https://www.howardberkes.com/home daily 1.0 2026-02-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/603b3478f4a6a57df7eb89e5/6b462743-a1a5-40b8-8bab-3b90981de106/canoe+journey+intvw.JPG Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/603b3478f4a6a57df7eb89e5/766614f6-34be-4576-b2a0-8dc373a813f6/IMG_0152+%281%29.JPG Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/603b3478f4a6a57df7eb89e5/c3cb8c6f-29bf-4245-89be-c2927d88c21c/Border+Drugs+7.jpg Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/603b3478f4a6a57df7eb89e5/fefacb2d-fe09-4589-a97e-294b407b17bd/Allen+Park+Studio+1983.jpg Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/603b3478f4a6a57df7eb89e5/a217f94c-8030-4812-bbde-a61e8f6efdd2/CA+Condor.jpg Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/603b3478f4a6a57df7eb89e5/0372894f-1f9e-4e47-897a-2b9243bfe205/Me+and+Hodler.jpg Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/603b3478f4a6a57df7eb89e5/1627362627809-9Q0Y2PRVKHJ0JPV3OE84/Olympic+credentials.jpg Home - About Howard Berkes Howard Berkes was an NPR correspondent for 38 years. He spent 20 years covering the American West and a decade focused on rural America. Berkes also covered eight Olympic Games, and retired in 2019 after eight years as an NPR Investigations correspondent. He earned more than 40 journalism awards for investigative, science, business, sports, breaking news, health, rural and feature reporting, and was awarded a Nieman Foundation Journalism Fellowship at Harvard University in 1997. Berkes also helped form Public Health Watch, an independent non-profit investigative newsroom focused on public, environmental and occupational health. He began chairing PHW’s Governing Board in February, 2026. https://www.howardberkes.com/portfolio daily 0.75 2021-07-27 https://www.howardberkes.com/contact daily 0.75 2026-02-22 https://www.howardberkes.com/buried-in-grain daily 0.75 2021-07-12 https://www.howardberkes.com/mines daily 0.75 2021-07-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/603b3478f4a6a57df7eb89e5/1627360165477-4C5ROJ4JTNX0R641NPBF/First-the-disaster-Then.jpg Mine Safety - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.howardberkes.com/challenger daily 0.75 2023-11-30 https://www.howardberkes.com/black-lung daily 0.75 2021-07-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/603b3478f4a6a57df7eb89e5/1627360105625-NXW5MGVAKHHZTY4HXGPL/Quarles.jpg Black Lung Returns to Coal Country - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.howardberkes.com/favorite-stories daily 0.75 2021-07-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/603b3478f4a6a57df7eb89e5/1627360989415-3RSO1BEU3B4GOTGBSWJV/roadside+sign.jpg Favorite Stories - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.howardberkes.com/mount-st-helens daily 0.75 2021-07-12 https://www.howardberkes.com/poisoned-places daily 0.75 2021-07-12 https://www.howardberkes.com/workers-compensation daily 0.75 2021-07-12 https://www.howardberkes.com/katrina daily 0.75 2021-07-12 https://www.howardberkes.com/coals-deadly-dust daily 0.75 2023-11-30 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/603b3478f4a6a57df7eb89e5/1627360215373-3UPHN1OJ95KW08ANQ1VE/miner+intvw+sign.JPG Coal's Deadly Dust https://www.howardberkes.com/american-red-cross daily 0.75 2021-07-12 https://www.howardberkes.com/consulting-mentoring daily 0.75 2026-02-22 https://www.howardberkes.com/video-television daily 0.75 2021-07-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/603b3478f4a6a57df7eb89e5/1627362567354-F1DHZRHVXXQR29LEV19O/Coal%27s+Deadly+Dust+Danny+Smith.jpg Video & Television - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.howardberkes.com/rural daily 0.75 2021-07-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/603b3478f4a6a57df7eb89e5/1627360877150-WNX68KGPX3SCK2FBKWSN/Whoa+stop+sign.jpg The Rural Beat - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.howardberkes.com/awards daily 0.75 2026-02-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/603b3478f4a6a57df7eb89e5/1624116692448-GNZXRTKLLD3NJ9C10WNE/Awards+Photo.jpg Awards - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.howardberkes.com/mormon-church daily 0.75 2021-07-12 https://www.howardberkes.com/polygamy daily 0.75 2021-06-21 https://www.howardberkes.com/bio daily 0.75 2026-02-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/603b3478f4a6a57df7eb89e5/1627361159084-AB63F4L8V5PM8U6HQ23N/1st+Garfield+Studio.png Bio - The fellowship came 20 years after his career began at NPR affiliate KLCC in Eugene, Oregon, where Berkes was an unpaid news volunteer. While working a full-time job elsewhere, Berkes arrived at KLCC at 6 am to “rip” and rewrite newswires and pull news spots from NPR newscasts for a morning news show. Berkes later began to report news stories while pulling NPR news spots for a noon newscast. Eventually, Berkes became the anchor of a daily evening newscast, and quit his day job to focus on his volunteer radio work full-time. To support himself, Berkes began producing news spots for NPR newscasts and stories for NPR’s news programs, Morning Edition and All Things Considered. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/603b3478f4a6a57df7eb89e5/1627361531666-G649BXCTCFW14VV3GI90/NPR+HQ.JPG Bio - Berkes began to report stories NPR hadn’t had much of before, on public lands and National Parks, cattle grazing, endangered species, the militia movement, neo-Nazi groups, Native Americans, western culture, water issues, the Mormon Church, polygamy, environmental threats, and the region’s breaking news. He spent weeks traveling the blue highways and ranch roads of the west, sometimes camping overnight, for major series on the proposal to build a nuclear missile weapons system (the MX) across thousands of square miles of desert basins and ranges, and on the legacy of disease and distrust left by a nuclear weapons testing program that sent radioactive fallout across the region. The first national journalism award came in 1984. The Society of Professional Journalists honored Berkes with its Distinguished Service Award for Radio Reporting for his coverage of flooding and mudslides in a Utah town. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/603b3478f4a6a57df7eb89e5/1627362373624-YGI2SKD1ZCDXDSTCPNMC/Normal+and+Black+Lung+Display+NIOSH.JPG Bio - As his investigative reporting continued, Berkes became part of the NPR Investigations Team. He continued to focus on coal mine safety, with a multi-year investigation of the resurgence of black lung disease, the fatal lung ailment caused by inhalation of coal dust. A 2012 investigation with The Center for Public Integrity documented the resurgence and its causes. In 2016, Berkes learned that the resurgence was worse than reported earlier. He discovered and verified an epidemic of the worst and final stage of black lung, and began a survey of black lung clinics that ultimately counted 20 times the number of cases of advanced disease then the federal government had reported. The investigation continued into 2018, with a look at why this resurgence of extreme disease was occurring. https://www.howardberkes.com/delinquent-mines daily 0.75 2021-06-21 https://www.howardberkes.com/olympics daily 0.75 2021-07-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/603b3478f4a6a57df7eb89e5/1627360298738-8B7P5Q7ZBS1JMSAEAWHN/Olympic+credentials.jpg The Olympic Games https://www.howardberkes.com/retirement daily 0.75 2021-06-20 https://www.howardberkes.com/essays-notebooks-postcards daily 0.75 2021-06-20 https://www.howardberkes.com/remembrances daily 0.75 2021-07-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/603b3478f4a6a57df7eb89e5/1627360937476-WHZR34ZOGV4KBKCR5WW9/McDonald+with+commemorative.JPG Remembrances - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.