A little over 40 years ago, the small FM radio station that paid me to do an evening newscast was sold. My employment and career prospects went from dim to bleak. As a lifelong New Yorker, I was reduced to desperate measures and, with a 1-year-old daughter and my wife's unflinching support, I moved to Washington, a city which in the 1970s still imported its bagels from Philadelphia. My plan was to work my way back to a real city (meaning New York) and probably to a medium with a future (meaning television). Mentally, I gave the NPR experiment a couple of years.
Instead, I was progressively sucked in — by the remarkably smart, creative people here; by the unique opportunity to go work out of the BBC in London as NPR's first foreign staffer; by a rewarding if arduous sentence of four years running NPR News; and finally by ascent to radio heaven, hosting All Things Considered in 1987.
Thank you for listening, and for the support to our stations that makes NPR thrive — and that kept me in the best job I ever dreamed of.
— Robert Siegel
For 30 years, Robert Siegel has been the voice of All Things Considered. He steps down from the host chair on Friday.
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