NPR Names Correspondent as Co-Host of ‘All Things’

For the first time since 1989, National Public Radio on Monday named a new co-host for its afternoon newsmagazine, “All Things Considered.”

Melissa Block, NPR’s New York correspondent, will leave behind her coverage of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, feature stories about baseball umpires and performance artists, and also end her maternity leave to join Robert Siegel on the program in February.

“It’s a thrill. It’s immensely flattering, and going back to the show is like a homecoming,” said Block, 40, who worked behind the scenes at “All Things Considered” for nine years. “You’re given free reign to exercise your interests, and that’s a wonderful thing. There are very few places in journalism where you can do that.”

Siegel, Noah Adams and Linda Wertheimer had co-hosted the program for 13 years until the network made Wertheimer a roving correspondent in January. Then Adams left in March, taking a sabbatical to write a book about the Wright brothers.

The longest-running program in the history of public radio, “All Things Considered” is now in its 32nd year, and reaches about 12 million listeners per week.

“We went through a long process. Stations and listeners are counting on us getting this right,” said Jay Kernis, NPR’s senior vice president for programming. “She represents the best of public radio, and what’s very special is that she’s grown up through the show.”

Block joined NPR just out of college in 1985, when Adams and Susan Stamberg hosted “All Things Considered.”

“I’ve watched and listened and hopefully absorbed some of the talent they brought to the show,” she said, then admitting “I never pictured myself in that seat.”

The Brooklyn native started out by setting up interviews for Adams, and was an editor, director, producer and senior producer on the program, sharing Overseas Press Club awards with reporters in 1992 and 1994 for their stories about Cambodian refugees and the war in Bosnia. She shared another of the awards in 1999, when NPR won for its coverage of the crisis in Kosovo, for her story on the use of rape as a weapon of war.

In addition, her reporting of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was included in coverage that won NPR a Peabody Award. She’s also covered the crash of TWA flight 800, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s U.S. Senate run, police brutality trials and the 2000 election recount, as well as quirky New York feature stories about a subway aficionado and a trio of litter fighters who specialize in snagging plastic bags from treetops, among others.

Kernis said NPR is negotiating with someone from outside the network to fill the third slot, replacing Adams, and hopes to finalize that within a month.

“All Things Considered” is heard locally weekdays on KPCC-FM (89.3) from 3 to 6:30 p.m. and on KCRW-FM (89.9) from 4 to 7 p.m.