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 speaks with Robin Murphy, professor at Texas A&M University, about the through line between a science fiction novel and the current state of AI and automation.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with the Associated Press' Joe Federman about the Israeli raid that killed at least 11 people in Nablus and injured scores more.
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A government crackdown has successfully scared demonstrators off the streets in most of Iran, but conversations with regular people reveal a simmering frustration with the regime.
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Iran's government has barely given an inch after months of widespread protests. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly asks Ali Vaez, the Iran Project's director at the International Crisis Group, what happens next.
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Iranians of all political stripes complain of a dead-end economy. Some blame U.S. sanctions while others fault government mismanagement and corruption.
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Mahsa Amini's death after an alleged violation of Iran's strict dress code sparked months of protests. Now, Tehran's streets are crowded with women with uncovered hair: an act of bravery and dissent.
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Following protests and crackdowns over the past five months, authorities held events to mark the 1979 Revolution this week. They show Iranians have mixed feelings about their nation.
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Today is Revolution Day in Iran, the anniversary of the Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed shah. This year, many Iranians are protesting the government that came to power.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Iran's foreign minister about free expression, Americans being held prisoner in his country and the future of the Iran nuclear deal.
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In an interview with NPR in Tehran, Iran's foreign minister dismisses the protests that have spread in the wake of Mahsa Amini's death, saying "nothing important had happened."