Broadcast: August 10, 2025 at 4:00 p.m.
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Bill Siemering, NPR’s first program director and the author of its inspiring mission statement, recounts the network’s early goal of honoring diversity by including a variety of American voices.
Also, we hear how America’s 18th century founders emphasized the importance of a free press and an educated citizenry to the success of their experiment in democracy. Features Pulitzer Prize-winning historians Gordon Wood (Brown University) and Annette Gordon-Reed (Harvard University).