Walter Ray Watson
Walter Ray Watson is a senior producer for NPR News.
Watson joined NPR in 1987 as a production assistant on Weekend Edition Sunday, working when the program was hosted by Susan Stamberg and later by Liane Hansen.
He is working on the music series "American Anthem." In 2018, Watson produced stories for the special series "1968: How We Got Here." Previously, he helped launch the Code Switch podcast covering race and identity.
During his tenure at Weekend Edition Sunday, he produced stories on organ donor transplants in Pittsburgh, the threatened closing of Harlem's Apollo Theatre, and countless music features — a signature of the Sunday morning program — including performance-chats with Joni Mitchell, Charles Lloyd, and Awadagin Pratt. He traveled to Topeka, Kansas, with education correspondent Claudio Sanchez to mark the 40th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education. As a reporter, he has profiled jazz musician Jason Moran, writer Junot Diaz, dancer-choreographer Bebe Miller, and Brazilian singer Milton Nascimento.
Watson was supervising senior producer of the weekend broadcasts of All Things Considered for more than eight years. He oversaw coverage of the impeachment vote of President Clinton, the contested 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore, and Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.
He's proud of his work in South Africa with NPR correspondent Renee Montagne when NPR examined that country two years after the election of Nelson Mandela. He's also worked on stories of recovery after Hurricane Katrina and the immediate impact of Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Watson won a George Foster Peabody Award in 2013 with host-correspondent Michele Norris for Norris' original storytelling project on race and identity, "The Race Card Project." He won an award the next year for best radio feature from the National Association of Black Journalists on the discovery and restoration of a rare 1913 silent feature film starring Bert Williams and a large African American cast.
Born in Louisiana, he grew up in Chicago. Before coming to NPR, he was a staff writer for The New Pittsburgh Courier, a bi-weekly African American newspaper. Watson earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Pittsburgh.
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Writer James Baldwin is remembered by his family, a scholar, a journalist and a playwright on his 100th birthday. -
Alvin Bragg is the first person to bring criminal charges against a former president and the first African American elected Manhattan District Attorney. Bragg faces challenges beyond any one big case.
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This retired two-star general who led troops in combat is now on a mission to let veterans know there is life after a bipolar diagnosis.
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Lacks, a Black mother in Baltimore, died from cervical cancer in 1951. Her tumor cells, taken without her knowledge, became the first successful "immortal" cell line, and used for medical research. -
For decades, Dr. Roland Pattillo pushed to get Henrietta Lacks' name in the public eye. Lacks was a Black cancer patient whose cells were harvested and used for medical research without her consent.
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Kabul fell to the Taliban close to two years ago, but desperate Afghans continue to flee, even taking the dangerous route into the U.S. across the Mexican border. Here's the story of one such family. -
The beloved singer and interpreter of pop standards won 20 Grammy awards over a career that touched eight decades. -
One tow truck driver worked nearly endlessly after Hurricane Ian slashed across most of Florida, stranding vehicles throughout the state. -
Across Southwest Florida, the long road to recovery is coming into focus as people try to pick up the pieces after Hurricane Ian. Many will rebuild, others will leave and some don't know what's next. -
Residents accuse the largely white state government of neglecting the needs of a city that's 82% Black. White flight in the 1970s devastated the tax base, posing a major challenge to any solution.
