Alix Spiegel

Alix Spiegel
Born	Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Career
Show	Invisibilia This American Life
Network	National Public Radio
Time slot	Syndication
Style	Presenter
Country	United States

Alix Spiegel is an American public radio producer and science journalist. She currently works for This American Life.^[1] Spiegel previously hosted and produced the NPR program Invisibilia with Lulu Miller and Hanna Rosin. She was one of the early producers of This American Life, then went on to work for National Public Radio and The New York Times.^[2][3]

Biography

Spiegel grew up in Baltimore, Maryland in a secular Jewish household. Her father was the great-grandson of Joseph Spiegel, the founder of the Spiegel Catalog. Her great-aunt was civil rights activist Polly Spiegel Cowan. She studied the violin seriously from a very young age at the Peabody Preparatory in Baltimore, but quit to go to college.^[4] After graduating from Oberlin College, Spiegel moved to Chicago, where she saw an announcement in a newspaper about a fledgling local show for WBEZ called Your American Playhouse: Documentaries About American Life. In 1995 Spiegel began correspondence with the show's producer, Ira Glass, who took her on as an intern.^[4] In 1996 the show changed its name to This American Life and was picked up nationally by Public Radio International, by which time Spiegel was producing pieces for the show. That year Spiegel and the show's other producers won the George Foster Peabody Award^[5]

In 2002, Spiegel won the Livingston Award for episode #204 "81 Words" about Spiegel's own grandfather,^[6] Dr. John Patrick Spiegel, who had a hand in removing homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.^[7][8] In 2007, she won the Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award for the segment, "Which One of These is Not Like the Others?" for episode #322, "Shouting Across the Divide."

During her years on NPR's science desk Spiegel covered psychology and human behavior, with an emphasis on looking at how ideas about emotions come into existence and evolve.^[3] In 2008 she won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for her piece "Stuck and Suicidal in a Post-Katrina Trailer Park". In 2010 she won the Erikson Institute Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media.^[9] In 2021 she won a John B Oakes award from Columbia University for her environmental reporting. In 2022, after returning to This American Life, she was on the team that produced "The Pink House at the Center of the World", an episode about the overturn of Roe v Wade that won a Peabody. Spiegel's science reporting has also been featured in The New York Times and The New Yorker.^[3]

References

1. "Alix Spiegel Returns to This American Life as a Senior Producer". This American Life. 2021-07-26. Retrieved 2024-05-25.
2. "Audio's New Shows, Formats and Faces". The New York Times. 29 October 2020. Retrieved 4 May 2021.
3. "Alix Spiegel: Correspondent, Science Desk and Co-Host, Invisibilia". NPR.org. National Public Radio. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
4. Zadie, Mooj. "Alix Spiegel". taperadio.org. Tape. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
5. 55th Annual Peabody Awards, May 1996.
6. "BEHIND THE SCENES with Alix Spiegel". Retrieved 8 March 2017.
7. "81 Words: the inside story of psychiatry and homosexuality [Part 1 of 2] – All In The Mind – ABC Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)". Abc.net.au. 4 August 2007. Retrieved 2011-12-02.
8. "Livingston Awards". Livawards.org. Archived from the original on 2011-11-21. Retrieved 2011-12-02.
9. "Erikson Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media - Austen Riggs Center". Archived from the original on 20 July 2018. Retrieved 8 March 2017.