Melissa Block, NPR special correspondent, was the keynote speaker and Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award recipient at the 44th Murrow Symposium. Ms. Block spoke about her distinguished career in broadcast journalism, her prolific work for NPR’s All Things Considered, as well as her commitment to upholding the legacy of Edward R. Murrow.
As co-host of All Things Considered from 2003 to 2015, Block’s reporting took her everywhere from the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to the heart of Rio de Janeiro; from rural Mozambique to the farthest reaches of Alaska. Her riveting reporting from Sichuan, China, during and after the massive earthquake there in 2008 helped earn NPR broadcast journalism’s top honors, including a George Foster Peabody Award, duPont-Columbia Award, Edward R. Murrow Award, National Headliner Award, and the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi Award.
Great reporting combined with compelling storytelling is vital to NPR’s future. No one exemplifies that blend better than Ms. Block. As listeners well know, she has an amazing ability for telling the important stories of our age in a way that engages both the heart and the mind. It is why she has earned such a devoted following throughout her 30-year career at NPR.