Renee Montagne
Renee Montagne, one of the best-known names in public radio, is a special correspondent and host for NPR News.
Montagne's most recent assignment was a yearlong collaboration with ProPublica reporter Nina Martin, investigating the alarming rate of maternal mortality in the U.S., as compared to other developed countries. The series, called "Lost Mothers," was recognized with more than a dozen awards in American journalism, including a Peabody Award, a George Polk Award, and Harvard's Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Journalism. The series was also named a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize.
From 2004 to 2016, Montagne co-hosted NPR's Morning Edition, the most widely heard radio news program in the United States. Her first experience as host of an NPR newsmagazine came in 1987, when she, along with Robert Siegel, were named the new hosts of All Things Considered.
After leaving All Things Considered, Montagne traveled to South Africa in early 1990, arriving to report from there on the day Nelson Mandela emerged from 27 years in prison. In 1994, she and a small team of NPR reporters were awarded an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for their coverage of South Africa's historic elections that led to Mandela becoming that country's first black president.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Montagne has made 10 extended reporting trips to Afghanistan. She has traveled to every major city, from Kabul to Kandahar, to peaceful villages, and to places where conflict raged. She has profiled Afghanistan's presidents and power brokers, but focused on the stories of Afghans at the heart of that complex country: school girls, farmers, mullahs, poll workers, midwives, and warlords. Her coverage has been honored by the Overseas Press Club, and, for stories on Afghan women in particular, by the Gracie Awards.
One of her most cherished honors dates to her days as a freelance reporter in the 1980s, when Montagne and her collaborator, the writer Thulani Davis, were awarded "First Place in Radio" by the National Association of Black Journalists for their series "Fanfare for the Warriors." It told the story of African-American musicians in the military bands from WW1 to Vietnam.
Montagne began her career in radio pretty much by accident, when she joined a band of friends, mostly poets and musicians, who were creating their own shows at a new, scrappy little San Francisco community station called KPOO. Her show was called Women's Voices.
Montagne graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Berkeley. Her career includes teaching broadcast writing at New York University's Graduate Department of Journalism (now the Carter Institute).
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The NFL locked out the regular officials in June because of a labor dispute. While the league and the referees union continue to disagree over a new contract, the replacements on the field are making mistakes.
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The trial of the former police chief who ignited one of the worst political scandals in China in decades wrapped up Tuesday. Wang Lijun is accused of trying to defect to the United States, and covering up a murder involving the wife of a powerful Communist Party official.
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NATO says it's scaling back operations with Afghan soldiers and policemen to lower the risk of insider attacks. So far, about 51 international troops have died in such attacks. The U.S.-led coalition's key goal is to get Afghan forces ready to take over security from foreign forces by the end of 2014.
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The violent protests in the Middle East and Africa — sparked by a film insulting Mohammad — have subsided. But there is still plenty of tension.
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Attacks in Afghanistan over the past 24 hours that killed four U.S. soldiers and as many as eight Afghan women and girls are raising tensions between the NATO-led coalition and the Afghan government. U.S. officials also acknowledged over the weekend that a separate Taliban attack on a British base used by U.S. Marines inflicted far more damage than originally revealed.
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Ambassador Chris Stevens died Tuesday after an angry mob descended on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in protest of an amateur American film that mocks Islam. The U.S. Embassy in Egypt was also attacked, and security is on high alert in both countries.
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Renee Montagne speaks with NPR's Michele Kelemen about the news that U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three American members of his staff were killed in attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
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Germany's high court on Wednesday rejected calls to block Europe's permanent bailout fund. The Netherlands is also having elections, and unhappiness over the bailout is likely to be a factor in the results. Also, the European Commission released its plan for a banking union. It's quite a big undertaking to try to bring all of Europe's financial institutions under a single regulatory umbrella.
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The notorious prison at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul has been officially handed over to Afghan officials by U.S. military officials. But questions remain about whether some of its prisoners — including "high value" Taliban operatives — will remain under U.S. control. Afghan President Hamid Karzai had demanded control of the prison known as the Parwan detention facility before he signs a status of forces agreement with the United States.
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The new plan to bolster the troubled euro currency was announced Thursday at a meeting in Frankfurt. ECB president Mario Draghi is under immense pressure to prevent the collapse of the 16-nation eurozone. The bank did not lower interest rates, as some investors hoped, but did unveil steps to ease the zone's debt crisis.