
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In 1999, Tom DeBaggio was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease. He was 57. Soon after the diagnosis, he began talking with NPR about his illness. He wanted to document his decline, to break through what he called the "shame and silence" of the disease. Now he can't talk, walk or feed himself. -
The Senate passed a $700 billion financial industry bailout Wednesday, winning lopsided passage in the Senate and gaining ground in the House, where Republican opposition softened.
