NPR Host Kelly Downshifting

• Mary Louise Kelly announced she is stepping down as host of NPR’s flagship evening news program All Things Considered and Sources & Methods, NPR’s national security podcast, but will continue to contribute interviews.

Kelly shared her decision in a LinkedIn post that reads, in part, “What a joy to have gotten to do so much of what I hoped to do, when I first set foot in this newsroom 25 years ago.

NPR has dispatched me all over the world, to interview presidents and prime ministers, to cover protests and peace deals, elections and wars. The stories that stick with me are of ordinary people living through extraordinary events. Of leaning across a beat-up kitchen table, listening as strangers pour tea and pour out their stories, asking us please to bear witness and tell the world. We have. We will.”

Kelly added, “I’ll continue to contribute interviews; NPR remains a place where I can do the kind of work I came to journalism to do. My respect and gratitude for my colleagues is damn near infinite. But I’ve been feeling the tug of new adventures. For starters, I plan to step away from the news cycle for a bit, to read long books and take long walks. Then, time for the next chapter. Onwards.”