Noah Adams, one of the voices most closely tied to NPR's All Things Considered during public radio's formative years, has died.
Adams left All Things Considered in 1987 to lead a new variety program in Minnesota, created to replace Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion. Two years later he returned to NPR and hosted All Things Considered alongside Robert Siegel and Linda Wertheimer. He also wrote five books.
Colleagues remember him for detailed, descriptive reporting that let listeners picture the people and towns in his stories. Melissa Block, a former producer and host of the program, described his habits in the field to NPR: "He was always observing. He would have a little reporter's notebook, and he would be taking notes in shorthand. His writing is almost illegible – it would just be the vaguest sketches of things. But somehow, when we came back, he would capture the character of a place or a person or a town in the most vivid, rich, simple language. It was a complete picture based on his unbelievable powers of observation."
All Things Considered remains NPR's flagship afternoon newsmagazine and is carried by member stations across the country. Many of the storytelling conventions those stations still air every afternoon took shape during the years Adams was behind the microphone.