Kirk Siegler
As a correspondent on NPR's national desk, Kirk Siegler covers rural life, culture and politics from his base in Boise, Idaho.
His beat explores the intersection and divisions between rural and urban America, including longer term reporting assignments that have taken him frequently to a struggling timber town in Idaho that lost two sawmills right before the election of President Trump. In 2018, after the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history, Siegler spent months chronicling the diaspora of residents from Paradise, exploring the continuing questions over how – or whether – the town should rebuild in an era of worsening climate-driven wildfires.
Siegler's award winning reporting on the West's bitter land use controversies has taken listeners to the heart of anti-government standoffs in Oregon and Nevada, including a rare interview with recalcitrant rancher Cliven Bundy. He's also profiled numerous ranching and mining communities from Nebraska to New Mexico that have worked to reinvent themselves in a fast-changing global economy.
Siegler also contributes extensively to the network's breaking news coverage, from floods and hurricanes in Louisiana to deadly school shootings in Connecticut. In 2015, he was awarded an international reporting fellowship from Johns Hopkins University to report on health and development in Nepal. While en route to the country, the worst magnitude earthquake to hit the region in more than 80 years struck. The fellowship was cancelled, but Siegler was one of the first foreign journalists to arrive in Kathmandu and helped lead NPR's coverage of the immediate aftermath of the deadly quake. He also filed in-depth reports focusing on the humanitarian disaster and challenges of bringing relief to some of the Nepal's far-flung rural villages.
Before helping open the network's first ever bureau in Idaho at the studios of Boise State Public Radio in 2019, Siegler was based at the NPR West studios in Culver City, California. Prior to joining NPR in 2012, Siegler spent seven years reporting from Colorado, where he became a familiar voice to NPR listeners reporting on politics, water and the state's ski industry from Denver for NPR Member station KUNC. He got his start in political reporting covering the Montana Legislature for Montana Public Radio.
Apart from a brief stint working as a waiter in Sydney, Australia, Siegler has spent most of his adult life living in the West. He grew up in Missoula, Montana, and received a journalism degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
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Thirty-four firefighters died in the line of duty this year. The unusually high number is sparking a larger conversation about the dangers firefighters face as more homes are built in and around drought-stricken forests.
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The Los Angeles County supervisor wants to create an independent commission to oversee the department following charges of inmate abuse and racial profiling. -
Colorado enacted several tough gun control measures after the shooting in Newtown, Conn. — and then voters ousted two lawmakers who backed those laws. One former senator says he has no regrets, while the man who helped remove him is now focused on other gun rights supporters. -
On Monday, federal prosecutors announced indictments against 18 current and former deputies of the L.A. Sheriff's department for corruption and civil rights abuses inside the nation's largest municipal jail system.
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Railroads are increasingly becoming the preferred means of shipping the masses of oil being produced in North Dakota and surrounding states. The railroad industry is eager to fill in for the lack of pipeline capacity. But some say the train growth needs to slow down. -
California is home to one of the largest Filipino immigrant communities in the United States. It's also the center of a large fundraising and outreach effort for victims of Typhoon Haiyan. -
The shooting at Los Angeles International Airport is renewing debate over whether security at airports is tough enough. Some aviation security experts say the response at LAX went as well as it could have in this era of "random violence" in public areas.
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Aja Brown made history in the city this past summer when she became the youngest mayor to ever be elected there. She has strong family roots in the place made famous by "gangsta rap," and a long list of ambitious reforms for the long-struggling city south of L.A. -
A lone gunman opened fire Friday at Los Angeles International Airport, police say. Police fired on the alleged shooter, who is now in police custody. The attack left one TSA officer dead and at least seven people needing medical treatment (including the shooter), officials said. The shooting forced the evacuation of a terminal and more than 45 flights into and out of LAX have been cancelled.
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After last month's disastrous floods, much of the recovery has focused on repairing roads and bridges to mountain towns. But a whole new set of staggering problems unfolds for the immigrant workers who had flocked to agricultural jobs in Colorado farm country.
