NPR Names Ayesha Rascoe the Host of 'Weekend Version Sunday'

Ayesha Rascoe, a White Home correspondent for NPR, would be the new host of “Weekend Version Sunday,” the general public broadcaster introduced on Friday.

She fills a job left by Lulu Garcia-Navarro, who hosted this system for 5 years till October, when she joined The New York Instances’s Opinion audio workforce.

Ms. Rascoe will begin on March 27, helming a newsmagazine program that’s carried by almost 800 public radio stations throughout america. She joined NPR in 2018, after almost a decade as a reporter at Reuters. Whereas there, she lined the tip of the Obama administration and starting of the Trump presidency, in addition to vitality and environmental coverage information.

In an interview, Ms. Rascoe mentioned that her two instances as visitor host of “Weekend Version” had proven her the breadth of tales she may inform.

“I used to be in a position to do the exhausting information that I cherished, ask the exhausting questions, speak to the pinnacle of the E.P.A. and discuss politics and all these issues that I really like and am obsessed with,” she mentioned, “however then I used to be additionally in a position to interview Melanie Lynskey, who starred in ‘Yellowjackets,’ a present I used to be obsessive about.”

Ms. Rascoe may also host the “Up First” podcast on the weekends as a part of her new function.

“Weekend Version Sunday” has been on the air since 1987. Its Saturday counterpart is hosted by Scott Simon, who has been within the function since that present started in 1985 aside from a quick reprieve within the early Nineteen Nineties.

NPR has been publicly criticized by a few of its personal workers in latest months over the departures of high-profile stars who’re ladies of coloration, together with Ms. Garcia-Navarro, Audie Cornish and Noel King. NPR’s media correspondent, David Folkenflik, tackled the problem in an article in January, reporting that NPR struggles to retain journalists of coloration and hosts have complained of racial and gender pay disparities. Mr. Folkenflik additionally wrote that adjustments inside the trade and the rise of podcasts meant the ambitions of many journalists had shifted.

Ms. Rascoe, who’s Black, mentioned that she had felt supported in her time at NPR, however that the group, and the remainder of the media trade, nonetheless had work to do.

“By way of range, no mainstream information group is the place it ought to be, that’s only a reality,” she mentioned, including, “NPR is not any totally different in that. However each outlet may do higher.”