Kirk Siegler

Siegler grew up outside of Missoula, Montana. After graduating from high school, he traveled to Boulder, Colorado to attend Colorado University.[1]

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 landed his first reporting job in 2003 serving as Montana Public Radio's first State House bureau chief. Later he moved to Aspen, Colorado and spent seven years working at NPR member station KUNC and Aspen Public Radio as a reporter and later as Aspen Public Radio's news director. He covered the ski industry, immigration and an energy boom in western Colorado involving a major dispute over fracking. Siegler's work also won numerous Edward R. Murrow and Associated Press awards in Colorado and Montana.[2]

Siegler covers the western United States for NPR's national desk, a position he has held since December 2012. Based at NPR West's studios in Culver City, California, Siegler's reporting focuses on issues including the environmental and economic impacts of the drought in California and the West. He also covers the region's disputes around land use. His assignments have covered anti-government standoffs in the region, including a 2014 interview with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy at Bundy's home outside of Bunkerville, NV.[3]

Siegler has covered wildfires while embedded with an all-Native American crew from Arizona, witnessed and reported on the aftermath of many of the most notable mass shootings in the United States, skied with snowboarder Jeremy Jones, founder of Protect our Winters, traveled to Colombian jungles by canoe to report on the cacao industry, and descended into a volcano. Siegler also contributes extensively to the NPR's breaking news coverage. His stories are regularly featured on Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

In 2015, Siegler was awarded an International Reporting Project fellowship from Johns Hopkins University to report on health and development in Nepal. The 2015 Nepal earthquake occurred while he was en route to the country. Siegler was one of the first foreign journalists to arrive in Kathmandu and helped lead NPR's coverage of the aftermath. He also filed in-depth reports focusing on the humanitarian disaster and challenges of bringing relief to rural villages.[3]