ATC Host Mary Louise Kelly

ATC Host Mary Louise Kelly

Credit: Mike Mordan\NPR / NPR

“The soundtrack of my childhood was driving around with NPR on while I was in the backseat of my mother’s enormous Buick station wagon and the thunk of the Atlanta Journal Constitution landing on our driveway every morning,” said Mary Louise Kelly. 

Kelly, an Atlanta native who is now a co-host of All Things Considered, NPR's award-winning afternoon newsmagazine, and the host of Sources & Methods, which she launched as the network’s first national security podcast, is affable and relaxed throughout our conversation in early January despite the swirl of world events she’s preparing to discuss in interviews. 

As she speaks, the mention of her own mother’s influence provides a good segue to discuss the impact of Cokie Roberts, Linda Wertheimer, Nina Totenberg and Susan Stamberg, collectively known as NPR’s “founding mothers,” on her work – a point that I explain I want to touch on in recognition of Women’s History Month in March. 

“I’ve had the privilege of knowing and working with all four of them, and I’ve learned something from each of them,” said Kelly of the barrier-breaking journalists who were instrumental in shaping NPR. 

She further reminisced about Susan Stamberg, who passed away in October of last year shortly after retiring. “I remember getting to edit Susan very early in my career at NPR when I came on as the editor of All Things Considered. Susan could interview a doorknob and make it interesting. I was coming from the BBC, which has a different style. NPR was much more conversational. I had to unlearn the way I had learned to broadcast. I remember watching Susan do it, and she sounded exactly the same if she was talking into the microphone interviewing the President or a cabinet secretary or the king of wherever. And then she would turn to you and be discussing what’s for lunch today in the NPR canteen, and she sounded the same.” 

Mary Louise Kelly

When asked if there was a particular event in her career that stands out to her, Kelly  shares the story of interviewing Jacinda Ardern, who served as Prime Minister of New Zealand from 2017-2023 before making the decision to step down. 

“Thinking along the lines of the founding mothers and what we can take away from other women, I’ll pick one,” said Kelly. “Last summer, I got to sit with Jacinda Ardern, and she talks about this crazy moment of waiting to hear two pieces of news – whether she’s going to become prime minister and whether she’s going to become a mom. She became both. We laughed about how her craving for potato chips got her through being pregnant while trying to run a country. Then we talked about the decision that she made to step away, which had everything to do with her daughter in that she never saw her or did not see her as much as she would like. She was very candid about trying to figure out how you have it all, and how you have it all at once.” 

Kelly shared that she also spoke with Ardern about her efforts to change gun laws in her country after a mass shooting and how to run COVID policy during the pandemic, saying the interview served as a reminder to her that although those are “big, important things,” the issues of work/life balance are important for everyone as well. 

“Questions like ‘Am I making it home at night?’ and ‘Is my five-year growing up not really knowing their mom?’ are

 big, important things too,” said Kelly. “World leaders are still human, and to be able to have conversations where you acknowledge we can contain all these things feels like a public service, and it’s an honor to get to do it.” 

The Sources & Methods podcast has also given Kelly the opportunity to serve listeners in a way that she feels is vitally important in an era marked by media distrust and misinformation.  

“I love the energy of a live microphone and daily deadlines, and at the same time, the firehose of daily news can be a lot,” said Kelly. “There are times where I increasingly see the value of trying to slow down the onslaught of headlines to say ‘Hold on, what actually matters?’ ‘What are the bigger picture questions?’ This is not All Things Considered. We’re just going to take one or two things and consider them.” 

Kelly says the podcast has also given her a chance to re-focus on her reporting.“It’s not analysts. It’s not former officials. It’s not current officials. It’s our reporters telling me what they are reporting on. It’s not super polished and edited the way you will hear on All Things Considered. It’s reporters swapping notes in real time. It’s fun, and I find myself really learning from it doing it every week.”