MPR News announced Wednesday that politics correspondent Clay Masters will be the new host of its afternoon news program All Things Considered. His first day will be Sept. 29.
Masters will take over for Tom Crann, who departed the position this spring after more than 20 years to become a host at YourClassical MPR.
Masters has been covering state and national politics for MPR News since his arrival in January 2024. Before that, he worked for 12 years at Iowa Public Radio, 10 of them as host of Morning Edition.
The Nebraska native said he’s eager to bring his extensive experience in the studio and in the field to the show. All Things Considered was the first public radio show he regularly tuned into, Masters said.
He said the role of All Things Considered host is a crucial one for public radio stations.
“Especially at a time when public media is having a challenging moment with the elimination of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. So certainly, it's not lost on me how big of a role this is that I'm playing with Minnesota Public Radio, and I'm excited,” he said.
Stephanie Curtis, program director at MPR News, said the organization wanted a host who could sustain the trust of listeners.
“We wanted to have somebody who could embody that and build on that. Clay has decades of experience reporting on rural issues, city issues, reporting for National Public Radio about the presidential candidates, telling the stories of people from across the political spectrum,” Curtis said.
Masters’ extensive reporting background demonstrates his commitment, Curtis said, to fact-based journalism, his willingness to listen to all sides and be curious.
Since joining MPR News, Masters has covered two state legislative sessions, as well as national news events such as Gov. Tim Walz’s vice presidential nomination.
Covering the 2025 legislative session, Masters’ second one in Minnesota, left him awed by what he observed, he said.
“Just the connection that [Democratic House Leader] Melissa Hortman and [Republican Speaker of the House] Lisa Demuth had during this legislative session, where they were tied and they disagreed on so many things, but were still so civil together,” he said. “That was really interesting to cover and to see happen day to day.”
Masters was set to interview both legislators in June, the Monday after Hortman and her husband Mark were assassinated in their home.
He interviewed Demuth alone that day.
“That interview that I did with her, I was really proud of because I think that it showed a kindness and humility in politics and governing that feels so absent today in the partisan politics in America,” Masters said.
Curtis recalled Masters’ ease when reporting on breaking news.
“He was really comfortable talking about what we know and what we don’t know,” she said. “I was just really impressed by that because there’s so much planning that we do every day, but there’s also breaking news, and you’ve got to be ready to be light on your feet, and to be able to tell people what is happening right now. And then repeat it again 10 minutes later.”
Masters began at Iowa Public Radio in May 2012 working as a Statehouse correspondent and then as the lead politics reporter.
While at IPR, he also served as the NPR member station reporter on the ground for Iowa caucus coverage in 2016, 2020 and 2024. He worked in close collaboration with the NPR Politics Podcast and NPR’s Washington Desk.
He was also part of the first group of journalists to launch Harvest Public Media, a collaboration among member stations focused on agriculture reporting in the Midwest.
Masters is the recipient of numerous awards, including a regional Edward R. Murrow Award for the podcast “Caucus Land.” He recently joined the board of HostCon, a professional development organization for public media hosts and producers.
Masters has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He began his career in public broadcasting at Nebraska Public Media, where he held various roles: on-air radio host, agriculture and environmental reporter and documentary producer for television.
