In Memoriam: Margot Adler

By Howard Berkes

Veteran NPR correspondent Margot Adler passed away July 28, leaving behind a broadcast and SAG-AFTRA legacy that spans four decades. Adler succumbed to cancer at age 68. 

The granddaughter of legendary psychotherapist Alfred Adler, Margot quickly established her own legendary career at NPR, beginning in 1979 in New York. She was one of the network’s first reporters based outside Washington, D.C., and reported stories about the Ku Klux Klan, the earliest stages of the AIDS epidemic, the Harry Potter phenomenon (getting the first American radio interview with author J.K. Rowling) and the Sept. 11 attacks. Eclectic on the air and off, Margot also wrote extensively about Wiccan and Pagan culture. Her last book, Out for Blood, looked at the fascination with vampires and the concept of eternal life. 

Margot spent a decade hosting NPR’s Justice Talking, a program focused on constitutional issues. She often reported on aspects of American culture others ignored. In a 2013 interview on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, Margot described herself as an “anthropological journalist.” She described in that interview the transformations she sometimes observes in her stories and the leading characters in them.

“It’s like the hero’s journey,” Margot told host Neal Conan. “A character becomes a larger person … And I try to do that a lot. I don't always succeed, but that’s one of my goals.”

NPR colleague Susan Stamberg remembers Margot as “a talented reporter — so intelligent in her writing, in explaining complicated matters so we could absorb them, finding just the right clip of tape, or sound, to make her reporting real radio.”

Margot spent many years as an AFTRA activist and shop steward at NPR, working behind the scenes on behalf of more vulnerable staffers. She often posed the toughest questions, quietly in phone conversations with fellow stewards and publicly in all-staff meetings with management at NPR.

“She was always 10 steps ahead of everyone,” recalls Matt Allinson, a SAG-AFTRA labor counsel/senior broadcast representative in the Washington-Mid Atlantic Local. “[She] instinctually had a feel for where things were heading.”

Margot worked closely with Ken Greene, who was the AFTRA representative for the NPR bargaining unit for many years. Greene recalls Margot’s coordination of AFTRA meetings and activities at NPR’s New York bureau.

“She naturally invoked a sense of warmth, closeness and camaraderie,” Greene remembers. “She sure got me caught up in her spell. I, like millions of others, will really miss her.”

Margot had emailed NPR colleagues a few weeks before she died, reporting that cancer symptoms had returned.   

“She never sounded defeated or even rattled,” says NPR investigations correspondent Daniel Zwerdling, who spoke with Margot about her disease. “She was matter of fact, in an almost upbeat way, the way she did all her reporting: This is what I’m facing, these are the possibilities — here are some reasons for hope.”

Stamberg found Margot’s struggle inspiring. “Her resilience was staggering,” she says. “That great spirit was never broken. It’s only gone missing now.”

Margaret Low Smith, NPR’s senior vice president for news, says Margot “… exemplified what draws people to NPR. Her reporting was singular and her voice distinct … and she always found humanity in every story she told.”

Margot is survived by her son Alex Dylan Glideman-Adler, who reported her death on his mother’s Facebook page. By Monday evening, that posting and others on social media drew more than 2,000 responses from grieving listeners, readers, colleagues and friends.

This item was originally featured in the September 2014 local newsletter.