Press release
NPR NEWS HIRES LEADER FOR INVESTIGATIVE UNIT
SUSANNE REBER JOINING NPR AS DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR, INVESTIGATIONS
December 14, 2009; Washington, D.C. – NPR News has hired prominent investigative radio editor and producer Susanne Reber to lead NPR’s new investigative program as Deputy Managing Editor, Investigations. Reber joins NPR from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, where she has led its news investigative unit since 2003.
In the coming months, Reber will staff up a core investigative team at NPR, work with beat and field reporters across the newsroom and partner with other non-profit news organizations doing high-level investigative work. She will build upon the strengths of NPR’s established reporting – such as correspondent Daniel Zwerdling’s recent work exposing missteps in the medical career of alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan – to develop the organization into a leading investigative source.
“Susanne is a tremendous investigative reporter, storyteller and newsroom leader,” said Dick Meyer, NPR News’ Executive Editor. “Her arrival and the creation of a dedicated investigative unit is just the start of NPR’s deep commitment to expand and strengthen serious, ambitious investigative and accountability reporting at a time when so many other newsrooms are retreating.”
Reber brings to NPR the unique experience of having created an investigative program at the CBC that trained journalists and produced stories at both the local and national levels. Under her leadership, the CBC News investigative unit had a prolific and distinguished run, reporting about the excessive use of Tasers by police, safety concerns with prescription drugs for the elderly and failings in Canada’s food safety mechanisms – earning the unit the Michener, Online News Association, Investigative Reporters and Editors and Radio Television News Directors Association awards.
Reber has had a distinguished career at the CBC. Her prior jobs included Deputy Managing Editor, CBC National Radio News, Executive Producer, CBC National Radio News and field assignments from Czechoslovakia to Johannesburg to Saskatchewan. She is co-author of Starlight Tour: The Last Lonely Night of Neil Stonechild (Random House, 2005), short listed for the 2006 Governor General’s Award in Non-Fiction. She is also an Instructor of Investigative Journalism at Ryerson University, Toronto, and a frequent speaker on investigative reporting issues.
Reber joins the NPR staff on January 4, 2010, and will report to Meyer.
