By Jim Arvantes 
Legendary broadcast journalist Susan Stamberg learned two valuable lessons during her first time on the radio: Never go on the air without preparing and never lie to your listeners.

In the 1960s, Stamberg produced a show called Kaleidoscope, which aired on the Educational Radio Network, a now-defunct network of about 12 stations that operated on the East Coast. Stamberg worked out of one of the network’s local affiliates in Washington, D.C. and one evening in February, the local weather girl called out sick, forcing Stamberg to fill in and to thus make her on-air debut.

“The studio didn’t have any windows so you couldn’t look out and see what was happening,” recalled Stamberg during a Tuesday Talk event held at the Cleveland Park Library on Oct. 15, an event attended by more than 200 people.

Stamberg was able to call a number and listen to a recording of the latest weather report furnished by the National Weather Service. She wrote the information down, but neglected to take her notes into the studio. When the on-air light went on, Stamberg, who was now in a panic, ad-libbed, telling her listeners – all 68 of them she estimated – that it was a balmy 92 degrees outside in February in Washington. (The average nightly temperature in Washington in February is about 30 degrees.) 

The radio format required her to repeat the weather forecast, and Stamberg was so nervous she forgot what she said earlier. She again made up her own weather report, saying over the radio that it was a more moderate 62 degrees in Washington on that February night, not 92 degrees as she broadcast earlier, a more believable fabrication, but a fabrication nonetheless.

“It was amazing – no one called in to complain,” said Stamberg as the audience laughed.

Stamberg said if her mother had heard the broadcast, she would have repeatedly called into the station, pointing out the mistakes. But fortunately, Stamberg’s mother lived in New York at the time, far out of range of the local broadcast.

Lessons Learned

Stamberg always learned her lessons well, applying them to her work and a career that took her to the top of her profession. Stamberg, co-hosted National Public Radio’s (NPR), premier news program, All Things Considered, ATC, from 1972 to 1986, as well as other NPR programs. She conducted thousands of thought-provoking and riveting interviews with the famous, the not-so-famous and the infamous.

This included interviews with former president Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter, Nancy Reagan, Billy Crystal, Rosa Parks, Fred Rogers, legendary jazz pianist and composer Dave Brubeck, Luciano Pavarotti, Pulitzer Prize winning economist Milton Friedman and John Ehrlichman of Watergate fame, among many, many others.

In the process, Stamberg won nearly every major award in broadcasting, earning induction into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 1994 and the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1996. In 2020, she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to radio and broadcasting. Her voice was also heard on Broadway, appearing in a play called An American Daughter. 

When she became co-host of ATC in 1972, Stamberg was the first woman to anchor a national nightly news program. She also developed and anchored other shows at NPR, including Weekend Edition. At the age of 86, Stamberg still works as a special correspondent for NPR, focusing mostly on cultural issues, a job she refers to “as icing on the cake.”

During Tuesday Talks, Stamberg was in conversation with Linda Winslow, another ground-breaking journalist who worked behind the scenes as an executive producer, managing and overseeing such iconic news programs as the MacNeil-Lehrer Report on PBS. Winslow was also a Vice President in charge of News and Public Affairs for WETA public television in Washington, D.C.

Common Bond

Stamberg and Winslow share a common history and a special bond. The two of them embarked on their journalism careers when the industry was heavily dominated by men. Back then, women were often pushed aside, taking the only jobs offered to them – low-paying positions as researchers, secretaries, assistants or weather girls.

Stamberg and Winslow talked about their early struggles and challenges in a male-dominated field as well as the dramatic changes now transforming the broadcasting industry.

Stamberg has spent more than 50 years at NPR, most of them working alongside Linda Wertheimer, Nina Totenberg and the late Cokie Roberts. The four of them formed a dynamic and formidable team of journalists who shaped NPR since its inception, changing the voice of broadcast news while blazing a new path for female journalists.

They became known as the founding mothers of NPR, an appellation that Stamberg created. When asked why she coined that term, Stamberg explained that she is a “feminist,” and she got tired of always hearing about “founding fathers.”

“I thought wait a minute – we made our mark,” said Stamberg, who graduated from Barnard College with an English degree. “Let’s give ourselves some credit with that. Also it was catchy, and I thought people could catch on to it.”

Stamberg reminded the audience that she still serves as a special correspondent for NPR, precluding her from talking about politics. As she explained, “I represent my network, and I must be objective and balanced.”

Interestingly, Stamberg has never enjoyed interviewing politicians. In the early 1980s, Stamberg wrote her first book called Every Night at Five: Susan Stamberg’s All Things Considered Book, in which she said she would rather spend 10 hours with an actor than five minutes with the Speaker of the House.

Stamberg said politicians are always “canned and careful,” rarely saying anything publicly they haven’t already told others.

“I like people who will think with me,” explained Stamberg. “I have always enjoyed that best.”

Stamberg smiles and laughs easily, relying on an engaging and affable personality as well as a sharp wit to put her interview guests at ease and to establish a conversational rapport with them.

“I want them to tell me stuff they haven’t told anyone else before,” Stamberg said. “That has an energy that is really wonderful and fascinating. It is not so rehearsed and practiced.”

Profound Impact

Stamberg vowed not to talk about politics, but that didn’t prevent her from discussing the impact Donald Trump has on the reporting of news itself. Trump is an avid tweeter, and each time he tweets, news organizations think they must cover every post, forcing their employees to work 24-7 news cycles.

“The pressure on just following and covering (Trump) is enormous,” commented Stamberg.

Stamberg addressed other changes and developments in the world of broadcasting. She said, for example, that the emergence of the 24-hour news cycle along with podcasts, and streaming services have put additional pressure on news organizations to focus more on hard news.

At the same time, the collapse of many local newspapers has put more demands on NPR and other news organizations to step in and fill the void in local news coverage, making them “more news heavy,” according to Stamberg.

These developments have taken the “charm and joy” out of broadcasts that rely more on features instead of daily news. Stamberg, for example, has provided NPR listeners with her mother-in-law’s recipe for cranberry relish every Thanksgiving since 1971, making the recipe a national tradition.

Each year, Stamberg finds a different way to present the recipe to her listeners. One year, Stamberg got Martha Stewart to present the recipe shortly after her release from prison for her part in an insider-trading scandal.

Many listeners “now roll their eyes” at the unveiling of the recipe because it doesn’t pertain to news and events of the day, Stamberg said.

Glory Days

An interview with Susan Stamberg is not complete without a discussion of NPR’s early days, and Stamberg’s role in shaping NPR’s coverage as well as its overall direction.

Winslow pointed out that President Lyndon Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act in 1967, and at the 11th hour, radio was added to the legislation, almost as “an afterthought,” commented Winslow.

NPR began broadcasting in 1971 without a clear vision or mission. In some ways, that lack of purpose and direction benefited the then-fledgling network. Frank Mankiewicz, President of NPR from 1977 to 1983, told Winslow many years ago that “no one told us what we couldn’t do.”

“You could do almost anything in the beginning,” Winslow told Stamberg. 

Stamberg agreed, describing NPR’s early days as “exciting, terrifying and challenging.”

Stamberg began as a part-time associate at NPR in 1971, and despite her part-time status, she worked full time most days, often harder and longer than the full-time employees. In 1972, Stamberg was named co-host of ATC, obtaining the job largely because she had radio experience that others at NPR lacked. 

“I learned radio at American University at WMAU,” she said. “I was also their first full time employee.”

It didn’t take long for major news personalities to notice Stamberg and ATC.

CBS correspondent Charles Kuralt, best known for his On the Road Segments on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and for being the first anchor of CBS News Sunday, called ATC “the most interesting thing on the air.” He said, “It beats anything else on radio, television, shortwave, CBS or ship to shore.” 

Kuralt wrote the introduction to Stamberg’s first book.

Alternative Coverage

From the outset, Stamberg and other NPR employees knew they didn’t have a budget or the manpower to compete with the major broadcasting networks. Consequently, they sought to serve as an alternative to the major networks, providing something different for their listeners.

Stamberg, for instance, suggested covering topics that impacted children, a subject the major networks did not cover unless a child was very famous or had gotten hurt in some type of scandal. Stamberg also covered topics related to psychology, applying that topic to ways individuals were coping with the stress of their daily lives.

“We were very ambitious,” recalled Stamberg. “My vision was we were going to be the New York Times on the radio. We had to wait a long time for that to happen. But my standards, my hopes for us, were that high.”

In the early days, Stamberg and other NPR correspondents relied on newspapers, expanding on stories already printed by major publications.

“We came in with clippings and said, ‘we like this one,’” Stamberg explained, describing the process of choosing stories to cover. 

In an earlier Tuesday Talk last year, long time NPR correspondent Linda Wertheimer compared NPR’s early days to working for a start-up – a lot of young people, making very little money and working very long hours.

But they all believed in a cause. 

“We knew it was something new, and we were fashioning it,” said Stamberg.

NPR also made a point of hiring women correspondents, which was unusual at the time. In most instances, the women worked for less money than their male counterparts. When asked why he had so many women on staff at NPR, Mankiewicz said he got “more bang for the buck” with women.  

NPR benefited from having visionary leaders such as Mankiewicz and William Siemering, the creator of ATC. Siemering hired Stamberg and many other women correspondents. He reached an agreement with the Christian Science Monitor so that Stamberg and other NPR correspondents could talk to the Christian Science Monitor staff about stories.

“They had correspondents all over the world,” Stamberg said. “I could talk to them on the phone, which I did on a daily basis many times. They became our reporting staff until we got more money and hired more actual reporters.”

Thriving Medium

In the early 1970s, as NPR was still finding its niche, some analysts predicted that television would put radio out of business. But during the ensuing years and decades, radio has not only survived, it has thrived, surpassing many expectations along the way.

Winslow asked Stamberg what makes radio unique and Stamberg responded by saying, “You can listen to it in the shower,” a response that drew laughter from the audience.

“Also you don’t have to comb your hair for it,” she added.

Nevertheless, Stamberg said, “You want to look your best because you are a guest in their house.” Before going on the radio, Stamberg used to put lipstick on, a ritual she followed for many years.

“They can’t see you,” she said. “But mentally it makes a difference.”

Stamberg is convinced that radio will always have a place in our society. It may not be with all the dials, she said. But as Stamberg explained, “There will always be a need for the human voice and the human voice to tell stories.”

“I don’t see the end of that – ever,” she added.

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