Joe Barr has been News Director for Capital Public Radio since 2004. During that time he’s overseen significant growth of CPR’s news operation and led it to numerous awards, including a national Edward R. Murrow Award for Investigative Reporting. Barr also developed CPR's statewide news service, California Capitol Network which reaches about two-million listeners a week on more than two-dozen public radio stations in California, Oregon and Nevada. National Public Radio President and CEO Vivian Schiller has called CPR News a “role model” for the rest of the public radio system.
Before joining Capital Public Radio Barr was a Senior Producer for the news division of the largest radio network in the U.S., Westwood One. Based in Phoenix, Arizona, Barr managed news coverage used by more than a thousand radio stations around the country as part of the Metro Source News service. He coordinated coverage from dozens of reporters and bureaus around the country. Barr also wrote stories on everything from the impeachment of President Clinton and the massacre at Colorado's Columbine High School to the tumultuous 2000 Presidential election.
Barr was an award winning reporter at NPR affiliate station KJZZ in Phoenix and he's also worked at commercial radio news stations in Western Pennsylvania. Barr's stories have aired on NPR, Marketplace, ABC Radio, Monitor Radio, Voice of America and others. Barr has had a long-time love of radio and got his start in college at Clarion University of Pennsylvania working at two campus radio stations and a commercial radio station simultaneously.
Barr lives in Sacramento with his wife, Nicole.