Lisa Simeone (born July 11, 1957) is an American freelance radio host and writer. She is best known for hosting

public radio Public broadcasting (or public service broadcasting) is radio, television, and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service with a commitment to avoiding political and commercial influence. Public broadcasters receive ...

shows such as ''World of Opera'' and the

Chicago Symphony Orchestra The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891, the ensemble has been based in the Symphony Center since 1904 and plays a summer season at the Ravinia F ...

weekly broadcast series.

Early life and education

Simeone was born and raised in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

, Pennsylvania. She attended St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, where she graduated in 1980 with a bachelor's degree in liberal arts. Later on, studying at the Writing Seminars at

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

, she received a master's degree in 1997.

Career

Simeone began her radio career as a classical music host at

WBJC WBJC (91.5 FM) is a non-commercial, public radio station licensed to Baltimore, Maryland. The station is owned by Baltimore City Community College and it airs a classical music radio format. WBJC holds periodic fundraisers on the air to pay ...

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

, moving on to WETA in Washington, D.C., and then to

WJHU WJHU is a radio station based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Johns Hopkins University owns the station, a community radio station with student volunteers, who are mainly on-air deejays and other program hosts. Programming blocks are divided into ...

in Baltimore. In 1996, after ten years at WJHU, where her programming included classical, folk, and jazz music, plus a wide variety of reports, interviews, and call-in programs on intriguing topics,Lisa Simeone
– Profile on ''World of Opera'' site. Retrieved September 29, 2017. she left to pursue a graduate degree in writing. From 1998 to 2000, she was a regular host of

NPR 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 ...

's ''

Performance Today ''Performance Today'' is a classical music radio program, first aired in 1987 and hosted since 2000 by Fred Child. It is the most listened-to daily classical music radio program in the United States, with 1.2 million listeners on 237 stations. ...

'' and ''

Weekend Edition Sunday ''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' ...

''. She became full-time host of

's '' Weekend All Things Considered'' in 2000. She left the show in March 2002 to return to freelancing, and shortly afterwards began hosting NPR's ''World of Opera''. She also returned to hosting and writing for the independent radio documentary series ''Soundprint'', which she had done before she was hired at ''Weekend All Things Considered''. In 2007, she also began hosting the weekly

broadcast series, produced and syndicated by the Chicago radio service

WFMT WFMT (98.7 MHz) is a commercial FM radio station in Chicago, Illinois, with a classical music radio format. It is part of Window to the World Communications, Inc, in the same company as Chicago's PBS member station WTTW. WFMT seeks donations ...

. In October 2011, Simeone became involved in the

Occupy movement The Occupy movement was an international populist Social movement, socio-political movement that expressed opposition to Social equality, social and economic inequality and to the perceived lack of real democracy around the world. It aimed primar ...

. Because of this activity, she was fired from ''Soundprint'' on October 19, 2011. The firing was for alleged NPR ethics code violations, which prohibit political activism by journalists, though she was not working for NPR at the time in any capacity nor receiving any salary or payment from the network, and ''Soundprint'' was not an NPR program. She was also not a news reporter. According to

The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers p ...

Simeone, who lives in Baltimore, said she has been serving with about 50 people on a steering committee for an occupation protest on
Pennsylvania Avenue Pennsylvania Avenue is a primarily diagonal street in Washington, D.C. that connects the United States Capitol with the White House and then crosses northwest Washington, D.C. to Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown. Traveling through So ...
n Washington, D.C.">Washington,_D.C..html" ;"title="n Washington, D.C.">n Washington, D.C.that's known as the October 2011 Movement. She said it is not connected to the Occupy Wall Street movement, but that they share similar philosophies.

Following Simeone's firing from ''Soundprint'', NPR also stopped distributing ''World of Opera''. WDAV, which produces the show, immediately began distributing the program itself. Simeone remained as host until the show ended in December 2016. Simeone has written for the ''

Baltimore City Paper ''Baltimore City Paper'' was a free alternative weekly newspaper published in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, founded in 1977 by Russ Smith and Alan Hirsch. The most recent owner was the Baltimore Sun Media Group, which purchased the pape ...

'', ''The Urbanite'', and ''

The Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local, regional, national, and international news. Founded in 1837, the newspaper was owned by Tribune Publi ...

'', and is the beauty editor and a columnist at ''Baltimore Style''. She has also done voice-overs, narrations, and hosting for the

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience. It init ...

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

, and other networks.

Personal life

Simeone lives in Baltimore, Maryland. She is a lifelong political activist. One of her volunteer activities is running the

civil liberties Civil liberties are guarantees and freedoms that governments commit not to abridge, either by constitution, legislation, or judicial interpretation, without due process. Though the scope of the term differs between countries, civil liberties of ...

watchdog site ''TSA News'', which tracks the abuses committed by the

Transportation Security Administration The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that has authority over the security of transportation systems within and connecting to the United States. It was created ...

References

External links

Lisa Simeone
– Profile on ''World of Opera'' site {{DEFAULTSORT:Simeone, Lisa 1957 births Living people American public radio personalities Classical music radio presenters American broadcasters NPR personalities American women radio journalists 20th-century American women journalists 20th-century American journalists 21st-century American women journalists 21st-century American journalists Radio personalities from Pittsburgh Journalists from Pennsylvania St. John's College (Annapolis/Santa Fe) alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni 20th-century American women