Noah Adams, the longtime host of NPR's All Things Considered, died on Friday, 16 October, at his home in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He was 84. The news came from his wife, Neenah Ellis. NPR announced it on Sunday. The cause of death is not published. This is a radio man's death, not a verdict on the network.

He held the programme's microphone for 18 years, in two spells: 1982-1987, then 1989-2002, with Robert Siegel and Linda Wertheimer. Born in Ashland, Kentucky, he reached NPR in the mid-1970s, when the network was still finding itself. Scott Detrow, on NPR's site, describes him as a reporter with a notebook, not a Washington spokesman.

Melissa Block, who produced pieces with him and later hosted the same show, says he watched and wrote almost illegibly, then turned a place or a person into simple language. Ira Glass kept a 1987 tape of an eight-year-old whose parents had divorced: Adams started with dogs, to put her at ease, then asked. Glass later cited that style for This American Life.

Siegel called him a voice for rural America, away from I-95. He wrote five books, among them Piano Lessons, a year of piano at 51, Far Appalachia and The Flyers, about the Wright brothers. In 1981 he narrated Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown, an award-winning documentary. There he spoke as a composite survivor, not as a studio reporter. The choice was controversial then. It is not today's ethics ruling.

He left for a while to Minnesota after Garrison Keillor walked away from A Prairie Home Companion. The variety show did not hold. He came back. Georgia Public Broadcasting carried the same obituary. Radio News Now confirms the age, the place and that his wife spoke to NPR.

Adams wanted, Block says, voices outside the centres of power. That was the job. The death is confirmed by the family. The rest is colleagues remembering, not a file.

Image: Ted Eytan, NPR headquarters in Washington, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons; the network building, not the house in Yellow Springs.

Sources consulted: Noah Adams, longtime host of NPR All Things Considered, has died - NPR; Noah Adams, longtime host of NPR All Things Considered, has died - Georgia Public Broadcasting.