Renee Montagne
Renee Montagne, one of the best-known names in public radio, is a special correspondent and host for NPR News.
Montagne's most recent assignment was a yearlong collaboration with ProPublica reporter Nina Martin, investigating the alarming rate of maternal mortality in the U.S., as compared to other developed countries. The series, called "Lost Mothers," was recognized with more than a dozen awards in American journalism, including a Peabody Award, a George Polk Award, and Harvard's Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Journalism. The series was also named a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize.
From 2004 to 2016, Montagne co-hosted NPR's Morning Edition, the most widely heard radio news program in the United States. Her first experience as host of an NPR newsmagazine came in 1987, when she, along with Robert Siegel, were named the new hosts of All Things Considered.
After leaving All Things Considered, Montagne traveled to South Africa in early 1990, arriving to report from there on the day Nelson Mandela emerged from 27 years in prison. In 1994, she and a small team of NPR reporters were awarded an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for their coverage of South Africa's historic elections that led to Mandela becoming that country's first black president.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Montagne has made 10 extended reporting trips to Afghanistan. She has traveled to every major city, from Kabul to Kandahar, to peaceful villages, and to places where conflict raged. She has profiled Afghanistan's presidents and power brokers, but focused on the stories of Afghans at the heart of that complex country: school girls, farmers, mullahs, poll workers, midwives, and warlords. Her coverage has been honored by the Overseas Press Club, and, for stories on Afghan women in particular, by the Gracie Awards.
One of her most cherished honors dates to her days as a freelance reporter in the 1980s, when Montagne and her collaborator, the writer Thulani Davis, were awarded "First Place in Radio" by the National Association of Black Journalists for their series "Fanfare for the Warriors." It told the story of African-American musicians in the military bands from WW1 to Vietnam.
Montagne began her career in radio pretty much by accident, when she joined a band of friends, mostly poets and musicians, who were creating their own shows at a new, scrappy little San Francisco community station called KPOO. Her show was called Women's Voices.
Montagne graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Berkeley. Her career includes teaching broadcast writing at New York University's Graduate Department of Journalism (now the Carter Institute).
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A judge in Baltimore has found police Officer Edward Nero not guilty of multiple misdemeanor charges relating to the arrest of Freddie Gray, who died after sustaining injuries while in police custody.
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The White House has announced that President Obama will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima when he travels to Japan this month. The question: Why now?
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The senator from Vermont has a cameo in Batman v. Superman playing a lawmaker in a congressional hearing on whether Superman is a tyrant or a hero. The Batman fan frequently trades D.C. for DC Comics.
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Pulitzer Prize-winner Jonathan Gold is as much a culinary anthropologist and cultural philosopher as he is a food critic. A new documentary follows him across Los Angeles.
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President Obama has nominated Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, but the Senate had said it would take no action on a nominee from the Obama administration.
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President Obama is announcing his nomination to the Supreme Court on Wednesday: Judge Merrick Garland. Will the Senate stick to its position that it won't act on any nomination?
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President Obama on Wednesday will announce his nominee for the Supreme Court seat left vacant by Antonin Scalia's death. Sri Srinivasan is among the top contenders; he's South Asian and Hindu.
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There's little doubt the president's choice nominee will face a tough fight in the appointment process, as Republicans have said they won't even consider his pick.
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Who's in the running to fill the vacant seat on the Supreme Court? An announcement could come this week.
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Bill Cosby has faced numerous civil suits from dozens of women over the years, but this is the first criminal charge. The statute of limitations in the 2004 case was set to expire in January.