Krista Tippett

{{short description|American journalist, author, and entrepreneur}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Krista Tippett

| image = Krista Tippett at the Brookings Institution.jpg

| alt =

| caption = Tippett in 2012

| birth_name = Krista Weedman

| birth_date = {{birth-date and age|November 9, 1960}}

| birth_place = United States

| death_date =

| death_place =

| education = Brown University (BA)
Yale University (MDiv)

| other_names =

| occupation = {{flatlist|

Journalist
diplomat
author}}

| known_for = On Being

| awards = {{hlist|National Humanities Medal
Peabody Award}}

| website = {{URL|www.onbeing.org}}

}}

Krista Tippett (née Weedman; born November 9, 1960){{cite web |url=http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/books/books.php?id=16646 |title=Book Review |publisher=Spirituality and Practice |access-date=February 4, 2015 |author=Brussat, Frederic and Maryann}}{{cite web |url=http://blog.onbeing.org/post/238278905/the-fall-of-the-wall-jfks-assassination-and-two |title=The Fall of the Wall, JFK's Assassination, and Two Birthdays |publisher=On Being |access-date=February 4, 2015 |archive-date=February 5, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150205012407/http://blog.onbeing.org/post/238278905/the-fall-of-the-wall-jfks-assassination-and-two |url-status=dead }} is an American journalist, author, and public intellectual.Yuan, Jada. “Krista Tippett Is Still Asking Big Questions.” The Cut, January 23, 2019. https://www.thecut.com/2019/01/npr-on-being-host-krista-tippet.html. Since 2003, she has served as creator and host of the Peabody Award winning program On Being. In 2014, Tippett was awarded the National Humanities Medal by U.S. President Barack Obama.{{cite news |author=White House Office of the Press Secretary |date=July 22, 2014 |title=President Obama to Award 2013 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal |url=https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/07/22/advisory-president-obama-award-2013-national-medal-arts-and-national-hum |via=National Archives |work=whitehouse.gov |access-date=December 2, 2014}}

Tippett is the author of The New York Times best selling books Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living (2016), Einstein's God: Conversations About Science and the Human Spirit (2010), and Speaking of Faith: Why Religion Matters—and How to Talk About It (2008).On Being. Becoming Wise: The Book. Accessed February 11, 2025. https://onbeing.org/becoming-wise-the-book/. In 2019 she was named the Mimi and Peter E. Haas Distinguished Visitor at Stanford University.Stanford News. “Host Krista Tippett Named Stanford’s 2019 Haas Center Distinguished Visitor.” Stanford News, January 14, 2019. https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2019/01/host-krista-tippett-named-stanford-2019-haas-center-distinguished-visitor. In 2025 Tippett was named a Chubb Fellow at Yale University.2025 Spring Chubb Fellow-Krista Tippett. The Chubb Fellowship at Yale University. Accessed February 11, 2025. https://chubbfellowship.yale.edu/.

Career

=Study and work abroad=

After graduating from Brown University in 1983, Tippett was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study at University of Bonn in West Germany. There she worked in The New York Times bureau in Bonn.{{cite news |author=Porecca, David |date=December 13, 1985 |title=New York Times Stringer Reflects on Life in the East |newspaper=The Berlin Observer |url=http://www.theberlinobserver.com/archive/1985V41/V41_N50_dec_13.pdf |access-date=February 3, 2015}} She wrote about her experiences in Rostock in "They Just Say 'Over There'" published by Die Zeit.{{cite news |author=Die Ziet |date=October 12, 1984 |title=Alle reden bloß von "drüben" |url=http://www.zeit.de/1984/42/alle-reden-bloss-von-drueben |access-date=December 2, 2014}} In 1984, she became a stringer for The New York Times in divided Berlin, where she established herself as a freelance foreign correspondent. She reported and wrote for The Times, Newsweek, the BBC, the International Herald Tribune, and Die Zeit.{{cite web |url=http://www.onbeing.org/about |title=About On Being |publisher=On Being |access-date=February 3, 2015}}

In 1986, Tippett became a special political assistant to the senior United States diplomat in West Berlin, John C. Kornblum.{{citation needed|date=February 2015}} The next year she became chief aide in Berlin to the U.S. ambassador to West Germany, Richard Burt. She has written that moral questions arising from that experience of seeing "high power, up close" eventually led to the spiritual, philosophical, and theological curiosities that have defined her work since.{{cite news |author=Horn, Vincent |title=Carving Out a Life of Meaning |newspaper=Buddhist Geeks |url=http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2011/01/bg-206-carving-out-a-life-of-meaning/ |access-date=December 3, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150203204213/http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2011/01/bg-206-carving-out-a-life-of-meaning/ |archive-date=February 3, 2015 |url-status=dead }}

=Radio and non-profit media=

Tippett received a Master of Divinity from Yale University in 1994. While conducting a global oral-history project for the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research at St. John's Abbey of Collegeville, Minnesota, she developed the idea for her radio show.{{cite news |author=Miller, Kay |date=November 2, 2002 |title=Radio for the Soul |newspaper=The Star Tribune |page=B5}}

Tippett proposed a show about religion to Minnesota Public Radio in the late 1990s. The radio program became a monthly series in 2001 and a weekly national program distributed by American Public Media in 2003. In 2013, Tippett left American Public Media to co-found the non-profit production company, Krista Tippett Public Productions, which she described as "a social enterprise with a radio show at its heart."{{cite news |author=Thomas, Dylan |date=August 11, 2014 |title=On Being More Than Just a Radio Show |newspaper=The Southwest Journal |url=http://www.southwestjournal.com/news/news/on-being-more-than-just-a-radio-show |access-date=February 3, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150106180542/http://www.southwestjournal.com/news/news/on-being-more-than-just-a-radio-show |archive-date=January 6, 2015 |url-status=dead }}{{cite news |author=Mook, Ben |date=September 8, 2014 |title=Naysayers be Damned, Public Radio's On Being Thrives as 'Social Enterprise' |newspaper=The Current |url=http://www.current.org/2014/09/naysayers-be-damned-public-radios-on-being-thrives-as-social-enterprise/ |access-date=December 3, 2014}} Tippett is also the co-creator and convener of the Civil Conversations Project, which she has described as "an emergent approach to healing our fractured civic spaces."{{cite news |author=Zolkover, Adam |date=July 3, 2014 |title=The Civil Conversations Project |url=https://www.instituteforcivility.org/tag/krista-tippett/ |access-date=December 3, 2014}}

=Interview style=

"The Tippett style," as described by the New York Times, "represents a fusion of all her parts—the child of small-town church comfortable in the pews; the product of Yale Divinity School able to parse text in Greek and theology in German; and, perhaps most of all, the diplomat seeking to resolve social divisions."{{cite news |author=Freedman, Samuel, G. |date=May 28, 2010 |title=Radio Program about Faith Defies the Skeptics |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/us/29religion.html |access-date=December 2, 2014}}

=Awards=

File:Krista Tippett and the crew of Speaking of Faith-The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi at the 67th Annual Peabody Awards.jpg

In July 2014, Tippett was awarded the 2013 National Humanities Medal at the White House for "thoughtfully delving into the mysteries of human existence." She received a George Foster Peabody Award in 2008, for "The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi,"and three Webby awards for excellence in electronic media.{{cite news |date=2008 |title=2008 Honoree: Speaking of Faith |newspaper=Webby Awards |url=http://www.webbyawards.com/winners/2008/web/general-website/radio-podcasts/speaking-of-faith/ |access-date=February 2, 2015 |archive-date=January 4, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180104132507/https://www.webbyawards.com/winners/2008/web/general-website/radio-podcasts/speaking-of-faith/ |url-status=dead }} Her book, Einstein's God (2010), was a New York Times bestseller.

Personal life

Tippett grew up in Shawnee, Oklahoma.{{cite news|url=http://www.theberlinobserver.com/archive/1985V41/V41_N50_dec_13.pdf|title=New York Times Stringer Reflects on Life in the East|date=December 13, 1985|newspaper=The Berlin Observer|author=Porecca, David|access-date=February 3, 2015}} She has two children and is divorced.{{cite web|url=http://wysu.org/content/commentary/krista-tippet|title=Krista Tippett|publisher=WYSU|access-date=February 3, 2015|archive-date=March 7, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210307001729/https://wysu.org/content/commentary/krista-tippet|url-status=dead}}

Quotations

"Anger is often what pain looks like when it shows itself in public."{{cite news|last1=Girdharadas|first1=Anand|title=Healing a Nation After a Season of Vitriol|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/26/us/politics/healing-a-nation-after-a-season-of-vitriol.html|access-date=May 11, 2016|work=New York Times|date=April 25, 2016}}
"I can disagree with your opinion, it turns out," she says, "but I can't disagree with your experience."

Works

Speaking of Faith: Why Religion Matters—and How to Talk About It (Penguin, January 29, 2008)
Einstein's God: Conversations About Science and the Human Spirit (Penguin, February 23, 2010)
[https://onbeing.org/programs/ On Being] (radio program and podcast, formerly Speaking of Faith)
Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living (Penguin, April 5, 2016)

References

= Additional works =

[https://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/10/travel/berlin-by-night.html "Berlin by Night"] New York Times (May 10, 1987)
[https://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/10/travel/berlin-by-night.html "Weimar's Poets in Residence"] New York Times (March 31, 1985)
[https://web.archive.org/web/20150203194947/http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/hnmcp/hnlr-symposium-2014-political-dialogue-and-civility-in-an-age-of-polarization/attachment/keynote-krista-tippett/ Keynote Address, Political Dialogue and Civility in an Age of Polarization], Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program (March 25, 2014)
[https://web.archive.org/web/20140810192430/http://themoth.org/posts/stories/gaggys_blessing Gaggy's Blessing] on The Moth Radio Hour (February 18, 2014)
[http://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/krista-tippett-andrew-solomon-einsteins-god-conversations-about-science Krista Tippett & Andrew Solomon: Einstein's God: Conversations about Science], Live from the New York Public Library (March 3, 2010)
[http://www.ted.com/talks/krista_tippett_reconnecting_with_compassion.html Krista Tippett: Reconnecting with Compassion] video on TED.com (November, 2010)
[http://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/play-krista-tippett-stuart-brown-conversation-paul-holdengr%C3%A4ber For Play: Krista Tippett & Stuart Brown in conversation with Paul Holdengräber] at LIVE from the New York Public Library (January 29, 2008)
[http://everyonesagnostic.libsyn.com/episode-70-krista-tippett "Krista Tippett"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304133605/http://everyonesagnostic.libsyn.com/episode-70-krista-tippett |date=2016-03-04 }}, guest on Everyone's Agnostic Podcast Episode 70, Oct. 19, 2015. Cass Midgley and Bob Pondillo.

External links

[http://www.onbeing.org/ Official website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180114193137/https://onbeing.org/ |date=2018-01-14 }}
{{C-SPAN|1024031}}

Category:1960 births

Category:Living people

Category:People from Shawnee, Oklahoma

Category:American women radio journalists

Category:American radio producers

Category:Brown University alumni

Category:American radio journalists

Category:Yale Divinity School alumni

Category:American talk radio hosts

Category:American women radio hosts

Category:Webby Award winners

Category:Peabody Award winners