Linda Wertheimer
As NPR's senior national correspondent, Linda Wertheimer travels the country and the globe for NPR News, bringing her unique insights and wealth of experience to bear on the day's top news stories.
A respected leader in media and a beloved figure to listeners who have followed her three-decade-long NPR career, Wertheimer provides clear-eyed analysis and thoughtful reporting on all NPR News programs.
Before taking the senior national correspondent post in 2002, Wertheimer spent 13 years hosting of NPR's news magazine All Things Considered. During that time, Wertheimer helped build the afternoon news program's audience to record levels. The show grew from six million listeners in 1989 to nearly 10 million listeners by spring of 2001, making it one of the top afternoon drive-time, news radio programs in the country. Wertheimer's influence on All Things Considered — and, by extension, all of public radio — has been profound.
She joined NPR at the network's inception, and served as All Things Considered's first director starting with its debut on May 3, 1971. In the more than 40 years since, she has served NPR in a variety of roles including reporter and host.
From 1974 to 1989, Wertheimer provided highly praised and award-winning coverage of national politics and Congress for NPR, serving as its congressional and then national political correspondent. Wertheimer traveled the country with major presidential candidates, covered state presidential primaries and the general elections, and regularly reported from Congress on the major events of the day — from the Watergate impeachment hearings to the Reagan Revolution to historic tax reform legislation to the Iran-Contra affair. During this period, Wertheimer covered four presidential and eight congressional elections for NPR.
In 1976, Wertheimer became the first woman to anchor network coverage of a presidential nomination convention and of election night. Over her career at NPR, she has anchored ten presidential nomination conventions and 12 election nights.
Wertheimer is the first person to broadcast live from inside the United States Senate chamber. Her 37 days of live coverage of the Senate Panama Canal Treaty debates won her a special Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University award.
In 1995, Wertheimer shared in an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton Award given to NPR for its coverage of the first 100 days of the 104th Congress, the period that followed the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress.
Wertheimer has received numerous other journalism awards, including awards from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for her anchoring of The Iran-Contra Affair: A Special Report, a series of 41 half-hour programs on the Iran-Contra congressional hearings, from American Women in Radio/TV for her story Illegal Abortion, and from the American Legion for NPR's coverage of the Panama Treaty debates.
in 1997, Wertheimer was named one of the top 50 journalists in Washington by Washingtonian magazine and in 1998 as one of America's 200 most influential women by Vanity Fair.
A graduate of Wellesley College, Wertheimer received its highest alumni honor in 1985, the Distinguished Alumna Achievement Award. Wertheimer holds honorary degrees from Colby College, Wheaton College, and Illinois Wesleyan University.
Prior to joining NPR, Wertheimer worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation in London and for WCBS Radio in New York.
Her 1995 book, Listening to America: Twenty-five Years in the Life of a Nation as Heard on National Public Radio, published by Houghton Mifflin, celebrates NPR's history.
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The Bush administration is considering seeking a new U.N. resolution that would endorse a broader multi-national force to restore order in Iraq. Hear NPR's Linda Wertheimer and Eric Rouleau, a journalist who is the former French ambassador to Turkey and Tunisia.
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The towering Titan Arum at the United States Botanic Garden blooms, releasing its distinctive "rotting flesh" smell and entertaining throngs of visitors -- including NPR's Linda Wertheimer. View a gallery of photos of the five-foot flower in bloom.
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With a win at the Belmont Stakes, Funny Cide would become the first gelding to win horse racing's Triple Crown. For Weekend Edition Saturday, NPR's Linda Wertheimer talks with author Kevin Conley about why owners choose to geld their animals in the face of lucrative breeding fees.
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For many Americans, retired Sen. Dale Bumpers is best known as the man who gave the impassioned closing speech defending President Bill Clinton before the Senate impeachment vote. That event bookends his autobiography, Best Lawyer in a One Lawyer Town: A Memoir. Hear excerpts from his extended interview with NPR's Linda Wertheimer.
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Few basic services have been restored to Iraq despite vigorous U.S. efforts to repair damage from the war and the years of economic sanctions that preceded the conflict. Normal life may be a year or more away. Hear NPR's Linda Wertheimer and Lt. Col. Sam Gardiner, retired.
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Esquire magazine editor A.J. Jacobs is on a quest to become the smartest guy in the world -- by reading the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica. He's up to the letter "O." NPR's Linda Wertheimer checks on Jacobs' progress.
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The birds are singing, the flowers are blooming and May Day is soon upon us. But somehow Jim Nayder, the Annoying Music Man, finds a way to spoil the beauty of it all. On Weekend Edition Saturday, Nayder shares some terrible recordings he considers appropriate for May Day with NPR's Linda Wertheimer.
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NPR's Linda Wertheimer talks with Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci says SARS is a particularly dangerous disease because it passes directly from person to person. He urges people to follow travel advisories issued in response to the epidemic.
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Chinese health officials report seven more deaths from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, raising China's SARS-related deaths to 122. In Beijing, a second hospital is sealed off and 4,000 residents are under quarantine. Disease experts urge people to heed travel advisories. Hear NPR's Rob Gifford and NPR's Linda Wertheimer.
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A list of 1,000 potential sites housing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has been pared to about three dozen facilities. So far, there's scant evidence of the weapons that helped trigger the war to depose Saddam Hussein. Hear former U.N. weapons inspector Terry Taylor, international relations expert Ellen Laipson and NPR's Linda Wertheimer.