Amy Walters
Biography
Amy Walters joined Baltimore Public Media on February 24 as Executive Producer, bringing more than two decades of experience in public radio, international news, and long-form audio journalism. She leads the station’s Friday News Roundup with News Director Matt Bush and serves as Executive Producer of The Engagement with D. Watkins, launching October 19 and airing Monday through Thursday.
The Engagement will examine the news, ideas, and conversations shaping Baltimore, Maryland, and the broader region. The program brings together reporting, analysis, and conversation while centering the people and issues driving the region.
She formerly served as a producer for NPR based at NPR West in Los Angeles.
After graduating from Earlham College with a Bachelor’s degree in English, Walters interned at NPR in the Middle East. After returning to the states she joined the staff of Morning Edition in 2000. Soon Walters was recruited to All Things Considered and spent two years on the show. On September 11, 2001, Walters stood on top of NPR’s Washington, DC, headquarters watching the smoke float by from the attack on the Pentagon. Walters contributed to NPR’s award-winning coverage of that day. The following year she interviewed and produced several minute long segments of survivors remembering the loved ones they lost that day.
As NPR expanded west, Walters followed. A native of Southern California, Walters returned to the golden state as a field producer at NPR’s new production facility near Los Angeles. She produced NPR’s coverage of the Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s election, award-winning coverage of California’s prison system, and the death of pop legend Michael Jackson
Breaking news took up much of her time but she has also been recognized for her investigative work. With NPR’s crime and punishment correspondent Laura Sullivan, Walters was honored with the DART Award for Excellence in coverage of trauma, the RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award for Investigative Reporting, and the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award for their NPR series, “The Sexual Abuse of Native American Women.”
The next year Walters and Sullivan received both The Peabody Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Journalism for their series uncovering the truth about the 1972 murder in Angola, Louisiana.
She has traveled around the country and the world for NPR. She spent time in Baghdad and produced much of NPR’s post-Katrina coverage in New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. Walters also explored the life and culture of Los Angeles’ notorious Skid Row neighborhood, spotlighted the culture and economics of the marijuana industry in Humboldt County and reported from Fort Hood, Texas, after the shooting massacre there.