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Rick Karr

Rick Karr contributes reports on the arts to NPR News. He is a correspondent for the weekly PBS public affairs show Bill Moyers Journal and teaches radio journalism at Columbia University.

From 1999 to 2004, he was NPR's lead arts correspondent in New York, focussing on technology's impact on culture. Prior to that, he hosted the NPR weekend music and culture magazine show Anthem, and even earlier in his career, worked as a general assignment reporter and engineer at NPR's Chicago bureau.

Rick was nominated for an Emmy award for his 2006 PBS documentary Net @ Risk, which made the case that the U.S. is falling far behind other nations with regard to the speed and power of its internet infrastructure. He's also reported for the PBS shows NOW and Journal Editorial Report.

Rick is a member of the songwriters' collective Box Set Authentic. He lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, with his wife, artist Birgit Rathsmann.

  • Since Barnes and Noble pulled out of the Bronx last year, there has been no general interest bookstore in the borough. Noelle Santos hopes to open one by the end of the year.
  • Gary Lucas, known for playing with the late Captain Beefheart and as the late Jeff Buckley's songwriting partner, built reputation with film music. His latest is for an early Orson Welles comedy.
  • The composer and trombonist has covered a lot of territory, from jazz to Balkan brass bands to arranging for Kronos quartet. His latest album enlists three guitars and one very esoteric concept.
  • Karen Haglof made her name as a guitarist on the ultra-competitive New York no-wave scene of the 1980s. Then she stopped playing and launched a career in medicine. Now she's back with a solo album.
  • The Federal Communications Commission is getting ready to auction off more broadcast spectrum and that has the folks who use wireless microphones very worried.
  • Robert Downey Jr. is a name well-known to moviegoers, but did you know that the actor's father also happens to be in the movie business? Robert Downey Sr. is an acclaimed director whose early underground films have just been restored.
  • Painter Joe Andoe has lived in New York for more than 20 years, but he never stopped thinking about his hometown. Tulsa, Okla., inspires his paintings, and it's where Andoe built a reputation as a wild man and party animal. Now Andoe has cleaned up his act and written a memoir about his journey from juvenile delinquency to a successful career in art.
  • In the second of a three-part series on the future of television, Rick Karr looks at how new technologies are influencing what television viewers are more likely to watch -- shorter, more immediate clips of longer shows.
  • Flat-screen televisions, iPods and the Internet are radically changing how viewers consume video programming. In the first of a three-part series of reports on the future of television, Rick Karr looks at the ways technology is changing how viewers watch TV.
  • As new ways of receiving radio programs gain hordes of fans -- from satellite services like XM Radio to Internet tools like Audible.com -- a decidedly lo-fi approach is making waves. Low Power FM radio is being touted as an alternative to generic, commercial programming.