Ari Shapiro, one of National Public Radio’s White House correspondents over the last four years, came to Salt Lake Community College’s South City Campus to participate in the Grand Theatre’s Speaker’s Bureau on Monday October 21, 2013.
Doug Fabrizio, the award-winning host of KUER’s 90.1 RadioWest, interviewed Ari Shapiro, the first NPR journalist to become a correspondent before the age of 30.
In addition to answering questions from Fabrizio, Shapiro also responded to questions from the audience.
“There’s a lot of stories out there,” says Sheila Chambers, a professor of Visual Art and Design at SLCC. “I wanted to see the actual people who deliver these stories and have more of an understanding of what it is like to be them.”
A personality that is more listened to than watched, Shapiro came across as affable as he responded to questions from both Fabrizio and audience members about being a high level journalist in national news.
Throughout the nearly two hour long conversation Shapiro reflected fondly on his upbringing in Portland, Oregon. It was in Portland where as a child he would listen to NPR as his mother prepared dinner in the evenings.
Shapiro was so familiar with NPR at a young age that he knew who special correspondent Susan Stamberg was before he even had heard of Walter Cronkite.
Although Shapiro had listened to NPR his whole life, he did not have the goal of becoming a journalist with the news organization.
Rather Shapiro prided himself in trying to always keep his options open in his life path. He graduated from Yale with a degree in English and was considering continuing his education in drama before a friend proposed to him that he may want to consider life options other than acting.
Shapiro and his close friend sat down and made a list of the possible other options and along with many other options NPR made it onto that list.
Despite the fact that he was initially rejected from an internship with NPR, Shapiro learned that the NPR legal correspondent, Nina Totenberg, hired her own interns. Shapiro contacted Totenberg and secured an internship; he has been with NPR ever since then.
Though Shapiro is gay and married his college boyfriend, he shied away from covering stories about homosexuality when he first started at NPR.
When he was a regional correspondent in Miami, FL, news stories began to emerge about gay bathhouses, crystal meth, and the passing of HIV. Many journalists were covering the story, but Shapiro thought that he may be able to cover the story in a different way. Shapiro was awarded the 2005 Daniel Shurr Journalism Prize for his reporting.
At one point, an audience member, Moody Sbeity, asked Shapiro about his influence on American culture because of his homosexuality. Shapiro responded with a bit of disbelief that he did have such an influence.
“Ari Shapiro thinks that he doesn’t influence gay culture, young people, the ability for the world to be a safe place to come out,” says Heather McCartin. “I think being someone who is gay in the public eye is a lot bigger than he thinks it is.”
As the conversation with Shapiro continued he spoke with Fabrizio and the audience about his experience as a White House correspondent with NPR.
NPR always has two out of the three White House correspondents cover the presidential nominees from each party during a presidential election cycle. Shapiro was assigned to cover the Romney campaign during the 2012 election cycle.
Shapiro talked about how tragic he felt it was that Romney was so gaffe prone on the record.
At one point, Romney’s own campaign staff was so frustrated that Romney was so amazing off the record and horrible on the record that a high-level staff member floated the idea of telling Romney he was off the record while telling the journalists he was on the record.
Near the end of the presidential election cycle, Shapiro was assigned to cover the Obama campaign. After hearing the stump speeches by Romney day after day, then switching and hearing the stump speeches by Obama day after day; Shapiro thought it was interesting that of the five points each candidate would talk about, four were the same.
Shapiro is leaving the White House correspondent position at NPR to cover their London news desk.
He is excited to wake up everyday and think about what stories he can tell NPR listeners that go beyond the breadth of politics, but also tell stories about art, culture and perhaps the occasional royal baby birth.
Recently, Shapiro returned from the UK where he performed with Pink Martini. Pink Martini is a band whose concerts he attended in Portland as young man, long before they even had their first album much less the popularity they enjoy now.
He started performing with the band because of a late night sing along with Pink Martini, the band Blind Pilot, and friends after a BBQ at his home in Washington, D.C. The lead singer from Pink Martini liked his singing so much that he asked Shapiro to record a song with them, which lead to Shapiro performing live with the band at the Hollywood Bowl in front of 18,000 people.
