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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Reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker tell NPR they wanted to make sense of the rapid churn of Trump-era news. In a new book, they emerge with a portrait of an "undisciplined, impulsive leader."
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As of last weekend, you could rent an igloo through Airbnb in Calgary, Alberta. There's no kitchen, bathroom or Wi-Fi. All you get is an outdoor firepit and a bunch of wood.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks about her week of reporting in Iran — just after the targeted killing of a top Iranian general by the U.S. Kelly was one of few Americans reporting in Iran last week.
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After a week of intense news, Iranians share their thoughts on tensions between their country and the United States on the way to Friday prayers in Tehran.
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Tensions spiked a week ago when an Iranian general was killed in a U.S.-ordered drone strike — Iran retaliated. And, investigators probe whether an Iranian missile downed a Ukrainian jetliner.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly goes where male reporters in Iran can't — a beauty salon in Tehran — to understand how women in the city are feeling about the current U.S.-Iran tensions.
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More than a dozen ballistic missiles targeted two military bases in Iraq that house U.S. and coalition forces. The attack comes less than a week after a U.S. drone strike killed an Iranian commander.
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Hundreds of thousands of Iranians mourned the death of Qassem Soleimani on the streets of Tehran today, expressing outrage at President Trump for the targeted killing of the commanding general.
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Following last week's killing of Gen. Qassim Sulemaini in a U.S. drone strike, his funeral procession has been moving from city to city. On Monday it reached the Iranian capital Tehran.
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Barman Eddie Kim visits All Things Considered to share a drink for ringing in 2020. He named the whisky and vermouth cocktail for the vibes he's hoping for in the new year, truth and clarity.
