John Hockenberry
Creator & Founding Host of "The Takeaway," the Public Radio Show heard on NPR and PRI.
Emmy & Peabody Award-winning Journalist
Author of Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs and Declarations of Independence
John Hockenberry is the creator and the founding host (2007-2017) of The Takeaway, the public radio weekday news program that features unique conversations about national and global topics of the day with both newsmakers and diverse voices. For a decade, he invited listeners to learn more and become part of the American conversation. He has reported from all over the world, in virtually every medium, having anchored programs for network, cable and radio. A three-time Peabody Award winner, four-time Emmy winner and "Dateline NBC" correspondent, John Hockenberry has broad experience as a journalist and commentator for more than three decades.
Hockenberry was responsible for two of the most innovative programs to air on MSNBC. Hockenberry joined NBC as a correspondent for "Dateline NBC" in January 1996 after a fifteen-year career in broadcast news at both National Public Radio and ABC News. Hockenberry's reporting for "Dateline NBC" earned him three Emmys, an Edward R Murrow award and a Casey Medal. His most prominent "Dateline NBC" reports include an hour-long documentary on the often-fatal tragedy of the medically uninsured, an emotionally gripping portrait of a young schizophrenic trying to live on his own, and extensive reporting in the aftermath of September 11th.
In 2009, Hockenberry was appointed to the White House Fellows Commission by President Barack Obama where he participates in the selection of the annual Fellows for this most prestigious of Federal programs.
Hockenberry is also the author of “A River Out Of Eden” a novel based in the Pacific Northwest and "Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs and Declarations of Independence," a memoir of life as a foreign correspondent which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1996. He has also written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, I.D., Wired, The Columbia Journalism Review, Details, and The Washington Post.
Hockenberry spent more than a decade with NPR as a general assignment reporter, Middle East correspondent and host of several programs. During the Persian Gulf War (1990-91), Hockenberry was assigned to the Middle East, where he filed reports from Israel, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Iran. He was one of the first Western broadcast journalists to report from Kurdish refugee camps in Northern Iraq and Southern Turkey. Hockenberry also spent two years (1988-90) as a correspondent based in Jerusalem during the most intensive conflict of the Palestinian uprising. Hockenberry received the Columbia Dupont Award for Foreign News Coverage for reporting on the Gulf War.
Born in Dayton, Ohio, Hockenberry grew up in upstate New York and Michigan, and attended both the University of Chicago and the University of Oregon. Hockenberry and his wife, Alison, live in New York City with their children, Zoe, Olivia, Zachary Regan and Ajax: two sets of twins, and a solo latecomer.
John Hockenberry's Moving Violations is one of the most entertaining, provocative, unexpected, outspoken, and occasionally outrageous books in recent memory. It is a story of obstacles--physical, emotional, and psychic--overcome again, and again, and again. Whether riding a mule up a hillside in Iraq surrounded by mud-stained Kurdish refugees, navigating his wheelchair through intractable stretches of Middle Eastern sand, or auditioning to be the first journalist in space, John Hockenberry, ace reporter, is determined not only to bring back the story, but also to prove that nothing can hold him back from death-defying exploits. A paraplegic since an auto accident at age nineteen, Hockenberry holds nothing back in this achingly honest, often hilarious chronicle that ranges from the Ayatollah's funeral (where his wheelchair is pushed by a friendly Iranian chanting "Death to all Americans"), to the problems of crip sex and the inaccessibility of the New York City subway system.
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"In Hockenberry's Moving Violations is one of the most entertaining, provocative, unexpected, outspoken, and occasionally outrageous books in recent memory. It is a story of obstacles--physical, emotional, and psychic--overcome again, and again, and again. Whether riding a mule up a hillside in Iraq surrounded by mud-stained Kurdish refugees, navigating his wheelchair through intractable stretches of Middle Eastern sand, or auditioning to be the first journalist in space, John Hockenberry, ace reporter, is determined not only to bring back the story, but also to prove that nothing can hold him back from death-defying exploits. However, he will never be a poster boy for a Jerry Lewis telethon. A paraplegic since an auto accident at age nineteen, Hockenberry holds nothing back in this achingly honest, often hilarious chronicle that ranges from the Ayatollah's funeral (where his wheelchair is pushed by a friendly Iranian chanting "Death to all Americans"), to the problems of crip sex and the inaccessibility of the New York City subway system. In this immensely moving chronicle--so filled with marvelous storytelling that it reads like a novel--John Hockenberry finds that the most difficult journey is the one that begins at home, as he confronts the memories of his beloved one-armed grandfather, and finally meets his institutionalized Uncle Peter, whose very existence was long a secret buried in the family history. Moving Violations is a sometimes harrowing but ultimately joyful ride."
Booklist
New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08...