“Neal did every job you could do in radio,” said Robert Siegel, former “All Things Considered” host, of his longtime colleague. “He was terrifically gifted at everything.”
Neal Conan’s first foray out of the studio in 11 years took him very far from the studio indeed — all the way to Greenland, where he documented climate change for public radio’s Burn: An Energy Journal. The former Talk of the Nation host contributed to “Rising Seas,” the sixth installment of the ongoing series reporting on energy issues. Conan hadn’t reported from the field since 2002, when he took the TOTN hosting job. He left NPR in June, when TOTN was canceled. Burn host Alex Chadwick, who previously anchored NPR’s Day to Day, enlisted Conan after TOTN ended.