Join Michael Zeldin in his conversation with Steve Drummond as they discuss his new book, The Watchdog: How the Truman Committee Battled Corruption and Helped Win World War Two, which chronicles the work of Truman’s Senate Investigative Committee that battled fraud, waste, and abuse in the military-industrial complex during the war years.

About Our Guest

Steve Drummond is a senior editor and executive producer at NPR who has held a variety of roles in more than two decades at the network. Since its launch in 2014, he has headed the education reporting project, NPR Ed. The nine-member team provides deep, comprehensive coverage of learning and education and extends that reporting to audiences across many platforms. In 2018, the team launched the Student Podcast Challenge. Now in its fifth year, the national contest has received podcast entries from more than 50,000 students in grades 5-12, from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. In 2021 a college version was added that offers a $5,000 scholarship to the grand-prize winner.

From 2017 to 2022, Drummond was also the executive producer of Code Switch, NPR's award-winning podcast and reporting team on race and identity. During that period the national audience for Code Switch grew steadily, notably with the addition of a radio program that now airs on 197 stations. In 2020, Code Switch was named by Apple Podcasts as its first-ever Show of the Year. He remains an editor-at-large with the team.

From 2007 to 2013 he was NPR's Senior National Editor, overseeing domestic news coverage and a team of more than 60 reporters, producers, and editors in Washington, D.C., and 18 bureaus around the country. In 2012, he also served as acting Senior Editor for Investigations, managing a team of six reporters and producers on investigative projects.