Nieman News

Washington, D.C.; July 29, 2009 – Guy Raz, a 2009 Nieman Fellow, has been named weekend host of NPR News’ signature afternoon newsmagazine All Things Considered. Raz will step into the role fulltime this weekend, after guest-hosting for the past several months. Previously, Raz was NPR’s defense correspondent.

Every Saturday and Sunday, All Things Considered follows developing and breaking news into the weekend, and also brings listeners in-depth interviews, features and cultural reviews. The hour-long weekend broadcasts are heard by 2.2 million listeners on 600 NPR Member stations nationwide; for local stations and broadcast times, visit www.npr.org/stations

“The news doesn’t end on Friday,” says Raz. “It continues through the weekend. We’ll cover it, but we’re also a place where you’ll hear new voices, interesting music and compelling personal stories.” As host, Raz is just as likely to do a piece about international politics, as he is to do a summer cooking segment in a D.C. kitchen, or talk to a Borneo-born jazz singer. He plans to continue efforts by the show to reach out to and engage the audience – one of his first projects as guest host was to solicit short fiction from the public for a “Three Minute Fiction” contest. All Things Considered has received 5,000 entries to date; the winner will be selected by the literary editor of the New Yorker, and announced in the coming weeks on the program and at NPR.org.

Raz has reported for NPR from more than 40 countries. He worked his way through the ranks of NPR, joining the organization as an intern for All Things Considered in 1997. He became NPR’s Berlin bureau chief in 2000 and London bureau chief in 2003. In 2004, Raz left NPR for two years to work as CNN’s Jerusalem correspondent before returning to Washington and NPR in 2006. He most recently served as the network’s Defense Correspondent. For his reporting on the military, Raz was awarded both the 2008 Edward R. Murrow Award as well as the 2008 Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize awarded by WBUR in Boston. This past year, he was a Nieman journalism fellow at Harvard University, where he studied classical history.

All Things Considered is produced at NPR’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., with reports from NPR bureaus throughout the U.S. and around the world. Supervising senior producer for All Things Considered on the weekends is Matt Martinez; executive director of NPR news programming is Ellen McDonnell.

-NPR-

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