Ketzel Levine
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Ketzel Levine is an American radio journalist who began her broadcast career in 1974. She joined
National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...
(NPR) in 1977 and worked, variously, as the network's arts producer, sports director, features reporter and garden expert. From 2000 through 2008, she was senior correspondent for the NPR program ''
Morning Edition ''Morning Edition'' is an American radio news program produced and distributed by NPR. It airs weekday mornings (Monday through Friday) and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 5:00 to 9:00 a ...
''. At the end of that year, due to cutbacks at the network, Levine was laid off, while working on a documentary series about Americans coping with economic stress and job loss. Her final NPR broadcast was about how she, herself, had just lost her job.


Broadcast career

Levine's academic background was in music and communications. Her first job in broadcasting was at the full-time, non-commercial classical music station
WMHT-FM WMHT-FM (89.1 Hertz, MHz) is a listener-supported, non-commercial radio station city of license, licensed to Schenectady, and serving the Capital District, New York, Capital District of New York (state), New York. It has a classical music radio ...
in Schenectady, NY. She moved to Washington, D.C., in 1977 to work at NPR, where she produced the arts magazine, ''Voices in the Wind.'' In 1979, she became part of the original staff of ''Morning Edition'', where she remained until moving to London to report for the
BBC World Service The BBC World Service is a British Public broadcasting, public service broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcas ...
. While abroad, she also freelanced for NPR,
CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...
and the BBC domestic service. She returned to NPR full-time as its arts reporter in 1986. In 1990, she took up studies in horticulture, began her own landscape and design business, and in 1992 became NPR's horticultural reporter, the "Doyenne of Dirt", broadcasting for the next ten years on NPR's ''
Weekend Edition ''Weekend Edition'' is a set of American radio news magazine programs produced and distributed by National Public Radio ( NPR). It is the weekend counterpart to the NPR radio program ''Morning Edition''. It consists of ''Weekend Edition Saturday ...
'' with Scott Simon. During this time she was also a contributing writer for ''Horticulture Magazine'', a features writer for ''
Martha Stewart Living ''Martha Stewart Living'' is a magazine A magazine is a periodical literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), ...
'' and a contributing writer for ''
The Oregonian ''The Oregonian'' is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the West Coast of the United States, U.S. West Coast, founded as a weekly by Tho ...
''. In 2000, she publishe
'Plant This!'
(Sasquatch Books, 2000). In 2000, Levine became a senior correspondent for ''Morning Edition.'' In 2007, she expanded her horticultural reporting with the year-long special program, "Climate Connections". She also produced and reported for the series, "Take Two: People Reinventing Themselves Through Their Work", and at the time of her dismissal, was producing and writing a series documenting the effects of the economic crisis, "American Moxie: How We Get By". Levine's career with NPR ended on an ironic note when she was one of 64 people laid off in December 2008, as she was producing the "American Moxie" series. In her last series installment, she reported about her own layoff.


Horticultural career

Levine studied at the George Washington U School of Landscape Design. She began her own business, Hortus Landscaping, in 1991, then later began a career writing about horticulture, botanizing, and lecturing for garden clubs, botanic gardens and arboretums. After moving to Portland, OR in 1996, she became the northwest regional correspondent for Horticulture Magazine and a contributing editor for The Oregonian. Her newspaper plant profiles were published in the book
Plant This!
(Sasquatch Books, 2000). Levine's own garden has been featured in several magazines, includin
Portland Monthly
A profile of Levine and her garden was published in th
February 2011 issue of Sunset Magazine
.


Animal rescue

Following her layoff from NPR, Levine pursued a lifelong interest in
animal welfare Animal welfare is the quality of life and overall well-being of animals. Formal standards of animal welfare vary between contexts, but are debated mostly by animal welfare groups, legislators, and academics. Animal welfare science uses measures ...
. She began writing for the
Humane Society of the United States Humane World for Animals, formerly the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and Humane Society International (HSI), is a global nonprofit organization that focuses on animal welfare and opposes animal-related cruelties of national scop ...
and working for the Portland office of In Defense of Animals (IDA). In September 2010, she became the volunteer creative and communications director for The Animal Rescue Association of the Americas, the first professional association for animal rescue groups. she was in Ecuador pursuing local animal rescue efforts.


Personal life

Levine lives in Portland, Oregon. She was raised in
Conservative Judaism Conservative Judaism, also known as Masorti Judaism, is a Jewish religious movements, Jewish religious movement that regards the authority of Jewish law and tradition as emanating primarily from the assent of the people through the generations ...
, but in a 2008 article, stated she considered herself a non-observant Jew.


Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Levine, Ketzel American radio reporters and correspondents NPR personalities American broadcast news analysts Journalists from Oregon The Oregonian people American animal welfare workers George Washington University alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Jewish American journalists Jews from Oregon American women radio journalists