Neal Conan, longtime host of NPR's 'Talk Of The Nation,' dies at 71
Neal Conan, who spent 36 years with National Public Radio and 11 years as the host of the network's Talk of the Nation died Tuesday in Hawaii of glioblastoma at the age of 71.
I met Neal almost 50 years ago, at a small, hopeless FM radio station in New York City, WRVR. Neal spent much of what would have been his college years, if he'd attended, working at New York's Pacifica noncommercial radio station, WBAI, where he took his first radio job as an engineer.
When I first knew him, while we hosted a WRVR news program together, he used to wear a railroad engineer's cap. "They don't make announcer's caps," he'd explain. ...
A rememberance by fellow NPR announcer Robert Siegel.
After his departure from NPR's national talk programme, Talk of the Nation, Conan returned to radio in his new home of Hawaii, and produced a podcast, Truth, Politics, and Power, which I recommend.
I'd like to finish with Conan's sign-off from Talk of the Nation, on June 27, 2013, only eight years ago:
[I]n a minute or so, I will go back to where I started in public radio. I will be one of you again, a listener. Yes, a listener-sponsor, but a listener-critic, too. I will cry and laugh and yell at the radio. And we listeners have a vital function. It is our job to hold member stations and NPR accountable.
So right here, I form my own private compact with NPR and my member stations. I will listen and, yes, I will open my checkbook, but I need some services in return. Go and tell me the stories behind everything that happened in the world today. Explain why it happened, and how it affects our lives. Do it every day. Tell me what's important, and don't waste my time with stupid stuff.
Bye-bye. Signing off for TALK OF THE NATION and from NPR News, I'm Neal Conan, in Washington.
https://www.npr.org/2013/06/27/196282378/after-11-years-behind-the-host-mic-neal-conan-signs-off
Bye-bye, Neal.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2021/08/10/npr-neal-conan-dies-npr-talk-of-the-nation
