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View ProfilesPublished October 11, 2023 at 10:00 a.m. | Updated October 11, 2023 at 11:13 a.m.
Some of us tend to develop a preternatural affinity for broadcast journalists. After all, they spend time with us in our living rooms, the car, sometimes even the shower. NPR "Weekend Edition Sunday" host Ayesha Rascoe has that effect. Not only is she the friend who shows up in your kitchen, she's the friend who shows up, raids your refrigerator for a Coke and lets you know if it's not up to par. And you love her for it.
"Look at what I done got today. Look at this mess," she says, holding up the Coke she got from a vending machine in a September video she posted on the social media platform X. Unlike in the glamour shots and reels she also features, she's sans makeup and wearing her glasses in this one, filmed in a Washington, D.C., NPR studio on a Sunday morning. "Let me show you how I know this ain't no good soda. Look at this." She shakes the bottle. "Look at that! Look! It barely fizzes! It's flat! It's flat! How am I supposed to do the show today?" She laughs.
Fueled by Coca-Cola and Doritos, Rascoe began hosting the Sunday news roundup early last year. She and Scott Simon cohost the Saturday and Sunday editions of NPR's "Up First" podcast.
In her journalism career, the 38-year-old Durham, N.C., native and mother of three has covered three presidents. She graduated from Washington, D.C.'s Howard University in 2007, spent a decade at international news agency Reuters and joined NPR as a White House correspondent in 2018.
Rascoe will join Vermont Public host and senior producer Mikaela Lefrak at the Elley-Long Music Center in Colchester on Wednesday, October 18, to talk about her career, her "Weekend Edition" series "The Civil Rights Generation" and her soon-to-be released book, HBCU Made: A Celebration of the Black College Experience. To give you a sneak preview, we dished with her about all of those things by phone last week.
First of all, I just have to say, I love your voice. How do you describe your voice?
My voice is who I am. It's not something that I've really cultivated, although I do work hard on my broadcast voice — not voice but my delivery. I work hard on my delivery and trying to make sure that I'm clear and that I am bringing energy, the proper energy and emotion. But I think what people respond to in my voice is that it's not a traditional broadcast voice. You know, I'm a Black woman from the South. And I sound like a Black woman from the South.
NPR has had a reputation of having quiet, low-key hosts, famously parodied on "Saturday Night Live." Have you, at any time in your career, been asked to conform or tone it down?
No, no. To NPR's credit, no one has ever come to me and said, "Hey, we need you to straighten up on this, tighten up on — or change — the way you pronounce this" or anything like that. I think it's clear that they are at a point where they are trying to sound more like America, more like the world, and to have a sound that represents the full scope of what the world sounds like.
In January 2022, NPR came under fire when Audie Cornish became the fourth host — and the third woman of color — to leave within a year. At that time, NPR public editor Kelly McBride acknowledged that people inside and outside the network criticized NPR for historically slow progress on diversity. How is the culture at NPR now?
This is a criticism of the industry writ large. I do think that [NPR executives] have made a commitment to diversity. They named new hosts: me; Juana Summers is a Black woman who's host; Leila Fadel is a woman of color host. You have Michel Martin now on "Morning Edition." You have Ailsa Chang.
So it seems like they have made a commitment with some of their hiring — especially at the host level — to diversity. They say that diversity is their north star. Is there more work that can be done? Absolutely. Certainly behind the scenes, elevating more mid-level managers who can then rise to the highest ranks of producers or executive producers or senior producers. And it doesn't just have to be race; it can be gender identity; it could be all these other things.
When I was in high school, I stood in front of my bedroom mirror and I practiced saying, "Mary Ann Lickteig, CBS News, the White House." Unlike me, you actually covered the White House. Where did you get the idea of journalism, and how did you start?
I wanted to be a journalist since about middle school. My mom kind of got the newspaper for the coupons, and I would read it. So I took an aptitude test when I was in middle school, and they said something I would be good at would be journalism. And then the light bulb went off, because I love history, I love reading and writing, and I'm like, OK, I can do that. I became editor in chief of the high school newspaper, and I wrote for the local teen section of my local newspaper, the Herald-Sun. And then I got to Howard, and I started working at the school newspaper there, the Hilltop. I eventually became editor in chief. I interned at the Winston-Salem Journal, and then I interned at Reuters.
I just knew I wanted to be a reporter. I never saw myself at the White House. I never saw myself doing broadcast. And so I never saw any of this for myself. But, you know, the Lord had other plans for me.
How did you make the leap from print to broadcast?
I ended up covering the White House for Reuters. And then, you know, Donald Trump is elected. And the [presidential] briefings all of a sudden became must-see TV, and I'm in the briefing room; I'm asking questions. And so people started asking me to come on TV, because they're seeing me in the briefing room. And so I started doing TV, and I was like, I kind of like this.
Your book HBCU Made: A Celebration of the Black College Experience contains essays by graduates of historically Black colleges and universities. Can you sum up what that experience means?
To me, the story of HBCUs is a story of community, diversity and legacy. And the community is, you have all of these young people coming into a space where they don't have their intellect questioned because of their race. They're not asked, "Are you here because you're smart? Are you here because you're Black?" And so that's the community. But even within the Black community, there's a lot of diversity. So you have some people in the book who are first-time college attendees in their family; you have people who come from working-class backgrounds; you have people whose parents are professors; you have people that are immigrants.
But there's also a legacy, right? Oprah Winfrey went to Tennessee State University. Stacey Abrams went to Spelman. Branford Marsalis went to Southern University. And so that is the legacy of HBCUs. It's being a starting point for people who eventually do things like change the world, right? They're given an opportunity to do that at HBCUs in a way that they couldn't get elsewhere.
Your series "The Civil Rights Generation" has featured Emmett Till's cousin, as well as your own mother and uncle, who were kids in the 1960s. Are more segments coming?
We have four right now. We're going to try to get two more. I think we want to get up to at least six. The idea [is] to talk to people famous and not-so-famous about living through this incredible time.
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity and length.
The original print version of this article was headlined "Raising Her Voice | NPR host Ayesha Rascoe on her authentic sound and ascent in journalism"
Tags: Media, Ayesha Rascoe, Weekend Edition Sunday, NPR, Elley-Long Music Center, Saint Michael's College
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