NPR Morning Edition Adds Leila Fadel

Leila Fadel

NPR announced Tuesday that Leila Fadel has been selected as the fourth host of Morning Edition, NPR’s morning drive time news magazine carried by 834 public radio stations nationwide, and Up First, NPR’s daily morning news podcast. Fadel’s first day on-air will be announced in the coming weeks. She will be based at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C.

“This work is about telling stories that reflect our nation and the world as it is, to have conversations that illuminate and that hold our public officials to account,” Fadel said. “No place does this work better than NPR. I’m excited to take my years of field reporting, at home and abroad, to the host chair and work with a team I’ve long admired.”

“We are delighted to have Leila join the Morning Edition team, she has had an exceptional career to date, covering some of the biggest stories of our time on both the national and international stage,” said Sarah Gilbert, NPR’s Vice President for News Programming. “Leila’s experience and range as a journalist and host made her the natural choice for this role, which she will take up from February of 2022, based in DC.”

Fadel is currently a national correspondent for NPR based in Los Angeles, covering race and identity. Previously, she was NPR’s international correspondent based in Cairo, from where she covered the wave of revolts in the Middle East and their aftermath in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and beyond. 

Before joining NPR, she covered the Middle East for The Washington Post as the Cairo Bureau Chief, and the Iraq war for nearly five years with Knight Ridder, McClatchy Newspapers, and later The Washington Post. Her foreign coverage of the devastating human toll of the Iraq war earned her the George. R. Polk award in 2007.

Leila Fadel will be joining Steve Inskeep, A Martinez, and Rachel Martin on this bi-coastal, 24-hour news operation.