NPR’s Carl Kasell Talks About His Radio Career

Carl Kasell

When Carl Kasell was 7 years old, he would play with his grandma’s record player and pretend he was speaking on the radio.

He would make up commercials and news and then play a record. And then he would play that record again.

According to the Daily Tar Heel, at an event Tuesday night, Kasell, a UNC alumnus and National Public Radio newscaster, told a crowd of about 250 how he’d wanted to be on the radio as long as he can remember.

Kasell was a news announcer for NPR’s “Morning Edition” for 30 years and now works as an ambassador for NPR and the judge and scorekeeper for its quiz show “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!”

He was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame as well as the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame, and he won the Leo C. Lee Friend of Public Radio News Award in 1996.

Kasell said his dream of being on the radio was first realized when he was 16, when he was selected to read a weekly 15-minute segment at his local radio station in Goldsboro. That summer, the station offered him a part-time job.

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Kasell was named the 2013 North Carolinian of the Year by the North Carolina Press Association during its annual meeting on March 21, 2013.