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SCOTT SIMON
Click here to order tickets for this lecture.
Biography Scott Simon Simon joined NPR in 1977 as chief of its Chicago bureau, and he has been the anchor of Weekend Edition Saturday since 1986. He was quick to win awards for his coverage of the American Nazi Party rally in Chicago and for his political reporting on All Things Considered. He won an Emmy in 1982 for the public television documentary The Patterson Project, which examined the effects of President Reagan's budget cuts on the lives of 12 New Jersey residents. He went on to win additional awards for his coverage of racism in a South Philadelphia neighborhood; the conditions at the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s detention center in Harlingen, Texas; the Ethiopian civil war; the murder of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador; the San Francisco earthquake; the war in Kosovo; and the attacks and aftermath of September 11, 2001. Whether in print or on the air, Simon’s voice is sharp and thoughtful. He is known for commentary such as this, from a report on the Obama campaign: “Can someone raise questions about the experience of a candidate who has only been a U.S. Senator for four years and does not have a prodigious legislative record without being stained as a bigot? The results of this year’s primaries and today’s public opinion polls might suggest it is politically more injurious to insinuate that someone is a bigot than it is to make an issue of their race. Millions of Americans hope the country can go through this year’s historic campaign without playing the race card, but they’ll have to watch both sides of the table.” Or this on Senator Larry Craig: “I think I’ve finally realized what’s made me uncomfortable about the arrest of Senator Larry Craig. . .It’s not the crime for which Senator Craig has pleaded guilty, but the exaltation among so many that another hypocritical politician has been exposed. I guess by now I have seen enough of life that I’d prefer to see someone as a real, complicated human being rather than brand him or her a hypocrite.” In addition to his coverage for NPR, Simon has been a frequent guest host of the CBS television program Nightwatch and CNBC's TalkBack Live and has appeared as an essayist and commentator on NBC's Weekend Today and NOW with Bill Moyers. He has hosted many public television programs and has written for The New York Times' book review and opinion sections, the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page, The Los Angeles Times, and Gourmet Magazine. He is also the author of four books: Home and Away: Memoir of a Fan, which was cited as one of the best books of 2000 by the Washington Post; Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Baseball; and the novel Pretty Birds, about female teenaged snipers in Sarajevo. His most recent book, Windy City, was released this year. A comic novel about Chicago politics, it was described by one reviewer as “a big, sloppy valentine to the cultural jambalaya that is 21st-century Chicago.” Windy City (2008) Bio on NPR website:
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Journalist, Novelist