Mary Louise Kelly
Mary Louise Kelly is a co-host of All Things Considered, NPR's award-winning afternoon newsmagazine.
Previously, she spent a decade as national security correspondent for NPR News, and she's kept that focus in her role as anchor. That's meant taking All Things Considered to Russia, North Korea, and beyond (including live coverage from Helsinki, for the infamous Trump-Putin summit). Her past reporting has tracked the CIA and other spy agencies, terrorism, wars, and rising nuclear powers. Kelly's assignments have found her deep in interviews at the Khyber Pass, at mosques in Hamburg, and in grimy Belfast bars.
Kelly first launched NPR's intelligence beat in 2004. After one particularly tough trip to Baghdad — so tough she wrote an essay about it for Newsweek — she decided to try trading the spy beat for spy fiction. Her debut espionage novel, Anonymous Sources, was published by Simon and Schuster in 2013. It's a tale of journalists, spies, and Pakistan's nuclear security. Her second novel, The Bullet, followed in 2015.
Kelly's writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, Washingtonian, The Atlantic, and other publications. She has lectured at Harvard and Stanford, and taught a course on national security and journalism at Georgetown University. In addition to her NPR work, Kelly serves as a contributing editor at The Atlantic, moderating newsmaker interviews at forums from Aspen to Abu Dhabi.
A Georgia native, Kelly's first job was pounding the streets as a political reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In 1996, she made the leap to broadcasting, joining the team that launched BBC/Public Radio International's The World. The following year, Kelly moved to London to work as a producer for CNN and as a senior producer, host, and reporter for the BBC World Service.
Kelly graduated from Harvard University in 1993 with degrees in government, French language, and literature. Two years later, she completed a master's degree in European studies at Cambridge University in England.
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Three days after France's president Emmanuel Macron enacted reforms to the country's pension system without the approval of parliament, nation-wide protests resumed.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Iraqi-American photojournalist Salwan Georges about his trip back to a war-torn Iraq for the first-time since he and his family fled in 1998.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Richard Connor of UNESCO about Wednesday's report on the state of the world's water supply.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. After being tried in absentia, she was recently convicted to 15 years in prison on charges of treason.
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If Donald Trump is to be indicted, Bragg would be the first prosecutor to bring criminal charges against a former U.S. president. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with journalist Erica Orden about him.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Sen. Todd Young and Sen. Tim Kaine about their new bill. Today, 20 years later, the act is still in effect.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Chantel Jennings, senior writer for women's basketball for The Athletic, about March Madness and the women's game.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Robert Gates, former defense secretary and founder of the Gates Global Policy Center, about the center's new report focused on re-imagining public diplomacy.
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Two U.S. banks have collapsed since Friday. What does this mean for the average American? NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Jacob Goldstein about the future of the banking system in the U.S.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with domestic policy advisor Susan Rice about the executive order that President Biden unveils Tuesday with the goal of reducing gun violence.