News

Welcome. Please make yourself at home here, and come back often.

I hope you've been enjoying this year as much as I have. Despite some extreme weather and some very sobering events around the world, I've found much to be thankful for, and I've had many great experiences. They include banjo camps, Ashokan Southern Week, the big music convention at Clifftop, West Virginia, appearances at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, and a camping trip with family in Wisconsin.

I'm into my newest adventures at NPR, reporting stories for our newscast unit and serving as a backup news anchor. I'm also helping develop improved workflow, and helping member stations further develop their news departments. I enjoy working with NPR's morning news anchors, bringing listeners the latest on the day's top stories. I'm basically an experimenter and a general assignment reporter with the world as my beat. Our goal is simple: to help improve NPR's service to its global community. I'm always interested in your reactions to what we're doing, so please feel free to write.

Check the Journalism tab on this site, and you'll find links to a selection of my radio and magazine stories, many of them relating to old time music. There's a magazine profile of polymath and music documenter Ray Alden. And you'll find a link to the series Honky Tonks, Hymns & the Blues, for which I served as executive editor and presenter.

I'm always posting new calendar items, so check these for my upcoming appearances, and please contact me if you'd like me to appear at events focusing on music, journalism, or writing and storytelling.