Michele Norris

Journalist, Host & Special Correspondent, NPR

About This Expert

Michele Norris is one of the most respected voices in American journalism. As NPR host and special correspondent, Michele produces in-depth profiles, interviews and series, and guest hosts NPR News programs.

Michele also leads the “The Race Card Project,” an initiative to foster a wider conversation about race in America that she created after the publication of her 2010 family memoir, The Grace of Silence. In the book she turns her formidable interviewing and investigative skills on her own background to unearth long hidden family secrets that raise questions about her racial legacy and shed new light on America’s complicated racial history.

Most recently, Michele was a host on NPR’s All Things Considered, where she informed, engaged and enlightened listeners with thoughtful interviews and in-depth reporting. An award-winning journalist, Michele has interviewed world leaders, Nobel laureates, Oscar winners, American presidents, military leaders, influential newsmakers and even astronauts traveling in outer space. She is known for her approachable interviewing style that is both relaxed and rigorous.

From a two-part roundtable discussion with a group of parents about the challenges they faced with childcare to a series looking into what it means to be all-American in this country’s increasing multiculturalism, Michele reports on the issues that affect people, from working parents to career politicians, in small communities and large cities all across the country. Michele teamed up with NPR Morning Edition Host Steve Inskeep for a series of conversations with voters in York, PA, about race and its role in the 2008 presidential election.

In addition to this deep reporting, Michele regularly interviews newsmakers, from politicians to prominent individuals such as Representatives James Clyburn (D-SC), Paul Ryan (R-WI) and First Lady Michelle Obama.

Before joining NPR in 2002, Michele spent almost ten years as a reporter for ABC News in the Washington Bureau. She has also worked as a staff writer for The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.

Michele has received numerous awards for her work. In 2009, she was named “Journalist of the Year” by the National Association of Black Journalists. The NABJ recognized Michele for her body of work, in addition to her coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign — when she co-hosted NPR’s Democratic presidential candidates debate, covered both conventions, anchored multi-hour election and inauguration live broadcasts and moderated a series of candid conversations with voters on the intersection of race and politics. That series earned Michele and Morning Edition Host Steve Inskeep an Alfred I. duPont -Columbia University Award for excellence in broadcasting.

Michele was honored with NABJ’s 2006 Salute to Excellence Award, for her coverage of Hurricane Katrina; the University of Minnesota’s Outstanding Achievement Award; and the 1990 Livingston Award for a series about a six-year-old who lived in a crack house. That series was reprinted in the book, Ourselves Among Others, along with essays by Vaclav Havel, Nelson Mandela, Annie Dillard and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

In 2009, Michele was named one of Essence magazine’s 25 Most Influential Black Americans and elected to Ebony magazine’s Power 150 List. She was honored with Ebony‘s 8th Outstanding Women in Marketing & Communications Award in 2007.

Michele earned both an Emmy Award and Peabody Award for her contribution to ABC News’ coverage of 9/11. She is on the judging committee for both the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the Livingston Awards. Michele is a frequent guest on NBC’s Meet the Press and The Chris Matthews Show.

In 2010, Michele’s book The Grace of Silence: A Memoir was published. In the book she turns her formidable interviewing and investigative skills on her own background to unearth long hidden family secrets that raise questions about her racial legacy and shed new light on America’s complicated racial history.

She attended the University of Wisconsin, where she majored in electrical engineering and graduated from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where she studied journalism.