Michele Norris steps down from NPR’s ‘All Things Considered’ as husband joins Obama campaign

The Cutline

Michele Norris, the longtime host of NPR's "All Things Considered," is stepping down temporarily because her husband has accepted a job with the Obama campaign.

"Last week, I told news management that my husband, Broderick Johnson, has just accepted a senior adviser position with the Obama campaign," Norris, host of "All Things Considered" since 2002, wrote in an email to staff. "After careful consideration, we decided that Broderick's new role could make it difficult for me to continue hosting ATC. Given the nature of Broderick's position with the campaign and the impact that it will most certainly have on our family life, I will temporarily step away from my hosting duties until after the 2012 elections."

More from Norris' memo:

I will be leaving the host chair at the end of this week, but I'm not going far," Norris continued. "I will be wearing a different hat for a while, producing signature segments and features and working on new reporting projects. While I will of course recuse myself from all election coverage, there's still an awful lot of ground that I can till in this interim role.

This has all happened very quickly, but working closely with NPR management, we've been able to make a plan that serves the show, honors the integrity of our news organization and is best for me professionally and personally.

As NPR's David Folkenflik noted on Twitter, Norris did the same thing in 2004 when Johnson worked with John Kerry's campaign, but not in 2008 when he was an "unpaid adviser to Obama camp."

Norris' announcement comes less than a week after NPR decided to stop carrying a show, "World of Opera," because its host was revealed to be working with a Washington, D.C., faction of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

That host--Lisa Simeone, a freelancer working for WDAV, NPR's station in Davidson, N.C. --lost another radio hosting job because of the incident, but WDAV decided to keep her on, prompting NPR to halt distribution of the show.

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