Ailsa Chang
Ailsa Chang is an award-winning journalist who hosts All Things Considered along with Ari Shapiro, Audie Cornish, and Mary Louise Kelly. She landed in public radio after practicing law for a few years.
Chang is a former Planet Money correspondent, where she got to geek out on the law while covering the underground asylum industry in the largest Chinatown in America, privacy rights in the cell phone age, the government's doomed fight to stop racist trademarks, and the money laundering case federal agents built against one of President Trump's top campaign advisers.
Previously, she was a congressional correspondent with NPR's Washington Desk. She covered battles over healthcare, immigration, gun control, executive branch appointments, and the federal budget.
Chang started out as a radio reporter in 2009, and has since earned a string of national awards for her work. In 2012, she was honored with the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for her investigation into the New York City Police Department's "stop-and-frisk" policy and allegations of unlawful marijuana arrests by officers. The series also earned honors from Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Society of Professional Journalists.
She was also the recipient of the Daniel Schorr Journalism Award, a National Headliner Award, and an honor from Investigative Reporters and Editors for her investigation on how Detroit's broken public defender system leaves lawyers with insufficient resources to effectively represent their clients.
In 2011, the New York State Associated Press Broadcasters Association named Chang as the winner of the Art Athens Award for General Excellence in Individual Reporting for radio. In 2015, she won a National Journalism Award from the Asian American Journalists Association for her coverage of Capitol Hill.
Prior to coming to NPR, Chang was an investigative reporter at NPR Member station WNYC from 2009 to 2012 in New York City, focusing on criminal justice and legal affairs. She was a Kroc fellow at NPR from 2008 to 2009, as well as a reporter and producer for NPR Member station KQED in San Francisco.
The former lawyer served as a law clerk to Judge John T. Noonan Jr. on the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco.
Chang graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University where she received her bachelor's degree.
She earned her law degree with distinction from Stanford Law School, where she won the Irving Hellman Jr. Special Award for the best piece written by a student in the Stanford Law Review in 2001.
Chang was also a Fulbright Scholar at Oxford University, where she received a master's degree in media law. She also has a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.
She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she never got to have a dog. But now she's the proud mama of Mickey Chang, a shih tzu who enjoys slapping high-fives and mingling with senators.
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As the country seethes after George Floyd's killing, three black men from South Los Angeles who lived through the Watts or Rodney King riots share their ideas of what just policing would look like. -
USC law professor Jody David Armour tells All Things Considered that in 1992, people viewed police who beat Rodney King as "bad apples." But now, "we see a persistent and pervasive pattern." -
NPR's Ailsa Chang talks to Tracee Ellis Ross about starring in The High Note, a movie about an over-40 superstar singer navigating the music industry with her assistant, who has her own music dreams. -
The so-called passports have been floated as a way to get people who've recovered from COVID-19 back to work safely. But a Harvard professor says creating an "immunodeprived" status is unethical. -
NPR's Ailsa Chang talks to the experimental musician about his new genre-defying, double album grae, his decision to move from Los Angeles to Asheville, N.C. and not shaving down the edges of himself. -
Tuition will not drop for online learning, says Timothy White, chancellor of the largest four-year public college system in the U.S., due to the costs of additional technology and faculty training. -
More than half of New Jersey's coronavirus fatalities were at long-term care facilities, including nursing homes. The state's attorney general, Gurbir Grewal, has opened an investigation. -
The CEO and president of the American Hospital Association says members are losing billions due to the cost of treating COVID-19, the rise in uninsured and loss of revenue from elective procedures. -
Fiona Apple talks about Fetch the Bolt Cutters, her first album in eight years, getting advice from King Princess to release her record early and what she would say to her teenage self. -
Maine-based Puritan Medical Products is one of only two companies that manufacture the type of swabs needed to test for the coronavirus. As testing ramps up, a huge demand has only grown.
