WILMINGTON — Major General (US Army Retired) Lon E. “Bert” Maggart, 79, passed away January 26 after a valiant battle with Covid-ARDS. Born September 10, 1944…
Just look at this letter and you'll see why Bert was such an easy choice for us this week as the latest recipient of the Kiss Country Caught in the Act Award.
There have been more than 900 Tiny Desk Concerts since 2008, and until the pandemic, most of them were filmed in NPR’s headquarters, which artists visit to wedge a set in between workers’ cubicles. The most popular of all time, by video views? Anderson .Paak and the Free Nationals’ August 2016 set, with 68 million views. (Surprisingly, it wasn’t BTS, who have still notched an impressive 34 million plus.) But as popular as they are with music fans, the shows are also popular with staffers. For our June 2021 feature on the network’s 50th anniversary, we asked NPR employees which gigs left the biggest impression. We couldn’t fit all of their choices into our print-magazine feature here are the choices of the dozens who answered.
Today NPR is one of Washington’s most familiar and influential media companies, operating out of a gleaming, ultramodern broadcast facility on North Capitol Street. Its radio programs, online content, and podcasts reach millions of people around the world. But when it launched 50 years ago, in April 1971, National Public Radio was a decidedly scrappy enterprise.
How did a modest radio project from a bunch of audio idealists evolve into the multimedia behemoth that we now spend countless hours listening to? To celebrate NPR’s anniversary, we’ve put together a look at its history and transformation. Please note: If you would like to imagine the whole thing being read to you in the voices of Nina Totenberg and Robert Siegel, we won’t object.