Susan Stamberg, the “founding mother” of National Public Radio and the first female anchor to host a national news program, has died. She was 87.
Stamberg died Thursday, NPR reported. He did not indicate the cause of death.
Stamberg joined NPR in the early 1970s when it was emerging as a network of radio stations across the country. Over the course of her career, she has interviewed thousands of people, from high-profile politicians and artists to lesser-known figures such as White House chefs and people who work behind the scenes in Hollywood.
In January, in an oral history interview with Oregon station KLCC, she explained that she had no on-air women to model after she became the host of “All Things Considered” in 1972.
“There were only men at the event, and the only thing I knew how to do was imitate them,” she said.
She lowered her voice to sound authoritative. A few days later, Bill Siemering, the program manager, told her to be herself.
“And that was also new at the time because everyone else, the women, were trained actors, and so they performed with very careful accents and very careful delivery. They weren't relaxed and natural,” she said. “So we created a new sound through radio as well, through NPR.”
NPR obituary for Stamberg quoted her co-star Jack Mitchell as saying she had a “distinct New York accent”.
All Things Considered had just five reporters to lean on as they filled out their 90-minute program, creating a daily challenge.
She told KLCC that she coined the term “founding mother” to refer to herself and three other women who helped launch NPR: Cokie Roberts, Nina Totenberg and Linda Wertheimer.
“I was tired of hearing about the Founding Fathers, and I knew we weren't like that, so we were obviously the Founding Mothers, and I was going to put that on the map,” she said.
Stamberg ran the All Things Considered program for 14 years. She continued to host Weekend Edition Sunday, where she co-launched the Sunday Puzzle with Will Shortz.
Shortz, who continues to work on the program as a puzzle master and who is now crossword editor at the New York Times, explained that Stamberg wanted the show to be the radio equivalent of a Sunday newspaper that covered news, culture, sports and puzzles.
She later became the cultural correspondent for Morning Edition and Weekend Edition Saturday. She retired in September.
In 1979, she hosted a two-hour radio program with then-President Jimmy Carter from the Oval Office. She managed the listeners who called to talk to him. The questions have not been pre-tested. This was Carter's second time on the call-out program, after his first with Walter Cronkite.
Stamberg was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame, which said she was known for her “conversational style, intelligence and ability to find interesting stories.” She interviewed Nancy Reagan, Annie Liebowitz, Rosa Parks and James Baldwin, among thousands of others.
In 2020, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Stamberg was born Susan Levitt in Newark, New Jersey in 1938, but grew up in Manhattan. She met her husband Louis Stamberg while working in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
She is survived by her son Josh Stamberg and granddaughters Vivian and Lena.
