Biography

Early years

Norris was born in Minnesota to Betty and Belvin Norris Jr. She attended Washburn High School in Minneapolis, and went on to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she studied electrical engineering, and later the University of Minnesota, where she received an honorary degree in journalism in 2005.

Career

Norris was a correspondent for ABC News from 1993 to 2002. She wrote for The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times. In 1990, while at The Washington Post, Norris received the Livingston Award for articles she wrote about the life of a six-year-old boy who lived with a crack-addicted mother in a crack house. In 2002, Norris won an Emmy Award.

Norris joined National Public Radio (NPR) evening news program All Things Considered on December 9, 2002. She was the first African-American female host for NPR. Audie Cornish replaced Norris due to Norris's decision to step down from All Things Considered during the 2012 election year because her husband had taken a position in the Obama re-election campaign. On January 3, 2013, it was announced that Cornish would remain the host of the show and that Norris would instead return as a special correspondent.

She is also the author of The Grace of Silence, a book that started as an extension of an NPR series about race relations in the United States called the Race Card Project.

Personal life

Norris lives in the District of Columbia with her husband, Broderick D. Johnson, and her son, daughter, and stepson. Norris announced on October 24, 2011, that she would temporarily step down from her All Things Considered hosting duties and refrain from involvement in any NPR political coverage due to her husband's appointment to the Barack Obama 2012 presidential re-election campaign. On January 3, 2013, NPR announced that Norris would be returning to the organization in a new role as host/special correspondent, and that Audie Cornish would be taking her place on ATC.

Awards

In 2009 the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) awarded Norris its Journalist of the Year award.

Her NPR partnered radio special series The Race Card Project won a Peabody Award in 2014.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]