Pam Fessler
Pam Fessler is a correspondent on NPR's National Desk, where she covers poverty, philanthropy, and voting issues.
In her reporting at NPR, Fessler does stories on homelessness, hunger, affordable housing, and income inequality. She reports on what non-profit groups, the government, and others are doing to reduce poverty and how those efforts are working. Her poverty reporting was recognized with a 2011 First Place National Headliner Award.
Fessler also covers elections and voting, including efforts to make voting more accessible, accurate, and secure. She has done countless stories on everything from the debate over state voter identification laws to Russian hacking attempts and long lines at the polls.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Fessler became NPR's first Homeland Security correspondent. For seven years, she reported on efforts to tighten security at ports, airports, and borders, and the debate over the impact on privacy and civil rights. She also reported on the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, The 9/11 Commission Report, Social Security, and the Census. Fessler was one of NPR's White House reporters during the Clinton and Bush administrations.
Before becoming a correspondent, Fessler was the acting senior editor on the Washington Desk and NPR's chief election editor. She coordinated all network coverage of the presidential, congressional, and state elections in 1996 and 1998. In her more than 25 years at NPR, Fessler has also been deputy Washington Desk editor and Midwest National Desk editor.
Earlier in her career, she was a senior writer at Congressional Quarterly magazine. Fessler worked there for 13 years as both a reporter and editor, covering tax, budget, and other news. She also worked as a budget specialist at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and was a reporter at The Record newspaper in Hackensack, New Jersey.
Fessler has a master's of public administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and a bachelor's degree from Douglass College in New Jersey.
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The state's Republican-led House approved a bill that would impose strict photo ID and other requirements on voting. The measure reflects a deep partisan divide over access to the polls. -
The annual homeless count by the Department of Housing and Urban Development shows an increase in people living outside. The 2020 numbers in the report do not reflect the impact of the pandemic. -
Congress approved $25 billion in emergency rental assistance to keep people housed during the pandemic, but states are facing glitches on the federal moratorium for renters and landlords. -
Congress approved $25 billion in emergency rental assistance to keep people housed during the pandemic. States are struggling to get the money out to those who need it.
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"Black individuals make up about 21% of all renters, but they make up 35% of all defendants on eviction cases," says Peter Hepburn, a researcher for Princeton University's Eviction Lab. -
The annual street survey of homeless people is being delayed or put off completely in some parts of the U.S. during the pandemic, even as the country's unsheltered population appears to be growing. -
With many more people voting by mail this fall, election officials feared that millions of ballots would be rejected in the general election. Instead, rejection rates went down across the country. -
Voting took place amid a pandemic and unprecedented polarization. Despite baseless claims by the president and his allies that the outcome was rigged, states say the results are accurate. -
More than two weeks after the election, President Trump still refuses to concede. And now his legal team is alleging an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Democrats stole the election.
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Led by one of President Trump's nominees, the agency has been actively trying to correct misinformation spread by all sorts of actors, including Trump, about the election.