"We are here and I mean on the air with you today because of Susan Stamberg. There are of course others who helped turn the idea of National Public Radio into a distinctive sound. But a little over 50 years ago, when Susan's voice began to crackle into kitchens and cars all over America, the people who heard her didn't ask, "What's NPR?" but, "Who is that?""
"She often reminded me that the most important thing you can do in an interview is to listen. Journalists often try to plot out extensive questions in advance, packed with pertinent facts. But sometimes we're so eager to get through our questions we neglect to really hear the answers and respond to them. "You've got to be prepared to let all that prep hit the floor," Susan once told me, "and let the interview go someplace else.""
Susan Stamberg was the first woman to co-host a nightly news broadcast and became a defining voice of National Public Radio. Her voice was irreverent, boisterous, courteous, and often hilarious, and her laugh could make microphones tremble. She helped build the partnership that grew NPR into a program with millions of listeners. She taught journalists to listen in interviews, to abandon rigid prep when necessary, and to ask short, simple questions like "Why?" She believed a news program must play all notes of the human symphony, balancing high and low, dark and light, and doing so with style. She retired last month and died this week at age 87.
Read at www.npr.org
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