The radio host who was the voice of the morning drive

Bob Edwards 1947–2024

When Bob Edwards sat down behind the microphone in November 1979 to host NPR’s Morning Edition, it was supposed to be a temporary gig. A pilot version of the new show had flopped, and after the public broadcasting network fired the co-hosts 10 days before the launch, they tapped Edwards, co-host of the evening show All Things Considered, as a fill-in. He stayed there nearly 25 years, guiding listeners through the day’s stories and interviewing thousands of public officials, authors, artists, athletes, and other newsmakers. For millions of listeners, Edwards’ resonant baritone and authoritative yet amiable demeanor were an essential ingredient in the morning routine. “Everyone feels they know Bob,” producer Ellen McDonnell said in 1989, “that he’s their friend.” For Edwards, that perceived intimacy was what made radio so special. “When you watch [news anchors on] television, you’re not under any kind of illusion like that,” he said. “It’s magic.”

Edwards grew up in Louisville, where his father worked for city government, said The New York Times. Smitten with radio from a young age, he realized “he had a voice” for the medium when he would answer the phone and callers would mistake him for his father. Drafted during the Vietnam War, he worked for Armed Forces Radio and Television in South Korea, then earned a master’s in journalism at American University. “He shed his Kentucky accent” to work at a tiny station in Illinois before joining NPR in 1974. In the ensuing years he became “one of NPR’s most versatile and popular hosts,” said

The Washington Post. He pushed producers to do fewer interviews with politicians, whose predictability he found boring, and instead “seek out more artists, activists, and lesser-known newsmakers.”

Edwards was abruptly ousted in 2004, when NPR decided that Morning Edition needed a makeover, said NBCNews.com, “a move that sparked much outcry.” Fans barraged the network with complaints, and Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois complained on the Senate floor about losing “the most successful morning voice in America.” Edwards soon moved to XM Satellite Radio, where he hosted

The Bob Edwards Show until 2014; he then hosted a podcast for AARP. At times he expressed bitterness at his firing, but still spoke reverently of public radio. “It’s just a necessity, a national treasure,” he told an interviewer in 2006. Asked if he ever listened to his old show now that it had new anchors, he replied, “Every morning.”