Meet Howard Berkes, NPR's Correspondent for
Rural Affairs
Howard Berkes has traveled thousands of
miles, driving ranch roads, city streets, desert washes, and
mountain switchbacks to capture the voices and sounds that give
each region in the United States its unique identity.
Howard became National Public Radio's first
rural affairs correspondent in March 2003. His focus includes
the politics, economics, and culture of rural America. Some
stories are unique to non-urban communities. Some provide rural
perspectives on major issues and events.
This is a natural extension of Berkes' two
decades of reporting for NPR. In 1981, he pioneered NPR's
coverage of the interior of the American West and public lands
issues.
An Easterner by birth, Berkes moved west in
1976 and soon became a volunteer at NPR member station KLCC-FM
/ Eugene, Oregon. His reports on the 1980 eruptions of Mt. St.
Helens were regular features on NPR and prompted his hiring.
Berkes is often remembered for his story
that provided the first detailed account of the attempt by
Morton Thiokol engineers to stop the fatal 1986 launch of the
Space Shuttle Challenger. Berkes teamed with NPR's Daniel
Zwerdling for the report, which earned a number of major
national journalism awards. In 1989, Berkes followed up with
another award-winning report that examined NASA's efforts to
redesign the Space Shuttle's rocket boosters.
Reporting by Berkes in 1998 helped
transform the Olympic bribery scandal from a local story in
Utah into a media firestorm that attracted international
attention. His ongoing reporting of Olympic politics and the
Olympic Games made him a resource to other news organizations
including PBS, MSNBC, the BBC, and many others.
Howard Berkes
Howard covered the 2000 Summer Olympics in
Sydney and 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, his fourth
Olympic games for NPR. The 2002 Olympics coverage included
rides in a bobsled and on a luge sled to help listeners
understand how those sports work.
Berkes has covered Native American issues,
the militia movement, neo-nazi groups, nuclear waste, the
Unabomber case, the Montana Freemen standoff, polygamy, western
water issues, and more. His work has been honored by many
organizations including the American Psychological Association,
American Association for the Advancement of Science, the
Society of Professional Journalists, the Robert F. Kennedy
Memorial, and the National Association of Science Writers.
Berkes also trains news reporters, consults
with radio news departments, and serves as a guest faculty
member at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. Berkes was
awarded a Nieman Foundation Journalism Fellowship at Harvard
University in 1997.
