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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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, about what's sustaining protesters in Iran and why he thinks the regime is incapable of reform.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, two of Russia's most prominent investigative journalists, about Putin's moves to escalate in Ukraine and dissent within Russia.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Jorge Loweree of the American Immigration Council about the complex and thorny issue of border security and immigration.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with journalist Golnaz Esfandiari about the recent protests in Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for allegedly breaking hijab rules.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with David Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors, about how STD rates are soaring in the U.S. — especially syphilis, which is up 26%.
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Billionaire Robert Sarver announced that he will sell his share of the NBA's Phoenix Suns and the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury. An investigation concluded that he had used racist and misogynist language.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, about how companies are earning unusually high profits even as inflation remains hot.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Mississippi Today reporter Anna Wolfe about Mississippi officials' misappropriation of welfare funds and former NFL player Brett Favre's involvement in the scandal.
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From fighting near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, to fertilizer shortages and Europe's energy crisis, these are five things on Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' mind right now. -
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with journalist Michael Isikoff about the death of Ken Starr, who became a household name for investigating then-President Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky.
