Host, Anchor Michelle Norris To Exit NPR

Michelle Norris

After 13 years at NPR, Michele Norris is dropping the microphone. The longtime public radio personality and former "All Things Considered" host (who pronounces her first-name as Me-Shell) says she is leaving NPR at the end of the year to focus on growing The Race Card Project, which she created in 2010.

"The Race Card Project has grown larger and more robust than I ever imagined,” Norris told KPCC 89.3 FM in L-A on Thursday. “I want to figure out how I can grow it and find active partners to work with me.”

The Race Card Project earned a Peabody Award in 2013 and tackles issues of race, identity, sexuality and aging. Or as Norris puts it, starts dialogue around “the boxes that people feel like they’re put in or the angst that they feel in having to check a box.”

Norris says she's looking forward to taking some time away from public radio to study how the media landscape has changed.

In an email announcing her departure, Mike Oreskes, senior vice president of news and editorial director at NPR, said Norris brought audiences profoundly moving, award-winning coverage ranging from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to interviews with leaders in politics, art, culture.