On Air

“Steve Oney’s excellent history … does full justice to the considerable accomplishments of NPR, and [Oney’s] own skills at vivid storytelling make events both inside NPR and the events it covered come alive. As for gossip, NPR is up there with community theater, so those itching to know what NPR brass thought of Ira Glass will not be disappointed.” —Air Mail
“A lively and engaging new history of the organization … Oney’s account of how all this developed has plenty of color and sweep.” —Washington Post
“Engrossing and entertaining … A major work of media history.” —New York Times Book Review
“A raucous history … Oney’s fleet-footed storytelling and immersive prose bring to life the network’s colorful personalities. The result is an entertaining window into the creative but rancorous scene at one of journalism’s most hallowed institutions.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A warts-and-all account that’s full of surprises, and with plenty of insight into the world of nonprofit media.” —Kirkus Reviews
“In this brash, swear-y backroom history, a decade and a half in the making, Oney shows how a loose network of radio stations called NPR struggled to stay on the airwaves and became a singular force in American life.” —New York Times

Steve Oney is a longtime journalist who worked for many years as a staff writer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Magazine and Los Angeles magazine. He has also contributed articles to many national publications, including Esquire, The Wall Street Journal, New York magazine, GQ, and The New York Times Magazine. His history of the lynching of Leo Frank, And the Dead Shall Rise, won the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award and the National Jewish Book Award. Oney was educated at the University of Georgia and at Harvard, where he was a Nieman Fellow. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Madeline Stuart.

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