NPR People
Noah Adams, NPR Biography
Senior Correspondent, National Desk
Photo: Antony Nagelmann
Noah Adams, former long-time co-host of NPR's All Things Considered, brings more than three decades of radio experience to his current job as a reporter for NPR's National Desk, accepting story assignments that take him across the country. He joined the National Desk in April 2003 and spent his first year reporting on issues involving the low-wage workforce.
Adams' career in radio began in 1962 at WIRO (Ironton, Ohio) across the river from his native Ashland, Kentucky. He was a "good music" DJ on the morning shift, and played rock and roll on Sandman's Serenade from 9 p.m. to midnight. Between shifts, he broadcast everything from basketball games to sock hops. From 1963 to 1965, Adams was on the air from WCMI (Ashland, Ky.), WSAZ (Huntington, W. Va.), and WCYB (Bristol, Va.).
After other radio work in Georgia and Kentucky, Adams left radio and spent six years working at various jobs: with a construction company, an automobile dealership, and an advertising agency.
In 1971, he discovered public radio at WBKY-FM at the University of Kentucky. He began there as a part-time rock and roll announcer but soon became involved in other projects including documentaries and a weekly bluegrass show. In 1974, he joined the staff full time as host of a morning news and music program.
In 1975, Adams came to NPR where he worked behind the scenes, editing and writing, for the next three years. He became co-host of the weekend version of All Things Considered in 1978 and, in September 1982, he was named weekday co-host.
During 1988, Adams hosted Minnesota Public Radio's Good Evening, a weekly show that blended music with storytelling. He returned to All Things Considered in February 1989.
Over the years Adams has often reported from overseas; he covered the Christmas Eve uprising against the Ceausescu government in Romania, and his work from Serbia was honored by the Overseas Press Club in 1994.
He wrote and narrated the 1981 documentary, "Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown," which received the Prix Italia, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, and Major Armstrong Award.
W.W. Norton published a 1990 collection of Adams' essays from Good Evening entitled Saint Croix Notes: River Mornings, Radio Nights. In 1992, Norton published Adams' second book, Noah Adams on All Things Considered: A Radio Journal. Delacorte published Piano Lessons: Music, Love and True Adventures, in 1996, and Far Appalachia: Following the New River North, in 2000. His latest book, The Flyers: In Search of Wilbur and Orville Wright, was published by Crown in 2004.
