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'The voice we woke up to': Bob Edwards, longtime 'Morning Edition' host, dies at 76
Bob Edwards (pictured in 1989) started his career at NPR as a newscaster and then hosted All Things Considered before moving to Morning Edition.
Max Hirshfeld for NPR
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Max Hirshfeld for NPR
Bob Edwards (pictured in 1989) started his career at NPR as a newscaster and then hosted All Things Considered before moving to Morning Edition.
Max Hirshfeld for NPR
Bob Edwards, the veteran broadcaster and longtime host of Morning Edition who left an indelible mark on NPR’s sound, has died. He was 76 years old.
NPR’s Susan Stamberg says Edwards’ voice became part of the morning routine for millions of Americans.
“He was Bob Edwards of Morning Edition for 24 1/2 years, and his was the voice we woke up to,” she says.
When listeners first heard that voice, they might have imagined a figure of great authority, an avuncular newsman dressed in a pinstripe suit. But that was not Bob Edwards.
He was the consummate newsman
Margaret Low started at the company in 1982 as a Morning Edition production assistant. Now CEO of WBUR in Boston, she served for three years as NPR’s senior vice president for news. She says Edwards always walked in the door right at 2:30 a.m., but he was casual.
“He was tall and lanky and wore jeans, and I think, if I remember right, was sort of pretty much always in an untucked flannel shirt.”
Low says Edwards’ seeming casualness belied a seriousness — about radio, about the news and especially about the art of writing. Like several of his contemporaries at NPR, he studied writing at American University with former CBS journalist Ed Bliss.
“He used to say that Ed Bliss sat on his shoulder as he wrote,” Low recalls.
In fact, Edwards’ Washington, D.C., office overlooked CBS News.
“I have this total image of Bob sitting in his office on M Street and it would be dark outside because it would be the middle of the night, and he faced the window over CBS News,” Low says. “And he would be typing on his manual typewriter with these really, really big keys, and they would go click, click, click, and behind him you would hear … the AP and Reuters wires.”
Edwards, Low says, was the consummate newsman.
“He was a total news guy, and I think understood the news deeply,” she says. “And in some ways he sort of set the bar for how we approach stories, because he would convey these stories with a kind of simplicity but also with real depth, and make sure that they somehow resonated. And that’s lasted.”
‘Mr. Cool’ and Red Barber
Edwards started his career at NPR as a newscaster and then hosted All Things Considered with Susan Stamberg. She says their styles sometimes clashed.
“We had five good — if rocky — years together, until we sort of got one another’s rhythm, because he was Mr. Cool, he was Mr. Authoritative and straight ahead. I was the New Yorker with a million ideas and a big laugh. But we really adjusted rather well.”
Stamberg remembers Edwards for his humor, a quality that was often on display in his hundreds of interviews with newsmakers, authors, musicians and singers.
One of Edwards’ longest-running radio relationships was also one of his listeners’ favorites: his weekly conversation with sports broadcasting legend Red Barber.
Sports broadcaster Red Barber with NPR’s Bob Edwards in 1992. Edwards talked to Barber every week on Morning Edition.
AP
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Sports broadcaster Red Barber with NPR’s Bob Edwards in 1992. Edwards talked to Barber every week on Morning Edition.
AP
Edwards eventually wrote a book about his radio friendship with Barber, the first of three he authored, including a memoir, A Voice in the Box: My Life in Radio.
Edwards’ approach helped set the tone for NPR
Edwards left NPR after the company decided to remove him as host of Morning Edition. Though his many fans protested mightily, Edwards closed out his last show on April 30, 2004. He ended his tenure just as it started, by interviewing one of his radio heroes, Charles Osgood.
“You were the first person I interviewed for Morning Edition, and I wanted you to be the last,” Edwards told Osgood on air.
Edwards went on to host his own interview show at Sirius XM Radio and continued to be heard on many public radio stations on Bob Edwards Weekend. But Margaret Low says his contribution to NPR will never be forgotten.
“He sort of set the tone and the bar for all of us,” she says. “He understood the power and the intimacy of our medium and captured the attention of millions and millions of people who are still with us today.”
new video loaded: Singer D4vd Is Charged With Murder of Celeste Rivas Hernandez
transcript
transcript
Singer D4vd Is Charged With Murder of Celeste Rivas Hernandez
The musician D4vd was charged with murder on Monday, seven months after the police said that the body of a teenage girl, Celeste Rivas Hernandez, had been found in the trunk of his Tesla. D4vd, whose real name is David Burke, pleaded not guilty to the charges.
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“On April 23, 2025, as has been alleged by the complaint, Celeste, a 14-year-old at that time, went to Mr. Burke’s house in the Hollywood Hills. She was never heard from again.” “These charges include the most serious charges that a D.A.‘s office can bring. That is first-degree murder with special circumstances. The special circumstances being lying in wait, committing this crime for financial gain or murdering a witness in an investigation. These special circumstances carry with it, along with the first-degree murder charge, a maximum sentence of life without the possibility of parole, or the death penalty.” “We believe the actual evidence will show David Burke did not murder Celeste Revis Hernandez nor was he the cause of her death.”
By Jackeline Luna
April 20, 2026
In this photo illustration, The Onion website is displayed on a computer screen, showing a satirical story titled Here’s Why I Decided To Buy ‘InfoWars’, on November 14, 2024 in Pasadena, California.
Mario Tama/Getty Images North America
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Mario Tama/Getty Images North America
The satirical website, The Onion, has a new deal to take over Infowars, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s far-right media company. If approved by a Texas judge, the deal would take away his Infowars microphone, and allow The Onion to resume its plans to turn the website into a parody of itself.
Families of those killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, who sued Jones for defamation, want the sale to happen. They’re still waiting to collect on the nearly $1.3 billion judgement they won against Jones for spreading lies that they faked the deaths of their children in order to boost support for gun control. That prompted Jones’s followers to harass and threaten the families for years.
The families are also eager to take away Jones’s platform for spewing such conspiracy theories. The deal not only would divorce Jones from his Infowars brand, but it would turn the platform against him by allowing The Onion to mock his kind of conspiracy mongering and advocate for gun control.
The families “took on Alex Jones to stop him from inflicting the same harm on others” by using “his corrupt business platform to torment and harass them for profit,” said Chris Mattei, one of the attorneys for the families. “When Infowars finally goes dark, the machinery of lies that Jones built will become a force for social good, thanks to the families’ courage and The Onion’s vision, persistence and stewardship.”
A mourner visits the Sandy Hook Permanent Memorial on the 10th anniversary of the school shooting on Dec.14, 2022 in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty-six people were shot and killed, including 20 first graders and 6 educators, in one of the deadliest elementary school shootings in U.S. history.
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For its part The Onion called it a “significant step in an effort to transform one of the internet’s more notorious misinformation platforms into a new comedy network for satire.” The company says it could announce its new rollout of Infowars in a matter of weeks if the judge approves the deal.
“Eight years, almost to the day, after the Sandy Hook parents first filed suit against Alex Jones, they’ll finally get some justice, and even some money,” said Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion. “This is a chance to make something genuinely new out of a very broken piece of media history.”
On its website Monday, The Onion posted a satirical message from the fictional CEO of its parent company, Global Tetrahedron, “Bryce P. Tetraeder,” stating a “dream is finally coming true.”
Jones’s posted on X Monday that “The Onion Has Fraudulently Claimed AGAIN That It Owns Infowars!!!” adding that “The Democrat Party Disinformation Publication Is Publicly Bragging About Its Plan To Silence Alex Jones’ Infowars And Then Steal & Misrepresent His Identity!”
On a podcast in March, Jones alluded to the impending demise of Infowars, saying, “We’re getting shut down. We beat so many attacks. But finally, we’re shutting down like the middle of next month,” before insisting, “We’re going to be fine.”
Jones suggested Monday he would appeal any court decision to approve the leasing deal. And even if he loses control of Infowars, Jones could continue to broadcast from another studio, under another name.
Jones’s attorneys did not respond to a request for comment.
More than a year ago, a federal bankruptcy judge rejected The Onion’s first attempt to buy Infowars through a bankruptcy auction, saying the process was flawed. Since then, the bankruptcy court clarified that because Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, is not itself in bankruptcy, its property should be handled instead by a Texas state receiver. That cleared the way for the new pending deal to lease Infowars to The Onion, with the hope that a future sale could be approved.
In papers filed in state court, the Texas receiver said he “determined that licensing the Intellectual Property is in the best interest of the receivership estate.”
The deal calls for The Onion to pay $81,000 a month to license the Infowars.com domain and brand name, which the receiver says will “cover carrying costs to preserve and protect the assets of the receivership estate” until an appeal filed by Jones is decided and the path is cleared for a sale.
Jones’s personal bankruptcy case is proceeding in federal bankruptcy court, where a trustee continues to sell off Jones’s personal property, including cars, homes, watches and guns, with proceeds intended for the families.
A memorial to massacre victims stands near the former site of Sandy Hook Elementary on Dec. 14, 2013 in Newtown, Connecticut, one year after Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 first graders and six adults at the school.
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US negotiators to head to Pakistan and Iranian cargo ship seized – a recappublished at 00:37 BST 20 April
Tankers in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday
Here’s a recap of the latest developments.
US negotiators will head to Pakistan on Monday with the intention of holding further talks on ending the war, Trump says – but Iranian state media cites unnamed officials as saying Tehran has “no plans for now to participate”.
The prospect of further high-level negotiations – a White House official says Vice-President JD Vance will attend – comes amid reports of fresh attacks on commercial vessels.
Trump says the navy intercepted and took “custody” of an Iranian tanker attempting to pass through the US blockade, “blowing a hole” in the ship’s engine room in the process.
Earlier, in the same post announcing his representatives would travel for more talks, Trump renewed his threat to destroy Iranian energy sites and bridges if no deal is reached.
Reports in Iranian media over the weekend suggest Iran is continuing to work on plans to potentially apply a toll to ships passing through the strait – although it’s unclear if such a move will be implemented.
Iranian state TV cites unnamed officials as saying that “continuation of the so-called naval blockade, violation of the ceasefire and threatening US rhetoric” are slowing progress in reaching an agreement.
Trump also accused Iran of violating the ceasefire, saying more commercial ships have been attacked by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz.
A UK maritime agency reported two commercial ships came under fire in the strait on Saturday.
Iran’s foreign minister had said on Friday that the strait would be opened – which was shortly followed by Trump saying the US naval blockade of Iranian ports would remain in place until a deal is reached. Iran has since said the strait is closed again.
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