NPR People

Margot Adler, NPR Biography

Correspondent, National Desk, New York

Photo: Michael Paras

Margot Adler is a NPR correspondent based in NPR's New York Bureau. Her reports can be heard regularly on All Things Considered, Morning Edition and Weekend Edition.

Adler specializes in in-depth features and, since September 11, 2001, has spent much of her time focused on reporting the human story in New York City. Her recent work has shed light on the many stories surrounding the aftermath of the attacks, including reports on those who have been dispossessed of their homes, those who have lost their jobs, those grieving, and those involved in relief efforts.

She has also covered such topics as the death penalty, affirmative action, the debate over family values, the complexities of the right-to-die movement and the response of intellectuals to the war in Kosovo. In recent months, Adler has explored the digital divide, geek culture, and controversy over the drug Ecstasy. She has done many reports on children — documenting the relationship between young people and technology in schools, in computer gaming and in fads like Pokemon.

Until June 2008, she hosted NPR's Justice Talking, a weekly show that explored the cases and controversies that come before our nation's courts.

Adler joined the NPR staff as a general assignment reporter in 1979, after spending a year as an NPR freelance reporter covering New York City. In 1980, she documented the confrontation between radicals and the Ku Klux Klan in Greensboro, North Carolina. In 1984, she reported and produced an acclaimed documentary on AIDS counselors in San Francisco. She covered the Winter Olympics in Calgary in 1988 and in Sarajevo in 1984. She has reported on homeless people living in the subways, on the state of the middle class and on the last remaining American hospital for treating Leprosy, which is located in Lousiana.

From 1972 to 1990, Adler hosted a weekly live talk show on WBAI-FM/New York City. She is the author of the book, Drawing Down the Moon, a study of contemporary nature religions and Heretic's Heart, a 1960s memoir. She is also co-producer of an award-winning radio drama, War Day, and a lecturer and workshop leader.

Adler received a bachelor of arts in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master's degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University in New York in 1970. She was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1982.

The granddaughter of Alfred Adler, the renowned Viennese psychiatrist, Adler was born in Little Rock, Ark., and grew up in New York City.