'Founding mother' of NPR was female pioneer in news

Stamberg helped the network get off the ground and hosted 'All Things Considered.'

- AUDREY McAvoy

CHRIS PIZZELLO AP HONORED Stamberg received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2020.

Susan Stamberg, a "founding mother" of National Public Radio and the first female broadcaster to host a national news program, has died. She was 87.

Stamberg died Thursday, NPR reported. It did not provide a cause of death.

Stamberg joined NPR in the early 1970s when it was getting off the ground as a network of radio stations across the country. During her career, she interviewed thousands of people, from prominent politicians and artists to the less wellknown like White House chefs and people who work behind the scenes in Hollywood.

She explained in an oral history interview with Oregon station KLCC in January that she didn't have women in broadcast to model herself after when she became the host of "All Things Considered" in 1972.

"The only ones on were men, and the only thing I knew to do was imitate them," she said.