Award-winning journalist Tonya Mosley joins Storyboard contributor Christina M. Tapper for a discussion about interviewing, live coverage, and how to tell complex family stories.

Mosley is the co-host of NPR’s “Fresh Air,” where she has in-depth conversations with newsmakers like politician and author Stacy Abrams, actor George Clooney, and artist Mickalene Thomas. It’s not just Mosley’s ability to have conversations with a wide range of people that make her one of the most notable interviewers in journalism and media. It’s also her research.

“I have a wonderful team at ‘Fresh Air’ who puts together a research document and it's all the things that they can find out about the person, and they break it up: here's television work, here's audio work, here's what's been written about them. I read all of that,” she says. “But then the fun thing to do after that is to find the things that weren't in the document. So then I go digging myself.”

In her own research, Mosley scours non-mainstream platforms, including Black media. It’s Mosley’s way of covering all of her bases and honoring the guest’s time.

Read the full show notes: https://niemanstoryboard.org/2026/01/08/nprs-tonya-mosley-on-the-art-of-the-interview/

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Show Credits

Hosted and produced by Mark Armstrong

Episode producer and interview by Christina M. Tapper

Episode editor: Kelly Araja

Audience editor: Adriana Lacy

Promotional support: Ellen Tuttle

Operational support: Paul Plutnicki, Peter Canova

Nieman Foundation interim curator: Henry Chu

Music: “Golden Grass,” by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)

Cover design by Adriana Lacy

Nieman Storyboard is presented by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard.

NPR's Tonya Mosley on the art of the interview