NPR has the best bios, and as such they have taken all of the work out of naming Ari Shapiro as Dazzler of the Day with the following except from their site. For my personal highlight, Shapiro more than earns this crowning for a career of impressive reporting, and even more impressive performing. A Renaissance man in the truest sense, take all of NPR’s words for it:
Ari Shapiro has been one of the hosts of All Things Considered, NPR’s flagship afternoon newsmagazine, since 2015. He has been a question on Jeopardy and an answer in the New York Times crossword puzzle. He has filed stories from above the Arctic Circle and aboard Air Force One, and he has covered wars in Iraq, Ukraine and Israel. His debut memoir, The Best Strangers In the World, was an instant New York Times bestseller. He has also performed as a singer in some of the world’s most storied venues, from Carnegie Hall to the Hollywood Bowl.
Before becoming a host of All Things Considered, Shapiro spent two years as NPR’s International Correspondent based in London, traveling the world to cover a wide range of topics for NPR’s news programs. His overseas move came after four years as NPR’s White House Correspondent during President Barack Obama’s first and second terms. He was NPR’s Justice Correspondent for five years during the George W. Bush Administration, covering debates over surveillance, detention and interrogation in the years after Sept. 11.
Shapiro’s journalism has won three national Edward R. Murrow awards; one for a global series that connected the dots between climate change, migration and far-right political leaders; another for his reporting on the life and death of Breonna Taylor; and a third for his coverage of the Trump Administration’s asylum policies on the US-Mexico border. He was named Journalist of the Year in 2023 by NLGJA, the association of LGBTQ+ journalists. The Columbia Journalism Review honored him with a laurel for his investigation into disability benefits for injured American veterans. The American Bar Association awarded him the Silver Gavel for exposing the failures of Louisiana’s detention system after Hurricane Katrina. He was the first recipient of the American Judges’ Association American Gavel Award for his work on U.S. courts and the American justice system. And at age 25, Shapiro won the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize for an investigation of methamphetamine use and HIV transmission.
As a singer, Shapiro makes frequent appearances with the “little orchestra” Pink Martini. The band’s recent albums feature him on several tracks, singing in multiple languages. In 2019 he created the stage show Och and Oy: A Considered Cabaret with Tony Award winner Alan Cumming. They have since performed together across the US, including a sold out two-week run at the Café Carlyle.
Shapiro was born in Fargo, North Dakota, and grew up in Portland, Oregon. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Yale. He began his journalism career as an intern for NPR Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg, who has also occasionally been known to sing in public.
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