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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Melissa Block talks with Don Gonyea as polls close in Ohio.
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Melissa Block talks with Pam Fessler about voting issues that arose on Tuesday.
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Governor Andrew Cuomo agreed to issue an executive order to allow voters to cast ballots at any polling site, even outside their neighborhoods. Voters will sign affidavits that they're legally registered to vote. Some polling places were rendered unusable by Hurricane Sandy. Melissa Block talks to Quil Lawrence for more.
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Melissa Block talks with senior Washington editor Ron Elving about the Senate races to watch on Tuesday.
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Emotions are still raw in Wisconsin after the bitter fight over public unions and the unsuccessful vote to recall Gov. Scott Walker. As the presidential election approaches, many people are deeply pained by the divide between political extremes, and wishing they felt better about this race. -
Former four-term GOP Gov. Tommy Thompson is facing off against seven-term Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin for an open Senate seat. With recent polls showing a Baldwin surge, one pollster says his state seems to be in the midst of an identity crisis. -
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." -
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. -
A luge competitor from the former Soviet republic of Georgia was killed when he lost control of his sled during training. The incident cast a pall over the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, which kicks off Friday in Vancouver.
