Susan Stamberg, a “founding mother” of Nationwide Public Radio and the primary feminine broadcaster to host a nationwide information program, has died. She was 87.
Stamberg died Thursday, NPR reported. It didn’t present a reason for loss of life.
Stamberg joined NPR within the early Seventies when it was getting off the bottom as a community of radio stations throughout the nation. Throughout her profession, she interviewed 1000’s of individuals, from outstanding politicians and artists to the much less well-known like White Home cooks and individuals who work behind the scenes in Hollywood.
She defined in an oral historical past interview with Oregon station KLCC in January that she did not have ladies in broadcast to mannequin herself after when she turned 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 stated.
She lowered her voice to sound authoritative. After a number of days, Invoice Siemering, this system supervisor, informed 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 stated. “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” solely had 5 reporters to attract on whereas they crammed their 90-minute program, making a day by day problem.
She informed KLCC that she coined the time period “founding mother” to confer with herself and three different ladies 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 stated.
Stamberg hosted “All Things Considered” for 14 years. She went on to host “Weekend Edition Sunday,” the place she began the Sunday puzzle characteristic with Will Shortz.
Shortz, who continues to function this system’s puzzle grasp and who’s now the crossword editor of the New York Instances, defined that Stamberg wished the present to be the radio equal of a Sunday newspaper that supplied information, tradition, sports activities and a puzzle.
She later turned 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 Workplace. She managed the listeners who referred to as in to talk with him. The questions weren’t screened beforehand. It was the second time Carter had a call-in program after the primary with Walter Cronkite.
Stamberg was inducted into the Nationwide Radio Corridor of Fame, which stated she was identified for her “conversational style, intelligence, and knack for finding an interesting story.” She interviewed Nancy Reagan, Annie Liebowitz, Rosa Parks and James Baldwin, amongst 1000’s of others.
She obtained a star on the Hollywood Stroll of Fame in 2020.
Stamberg was born Susan Levitt in Newark, New Jersey, in 1938 however grew up in Manhattan. She met her husband, Louis Stamberg, whereas working in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
She is survived by her son, Josh Stamberg, and her granddaughters, Vivian and Lena.
