Neal Conan

Neal Conan got an "A" in his junior year in high school for an incisive analysis of New York City's mayoral election in 1966 and later paid for his sins as a City Hall beat reporter. Upon his escape from Room 9, he covered many local, statewide, and national elections--including Mario Cuomo's first run for the statehouse in New York and Senator. Edward M. Kennedy's challenge to President Jimmy Carter in 1980. A four-year stint as National Public Radio's correspondent in London provided the...See more

Neal Conan got an "A" in his junior year in high school for an incisive analysis of New York City's mayoral election in 1966 and later paid for his sins as a City Hall beat reporter. Upon his escape from Room 9, he covered many local, statewide, and national elections--including Mario Cuomo's first run for the statehouse in New York and Senator. Edward M. Kennedy's challenge to President Jimmy Carter in 1980. A four-year stint as National Public Radio's correspondent in London provided the opportunity to cover European politics, including elections in Britain, France, Austria, and West Germany. As a reporter, editor, or producer, he has been involved in NPR's coverage of every U. S. election for the past quarter century. As a host, Conan has anchored NPR's live coverage of political party conventions, presidential and vice-presidential debates, and, following the last election, the deliberations of the supreme courts in Tallahassee and Washington, D.C. He also anchored the special midday coverage after the September 11th attacks and the recent war in Iraq. Conan was the host of Talk of the Nation , NPR's flagship talk show, for eleven years until the program's cancellation in 2013. He is also the author of Play by Play: Baseball, Radio and Life in the Last Chance League . See less