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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Following a large-scale Russian hacking operation targeting routers, and new FCC guidance, what can you do to make sure your home internet connection is safe?
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with James Wolff, the pseudonym of a former British intelligence officer who now writes about them in spy novels. His latest book is Spies and Other Gods.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with TV writer and showrunner Damon Lindelof about the open letter he and thousands of others signed, opposing Paramount's takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.
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After years of speculation, New York Times reporter John Carreyrou explains why he thinks he identified the true founder of Bitcoin.
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NPR'S Mary Louise speaks with PBS NewsHour correspondent Lisa Desjardins about sexual misconduct allegations against Rep. Eric Swalwell and the pattern of such allegations against members of Congress.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Sir Ian McKellen about playing a sour painter in The Christophers and why the 86-year-old actor hopes to never retire.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with International correspondent Daniel Estrin about how the US-Iran-Israel ceasefire is being received in Israel.
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More than 30 days into the US engagement in Iran, President Trump gave a national primetime address making the case for the war. He said the U.S. would complete all it's objective "very shortly."
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NPR's Mia Venkat explains to Mary Louise Kelly why the internet has been obsessed with John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Bloomberg reporter Katrina Manson about her new book, Project Maven, and the secret campaign within the Pentagon to bring AI into combat.