NPR at 40: What is the Future of Public Radio?

Susan Stamberg is a nationally renowned broadcast journalist and special correspondent for NPR. She is one of the pioneers of NPR, on staff since the network began in 1971 and is the first woman to anchor a national nightly news program. She has been inducted into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame and the Radio Hall of Fame. Beginning in 1972, Stamberg served as co-host of NPR's award-winning news magazine "All Things Considered" for 14 years. She then hosted "Weekend Edition Sunday", and now serves as guest host of NPR's "Morning Edition" and "Weekend Edition Saturday", in addition to reporting on cultural issues for all the NPR programs. Prior to joining NPR, she served as producer, program director, and general manager of NPR member station WAMU-FM/Washington, DC. Stamberg is the author of two books, and co-editor of a third: TALK: NPR's Susan Stamberg Considers All Things, Every Night at Five: Susan Stamberg's All Things Considered Book, and co-editor of The Wedding Cake in the Middle of the Road.

Geneva Overholser is director of the School of Journalism at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Previously she held the Curtis B. Hurley Chair in Public Affairs Reporting for the Missouri School of Journalism. She was the editor of The Des Moines Register for seven years, where she led the paper to a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. While at the Register, she also earned recognition as Editor of the Year by the National Press Foundation. In addition, Overholser has been ombudsman of The Washington Post, a member of the editorial board of The New York Times, a syndicated columnist for The Washington Post Writers Group, and a reporter for the Colorado Springs Sun, among others. She also spent five years overseas, working and writing in Paris and Kinshasa. She was for nine years a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board, the final year as chair. Through the Annenberg Public Policy Center, in 2006 she published a manifesto on the future of journalism titled On Behalf of Journalism: A Manifesto for Change.

Leslie Berestein Rojas is the lead reporter for KPCC's new immigration blog, "Multi-American." Formerly with the San Diego Union-Tribune, she covered immigration issues from the US-Mexico border, followed legal and illegal immigrants coming to the U.S., and investigated immigrant smugglers and detention contractors. She reported on stories about the new American families resulting from immigration, and about those being left behind. In addition to her work in San Diego, Ms. Berestein Rojas has reported from throughout the Americas and has written for the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register, Time, People and People en Español.